The Steel Guitar Forum

Firstly - I love the "Big E" recording. Stellar. But I am curious why there is no steel on Are You Sure? It is a good tune & willie sings her well.... but no steel?

Thanks!

Jim

Buddy first met Willie Nelson while on tour with Ernest Tubb in1959. Willie was playing guitar for an opening act. They became friends, and because Willie was driving his own car on the tour, he offered to let Buddy jump off the Tubb bus and ride with him to one of the next dates. Buddy didn't know he was a songwriter. By the time they got to the next show, Willie had sung about ten tunes he'd written, including Night Life and Darkness On The Face Of The Earth and Hello Walls. According to Buddy, each song Willie came up with was as good or better than the last, and Buddy wondered why he was just playing guitar for the opening act. Shortly afterwards, Willie moved to Nashville and went to work writing for Ray Price at Pamper Music.

When I talked to Willie about this in 2010, he remembered very well that ride to the next gig with Buddy in Texas in '59.
Willie said, "Buddy liked my songs, and he encouraged me to move to Nashville."

So I asked Buddy - who didn't participate in the making of this tribute album - if he liked the idea of Willie singing Are You Sure, which they'd written together, without pedal steel, and Buddy said "yes."

I was stunned that Willie agreed. He recorded Are You Sure as sparsely as possible, with only his guitar and Mickey Raphael's beautiful harmonica. Producer Buddy Cannon did a marvelous job capturing the moment, and it stands as a rare, unadorned solo piece by Willie Nelson - sung directly to Buddy just as he did in his car back in 1959.

I'm happy to say that Buddy attended Willie's session last January in Nashville, and afterwards the two had a lot of laughs telling war stories on the bus.

"war stories on the bus"
Jeez, Fish...too bad you didn't record that...
Or did you?

Thanks for the back story..... it makes me appreciate the song very much. And again, many thanks to everyone who helped make the disc. Buddy is an amazing guy and this is a fitting tribute to him.


Jim

Could be totally wrong...
but I remember reading somewhere that "Are You Sure" was written based on an incident that happened at Tootsie's with Buddy and Willie. What I remember reading is that Buddy and Willie were sitting at a booth when a guy (fan of Buddy) came up and asked if he could sit with them. So he took a seat next to Buddy. Real close. Buddy scootched. So the guy scootched towards Buddy. Then Buddy said "you good"? (or something to that effect). The guy said yes, then Buddy said "are you sure"? I guess Willie got such a kick out of Buddy's response that he wanted to write a song with that title and (again, could be wrong) insisted on giving Buddy co-writing credit for the tune.

Willie wrote "Night Life" ? well he claimed to have written it but a more accurate description as has been discussed previously, is that he rearranged and altered the Lyrics of Brownie McGhee's "Sporting Life Blues" The two are really similar, its almost impossible to believe that Willie didn't get it from Brownie. You can listen to many versions of it on you tube. Happy Traum says Brownie taught it to him.

Brett -

Buddy tells the story on page 5 of the link here.

Amazing how those guys can build a song from just a phrase.... I s'pose that's why they are the stars....
Jim

Thanks to all for filling in the blanks

Jim

The back story tells you everything you need to know about Willie Nelson and his sense of integrity.

After the song came out on Ray Price's Night Life album, Willie saw that Buddy hadn't been credited for writing half of the song. In Willie's mind, Buddy is the co-writer. Willie went to Pamper Publishing, to BMI and to Columbia Records and made sure that they made changes to the second pressing of the album so that Buddy's name was included as a co-writer.

Night Life eventually became a number one country album on the Billboard charts. And in 2003 "Are You Sure" was noticed on Willie's Crazy: The Demo Sessions album by the music supervisor for the TV series "Lost" and was used in the soundtrack of season one, episode four. Rent it at iTunes and you'll hear Willie's original demo of the song.

Buddy has been receiving mailbox money since 1963 because Willie Nelson did the right thing.

Firstly - I love the "Big E" recording. Stellar. But I am curious why there is no steel on Are You Sure? It is a good tune & willie sings her well.... but no steel?

In listening to the "Samples" presented on the Amazon page, I found 11 of the 16 examples contain very little or no steel at all. Odd, I thought, for a tribute to E...
Maybe there is more steel to be heard here, but you'd never know it from listening to the samples.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Big-Salute-Gu ... ig+E+album

Don't worry, Barry. There's plenty of steel on the CD!

Don't worry, Barry. There's plenty of steel on the CD!

I heard a story that Buddy asked a fellow at a bar one night "are you sure you're where you want to be?" after some difficulty in finding a spot at the bar. Willie heard this line and wrote the song as the story goes. I'd like to hear "the rest of the story"

I don't know what to say about the free samples at Amazon.
But I can tell you there's 57 minutes and 16 tracks of music on this CD, with a heckuva lotta pedal steel.

This new review from Goldmine Magazine came in today:
http://www.goldminemag.com/reviews/cd-p ... ball-piano

I think everyone played their hearts out on this album and I'm very proud of it.
As one review put it:

"As intentional as this celebration may be, it's the germination of Emmons inventions in each player's style that's the biggest tribute of all."

This new review from Goldmine Magazine came in today:
http://www.goldminemag.com/reviews/cd-p ... ball-piano

Again, like my Amazon experience, the review says little about E himself. More about the vocalists. This bothers me because I've been an avid Buddy Emmons fan ever since I began my steel playing career back in the late '50's. Sorry for raining on your parade, Steve - only my opinion(s) not anyone else's..

The opening cut of Jimmy Dickens' "Country Boy" featuring Vince Gill, Paul Franklin and Tommy White makes the disc worth buying.

The opening cut of Jimmy Dickens' "Country Boy" featuring Vince Gill, Paul Franklin and Tommy White makes the disc worth buying.

The opening cut of Jimmy Dickens' "Country Boy" featuring Vince Gill, Paul Franklin and Tommy White makes the disc worth buying.