The Steel Guitar Forum

This was a pro group my Dad played in, in 1951, he’s playing lead guitar. There were I believe 15 of these half hour shows recorded in one week in 1951, were played on the air for 3 months in 1953 in Chicago, New York, etc. WARNING, these are very old, and much of the clips pretty hokey to today’s standards. A lot of stars from that era were on this series in its short lifetime. The Saddle Pals were the house band.
Bob Shaffer is the rhythm guitar player and vocalist, his brother Howard (Slim) Shaffer on bass, and Ron Carnicom (Spelling?) on steel guitar. They got some of the names wrong on these old clips, made finding them harder.

My family, and for that matter, the other members families, have never seen any of this in all these years. I’ve always known he did this show, but never could find it available anywhere, recently out of the blue, some clips of it showed up on YouTube and I found them this week. I was able to find 5 full shows to download and burn to DVD. The other 10 apparently aren’t available, at least not yet. The network that aired them went out of business, so it only remained on the air for 3 months.

Being that I’m 57, it’s so cool seeing my Dad at age 27 playing like that. These would have aired about the time I was born in 1953, or just before. All of the members are gone now, so it means a lot to our families to have these.

The group was called Bob Shaffer and the Saddle Pals. There are quite a few clips on YouTube, but these are my favorites.

Stomp (It’s Bob Shaffer, not Paul Shaefer)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBdB84k_lhI

I hurt inside (fast forward to the 3 minute mark)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHXznRY7 ... re=related

My sister was born one week before these were recorded. I told her - See that little twinkle in his eye toward the end when he looked at the camera - That was me.

Anyone know what kind of steel Ron is playing?

That was a double neck National which was pretty popular in that day.

Jerry

Looks like Wade Ray playing the fiddle on the square dance number, 9:02 in the second clip.

Hi, Tom, good to see the vid. Uncle Howard was pastor of Hillman Methodist in northern Mi.
his congregation bought him a guitar with no case so I ordered a case for him. he lived next door top my bro. in Rust(pop. 200). he told of his days with the saddle pals. I believe Bob was pastor on the west side of Mi. or ran a church camp. thought you'd like to hear from someone in that era. thanks for the vid. must show my bro. in Hillman. Jack

WOW! That is fantastic! Those cats were really rockin!