The Steel Guitar Forum

Our club, the Southeast Texas Steel Guitar Club, has suffered dwindling attendance for spectators and I'm wondering if anyone has success in meeting in a dance hall setting where fans/spectators could be drawn from the hall's fan base? We have a fairly regular group of players show up, but not fans.

Probably only if you allow them to dance.

RC

We have the opposite. We have a decreased number of Steel pickers. Mostly due to our "Florida Retiree" age bracket and those that have passed on.

We've seen a big downturn in Austin too... Sunday afternoons just have more going on, especially during football/hunting season... San Antonio bunch has shut down until next year for that reason.

Probably the secret is to get a good arrangement with a bar... and do it in the evening. This means that it should be more structured, and won't be welcoming to beginners... there's a big trade-off there. Let me know if you find the secret!

I'm a new student of the pedal steel and checking to see if there are any groups that meet near Fort Worth.
Thank you
Tom Harmon

The attendance at meetings isn't the only dwindling audience. The members fail to attend. Even the bars and clubs have weak attendance. Music as a whole is not drawing in crowds, unless of course you are a Taylor Swift at concerts. Everyone is looking for a solution. Take away media, internet and digital processing along with technology and you might have a shot at getting the attention of people.

Seems like since covid shut a lot of shows down people got out of the habit of going to shows and they don't seem to have gotten back in the mood to attend. With all the YouTube and other online sources of music, people seem to be satisfied staying home and listening.

Different strokes for different folks. I like smaller get-togethers, with no more than 5 or 6 players. I’ve seen and been to shows with 15-20 players taking turns playing the same song. It gets a little monotonous by the second time around.

Tom Harmon wrote:I'm a new student of the pedal steel and checking to see if there are any groups that meet near Fort Worth.

Tom, the Texas Steel Guitar Association meets the second Sunday of every month (except May and usually April) at the Hilton DoubleTree north of DFW airport. The next meeting is this Sunday, July 9. See here for more details.

This is a "featured performer" deal, not a jam. I don't know of any regular steel guitar jams/round robins in DFW, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Larry Dering wrote:Even the bars and clubs have weak attendance. Music as a whole is not drawing in crowds, unless of course you are a Taylor Swift at concerts.

I'm finding myself less inclined to go out in general these days, music or no music. If I'm tipping even somewhat generously, it is so easy to drop $50 on drinks in a night without even blinking. Hard to stomach doing that on a regular basis.

Matthew, so true. I was very active in the 70s both playing and bar hopping. Music was everywhere with lots of country bands. Then the disco era hit and clubs went to DJs and mirror balls with the unusual dancers. But nothing has killed our music more than covid and social media. Branson was a mecca of country music in my home state until the Vegas investors moved in. We struggle to get good attendance at the steel shows that do exist. I was in Oklahoma last month for their yearly show and as spectacular as it is, attendance is sparse. The Steel players don't seem to support themselves. I had a great time and like Donny said, it's sweet for me.

Not a lot of steel playing going on around me, but in the part of North Carolina where I live (the "High Country" near the Tennessee and Virginia borders), live music is everywhere and the demand for live music is high. I think Covid might have even increased the demand now that things are back to at least kinda normal.

This part of the state has always been home to lots of great pickers. We have the Lulu Belle and Scotty highway, the Doc and Merle Watson Highway, the Del McCoury Highway etc etc. There is a strong draw for local music, and the many places that sponsor local music have big crowds. Especially during tourist season.

Again--there are few steelers in the mix, but a lot of musical styles and the listeners seem to like them all.

Dave

David Ball wrote:Not a lot of steel playing going on around me, but in the part of North Carolina where I live (the "High Country" near the Tennessee and Virginia borders), live music is everywhere and the demand for live music is high. I think Covid might have even increased the demand now that things are back to at least kinda normal.

This part of the state has always been home to lots of great pickers. We have the Lulu Belle and Scotty highway, the Doc and Merle Watson Highway, the Del McCoury Highway etc etc. There is a strong draw for local music, and the many places that sponsor local music have big crowds. Especially during tourist season.

Again--there are few steelers in the mix, but a lot of musical styles and the listeners seem to like them all.

Dave

I agree. I do quite a bit of bluegrass shows in that area. I have one tomorrow night in Black Mountain. I was there for the Del McCoury highway dedication. I was his fiddle player for two years 1986 and 87. Unfortunately, as you mentioned, I don't see a lot of steel players floating around. I wish there was more, but country music with steel and fiddles doesn't seem to be that popular in our area. I get some calls for steel and fiddle, but the bands are more into new country and 50's rock. I'm not very good at playing that, and it doesn't really interest me either. I guess my age is showing .

RC

Stephen Cowell wrote:We've seen a big downturn in Austin too... Sunday afternoons just have more going on, especially during football/hunting season... San Antonio bunch has shut down until next year for that reason.

Probably the secret is to get a good arrangement with a bar... and do it in the evening. This means that it should be more structured, and won't be welcoming to beginners... there's a big trade-off there. Let me know if you find the secret!

The Austin Steel Guitar Co-op started off as the brainchild of Ken Metcalf, and initially was a gathering of steel players on the beginner to intermediate level who traded choruses on standard 3-chord country tunes. It was thought that if more advanced players would attend and join the jams, the less experienced players would watch, listen join in, and learn.

IMHO, what happened unfortunately was that the less skilled pickers possibly felt alienated and/or intimidated or just not into the material that the more advanced players wanted to jam on. For whatever reasons, we had a pretty good attendance of some better semi-pro and pro players join in some good round-robins for awhile . We'd also have a 1 hr solo set by someone up to it, interspersed between 2 one hour jam sessions.

For whatever reasons, attendance dropped semi-precipitously to our regular crowd: Rose Sinclair, Steve Cowell, and yours truly. So the plug got pulled.

I'd like to hear my colleague Steve's version of the demise of the ASGC.

Herb Steiner wrote:

Stephen Cowell wrote:We've seen a big downturn in Austin too... Sunday afternoons just have more going on, especially during football/hunting season... San Antonio bunch has shut down until next year for that reason.

Probably the secret is to get a good arrangement with a bar... and do it in the evening. This means that it should be more structured, and won't be welcoming to beginners... there's a big trade-off there. Let me know if you find the secret!

The Austin Steel Guitar Co-op started off as the brainchild of Ken Metcalf, and initially was a gathering of steel players on the beginner to intermediate level who traded choruses on standard 3-chord country tunes. It was thought that if more advanced players would attend and join the jams, the less experienced players would watch, listen join in, and learn.

IMHO, what happened unfortunately was that the less skilled pickers possibly felt alienated and/or intimidated or just not into the material that the more advanced players wanted to jam on. For whatever reasons, we had a pretty good attendance of some better semi-pro and pro players join in some good round-robins for awhile . We'd also have a 1 hr solo set by someone up to it, interspersed between 2 one hour jam sessions.

For whatever reasons, attendance dropped semi-precipitously to our regular crowd: Rose Sinclair, Steve Cowell, and yours truly. So the plug got pulled.

I'd like to hear my colleague Steve's version of the demise of the ASGC.

There are a ton of newer players in Austin (myself included) who I think would absolutely love something like this. If there’s anything I could do to help get it going again please let me know.

Herb Steiner wrote:
The Austin Steel Guitar Co-op started off as the brainchild of Ken Metcalf, and initially was a gathering of steel players on the beginner to intermediate level who traded choruses on standard 3-chord country tunes. It was thought that if more advanced players would attend and join the jams, the less experienced players would watch, listen join in, and learn.

IMHO, what happened unfortunately was that the less skilled pickers possibly felt alienated and/or intimidated or just not into the material that the more advanced players wanted to jam on.

Less-skilled player here. I can vouch for the intimidation factor. I used to attend the San Antonio jam. But then I saw myself one of their videos. I was following guys like Roger Edgington, Bill McCumber, and Randy Boyd. I was absolutely mortified at how horrible I was, compared to them. It was one of those, "Why didn't somebody tell me how awful I am?" moments. I made the decision to stop "volunteering for a butt-kicking", and bail out.

We had a very successful jam by having a house band and letting the steel players pick their songs.
We also furnished a competent singer if needed.
This way the crowd wasn’t bored by 12 pickers playing the same song and pickers weren’t intimidated by difficult songs to play.
Your time was yours to do whatever with..
This was the Manasota steel guitar in Bradenton Florida.

P.s. I always enjoyed having a vocalist as the steel guitar is a great instrument to enhance the song.