The Steel Guitar Forum

I was in a Mexican cafe yesterday, here in San Diego buying one of my favorite burritos. They had the radio on and I heard modern pop music in Spanish. There was a pedal steel playing all through it. What fun. Made that burrito taste even better.

Is this a new trend?[/code]

Tom, a band that I sometimes play music with has told me they have learned a song by Emilio Navaira---"Even If I tried". He has steel guitar in this song, and it appears that his country english songs all use steel. Try youtube and just enter Emilio and look for more of his country, sounds pretty good. "Somebody'e Everything", and several others.

I've been listening to some older Ranchera music lately, and I can hear how steel could easily fill in for strings and other melodic parts. Just playing along to some YouTube videos.

I haven't been to see any recent Mexican bands, so don't know if the steel is being used there. But I think it could work really well.

Forum member Bob "Boo" Bernstein plays steel for Mexican superstar Joan Sebastian. He's also played for the late Jenni Rivera and Freddy Fender.

The stuff Bob played in Phoenix this year was great

Hey, Peter and Dave -- Thank you so much for the kind words.

I have been very lucky to have been so involved in the Latin music world with pedal steel and have the opportunity to record with such artists as Joan Sebastian, Jenni Rivera, Vicente Fernandez, and Juanes. The cool thing is that when people are introduced to pedal steel who have never heard of the instrument, they love it; complete fascination. There's a big world out there dying to hear more steel!

This is fantastic news. Any chance we might hear some more of this at the Phoenix show? The world of Latin music is big.

Boo's a killer player on both E9 and C6...and not just Latin music... he plays it all with the best of 'em.
He hauls a steel down to Mexico and Central America on a regular basis...definitely a braver man than me.
And yeah, he really tore it up at the Phoenix show.

btw...he's also the guy who introduced Dwight Yoakam to Pete Anderson...in case you were wondering who to blame...

Many, many years ago, I played in a four piece band, doubling on pedal steel guitar and guitar. Tony, our lead singer, doubled on lead guitar and button accordion. About half the songs we played were in Spanish. When Tony played guitar, I played steel. When he played accordion, I played guitar. We did lots of Mexican polkas, waltzes, huapangos, etc.

More often than not, I was the only Anglo-American in the building. We had lots of fun.

I bought a cd recently by Little Joe and several of his tracks have steel on them. It seems to be a compilation from past releases. The album is Lo Mas Grande De. My Spanish is surely limited, but the beat is totally fabulous!

Enough can not be said about Boo's Feenix show. He played a truly great selection of material and did it right. Looking forward to his next performance., that I can attend.

Wake up guys, just come to Miami where it's mostly Latin and tune to any Latin Radio Station and you'll catch a song once in awhile with a pedal steel playing in the background.

My wife is from Quito, Ecuador and every time she takes a trip there she tells me she heard a few songs in Spanish playing on the radio with pedal steel added in.

Hispanic Gospel is also using the pedal steel in a few of their Christian church songs.

The pedal steel is no longer a Yankee instrument, it's gone international, except for the Artic Circle.