The Steel Guitar Forum

Sweet Funky Steel is legendary. I'd never heard any of it before. Cool!

http://squeezemylemon.blogspot.com/2009 ... uitar.html

That's one of my favorite videos! Nobody plays like that. Seriously what are those "slants" he's getting?
Mr. Roulette has such a fantastically individual style, and isn't it great to hear Sleepwalk sound like a living and breathing standard rather than a played out nostalgia number?

Thanks for posting that, Andy.

ciao,
LP

Seriously -- what planet is he from? Freddy hears things the rest of us simply can't. My jaw remains dropped. Awesome.

Wow! that is simply amazing goose bumps material..
I love the funky steel number...

thanks very much for posting those videos


smitty

Pretty sweet. What brand/model of steel is that?

'Million Dollar Feeling' sounds great. Thanks for posting!
Guitar is likely to be a National - either a single 8 that resembles a Dynamic or a double 8 grand console. Info gleaned from OPs' book

Pep, Nationals and a special hi-tech, plastic-coated tone bar. He must have a special audio taper installed to get those amazing tone control effects. Who else sounds like Freddie? FR is beyond imitation.

I got a chance to sit next to Freddie at a workshop a few years ago, and it was nuts. I could get some of his sounds when I was sitting right next to him, watching his hands, but as soon as I left the room it mostly vanished from my memory. He uses a lot of forward slants, taking advantage of the 135135 part of his tuning, and the doubled strings at the bottom also help with the angle of some of his slants, as I recall...

I seem to remember a lot of moving back and forth between a major chord position and the slant dominant seventh/minor seventh position, three frets up, but somehow when he does it it doesn't sound trite.

And his way out there licks are just ridiculous. The technique where he combines the sound of his own voice with the sound of the steel to get a "female" voice is incredible.

Just amazing.

-Travis

Doubled strings? Doubled courses?

I like Million Dollar Feeling too

Travis Bernhardt wrote:He uses a lot of forward slants, taking advantage of the 135135 part of his tuning, and the doubled strings at the bottom also help with the angle of some of his slants, as I recall...

If I read you correctly, his tuning is a modification of dobro/open G? Does he double the "1" and the "5"?

Once I hooked Freddy up to a massive pedal board and went to town on his sound. Just nuts!! With him around you sho dont need drugs. He used to always smoke a pipe when he played and he'd bite down on it which seemed to squeeze even more out of his steel, if that's possible. Truly a singular character.

From Brad's Page of Steel:

G A A C# E A C# E

(string gauges .034, .052, .052, .038, .034, .020, .016, .012)

I had forgotten about the 8th string G. The part I said about him using the low doubled A for slants was incorrect; I now remember that the image I had of him using the 8th string for slants was the 8th string G. I seem to recall both forward and backward slants using the G.

It's actually kind of handy having that G down there out of the way, as it makes three string slants easier to play. If the G was in the "correct" position, to do switch from forward to reverse slants would require kicking the bar way over. Since the G is in the 8th string spot, the bar doesn't have to be moved much to get those slants. He definitely gets a lot of mileage out of it.

-Travis