The Steel Guitar Forum

When is the last time you looked at this video? Mark O'Conner, Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush and Buddy Emmons. There are one or two on that video I don't think belong there but that's just my ear. Buddy definitely is the 'star' of that video. Sam Busch is a great mandolin player but I thinks that he belongs in bluegrass, not in a jazz setting. Watch it and watch the expressions on some of the players faces when Buddy plays. Of course, I might be just a bit prejudice.
Buddy Emmons And Friends Improvising ..... On YouTube.
Dave A. Burley

Also...While they last all four of our recordings from the seventies can be bought for $50.00 which includes shipping.

Dave - forget something? Here's the link ….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhLqe2xbqS8

Thanks Barry. I am computer dumb. I didn't forget I just didn't know how to do what you just did. Thanks again,
Dave A. Burley

Buddy is great of course but Mark O'Connor is no slouch either.

Forgive me for throwing a monkey wrench into the machine but, I just can't see what is so great about this. Quite frankly, it sounds awful. I have listened to jazz, although it's not my favorite style of music, but this just doesn't cut it.It sounds like Woody Woodpecker and Porky Pig having a quarell.
Sorry guys, not trying to be a jerk. I just fell like the little boy that was the only one that would say "But the king isn't wearing any clothes."

Forgive me for throwing a monkey wrench into the machine but, I just can't see what is so great about this. Quite frankly, it sounds awful. I have listened to jazz, although it's not my favorite style of music, but this just doesn't cut it.It sounds like Woody Woodpecker and Porky Pig having a quarell.
Sorry guys, not trying to be a jerk. I just feel like the little boy that was the only one that would say "But the king isn't wearing any clothes."

Morgan - I'm with you! It's so clearly a fake session set up for the benefit of the TV people (BBC, perhaps?) and the end result has no apparent commercial value. I think that all the guys - as special as we know they all can be when at their best - sound like they're 'phoning it in'!

Well done for saying what I'd so often thought but didn't dare say!

'Look at the King!!!' - a nice analogy...

"Awful." Really? Myself, I don't think I would go as far as saying it sounds "awful." Maybe you guys can explain it to me. Personally, I don't think I have the kind of musical credentials it takes to critique musicians of this caliber….

Roger--Is that (your avatar) your reaction to the video, or are you taking being self-effacing to extremes?!

I agree, five excellent musicians going through the motions with no spark of enthusiasm. I wouldn't go so far as to say it "sounds awful," just thoroughly mediocre. I'm certain any of them would agree.

Barry:

I don't feel it's incumbent upon me to explain 'awful' - I didn't say it! Indifferent and/or mediocre by their usually high standards? Certainly. (I agree with Morgan's post in principal but I feel sure that he would withdraw the offending adjective!)

These chaps are certainly the cream-of-the-crop but I hope that doesn't place them above criticism!

Brint:

That avatar picture was from a recent concert. I've forgotten the specifics that invoked my body-language but I like to think that it was caused by my mediocrity in the preceding few measures.....

Hey Guys, Thanks for your comments. I agree that I laid it on a little thick. All of these guys are fantistic musicians. It's just that the sum of the parts is less than the whole, in this case.
Listening to jazz is kind of like an experience I had in a gourmet resturant in Chicago back in 1991. I had to take several customers to a fancy resturant that the company had made reservations for us.
I sat there and had six or seven courses of the worst food I had ever ate in my life. A big plate with a tiny bit of food followed by more of the same.I paid the $800 tab for six people. I went back to the Palmer House Hotel and went to the steak house and ate a rib eye so I would feel like I had some food in me.

I don't feel it's incumbent upon me to explain 'awful' - I didn't say it!

That's true, Roger, but you agreed with it.

Morgan - I'm with you!

That being said, it's an uninspired performance, no doubt, but awful it ain't, IMO. They, like anyone else, are not above criticism (by their peers, of which I am not one.)

Ah - now I think you've tripped yourself up!

They - like any other artists that ply their work and abilities for hire - certainly are NOT above criticism from anyone. Me included. If (a big 'if' in this case) this was a track from a proposed album by these 'masters' and a fair sample of what was on offer, I'd cast my vote by keeping my wallet closed - Buddy Emmons or no Buddy Emmons!

Are you saying I'm not qualified to express an opinion? When all of us here are agreed that it's far from their best work???

You're smarter than that, Barry, surely?

And I'd add that I'd be entitled to express an opinion even if I didn't own a steel guitar.

OK, of course we are all entitled to express our opinions here or anywhere else. Roger, did I say somewhere they were above criticism?

They, like anyone else, are not above criticism

Lackluster performance aside, I just feel awkward criticizing people who play so much better than most, me included.

With all the grace and dignity that has long been a hallmark of the Rettig clan, yours can be the last word...

"Lackluster performance aside, I just feel awkward criticizing people who play so much better than most, me included."

I love all these guys and have followed their
careers or recorded careers for ever or so it seems. Jazz or not, mediocre or not, I love these musicians and if they were putting on a show tommorrow doing this same mediocre material. I would have a front row seat. Because even at their most mediocre its high bar stuff for the rest of us. Just my two cents.

Well put, Tom.

The deadness comes from the lack of an audience I believe. At the steel guitar convention imagine a four or five player jam without any audience. It would sound like a practice session which the Buddy Emmons video seems to sound like. Listen to what Buddy is playing and ask yourself if you can play that. Listen to any of the others and you would probably come to the same conclusion. The video to me just looks and sounds like a practice before they bring the audience in to record. I've been to many jams, some of them that I promoted, and the difference is unbelievable when you have no live audience to play off of.
Dave A. Burley

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Dave A. Burley

I like that video quite a bit, but I understand how it might be an aquired taste. IMHO Edgar Meyer stole this one, though.

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We Listen With Our Ears Not Our Eyes.

Wow....what year was this????...80s?

I also enjoyed it. I've heard everyone of the guys play less reserved. But I figured they were going for a more commercial sound than a no holes barred jam session. I think of it as a reserved Jam set up public consumption. Thought Buddy's playing had a real nice swing to it.

Just my take on it. Micky I'm thinking early 90's because Buddy started with Sierra in 1990 if I remember correctly.
bb

Let me be the young guy piping up here, but Jerry Douglas is a monster. I don't have enough years to do anything but gawk at the talent in that video. Watched it twice.

Aaron

I have seen the video several times. No dobut that Emmons, Mark O'Connor and Jerry Douglas are top players on their instruments. I did not recognize the mandolin or bass player. However, I did get a kick out of watching the bass player. It is just something you do not see on bass. My main point is, I just watched it mainly to see Buddy Emmons, regardless of who was playing.