The Steel Guitar Forum

Just came across this great song by Tommy X Hancock and wondered who is playing the cool steel guitar?

Hopefully Wally Moyers or Charlie McDonald has some insite.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4DnRu9FiPE

Super steel playing on that. Thanks, Craig.

That playing reminds me of Julian Tharpe!

Some Buddy Cage stylings as well, though probably not him.

Craig, Wally said he’d try to check it out, it might be his Dad. I just listened to a YouTube entitled Wally Moyers Sr Plays West Texas Steel. Believe me he was more than capable of doing that. Amazing touch, tone & skill. It’s like listening to several albums of excellent Steel guitar. Check it out when you have some time. No wonder Wally & Jeremy have the natural talent.

Years ago, I saw a gentleman playing with Tommy one night; he used a Stringmaster and was so wonderful. He had formerly been a power company worker up in the Lubbock area and Tommy brought him to Austin for the show. I wish I remembered his name, just a stunning player.

I was in Lubbock in the late 60’s but didn’t have the Steel bug yet & was trying to get thru Tech & was too poor to go clubbing. Just got to know Wally in the recent. He emailed Tommy’s son to see who played on the record. Wally said he played it lots of times with Tommy but not on the session.

Thanks Danny, hope Wally can solve the mystery, I do agree with Chris about Cage, but it is before his time and I think local to Lubbock.

I just got the video done 10 years or so ago about Lubbock music called 'Lubbock Lights, really good and Tommy is in a lot of it.

Being a fellow Techsan, I was wondering if you have a relative that went to Tech back in the early eighties, Ronald Craig Letz, one of my friends said he worked for Phillips Petrolium and was from around Abilene.

Not much stuff available for Hancock, I'll keep searching.

Yes Craig, a cousin. I think he spent time in the Navy maybe in submarines. Family reunion June 9, will see what I can find out. Enjoyed your playing on the pretty Zumsteel on the Cajun Classsic videos years ago.

Thanks for the update, The Cajun guy you are referring to isn't me, would be nice but not so. Hope you have fun at the reunion and say hello to Ronald, he probably will not remember me, but maybe so, it was a long time ago, but a really great time!!

I guess I wasn't clear on that. This was a steel show put on by Tim Cushenberry who made Cush Case guitar cases, pack seats, effects racks etc. I still have a seat and a rack. There were videos you could order. It did have Cajon players but also Herby Wallace, Ron Elliot, Pee Wee Whitewing and Bob White etc. It was called the Cajon Classic. The Craig Stock I'm talking about played a pretty woodgrain Zum and played some different stuff than your run of the mill steel show songs like the Theme song from the Tonight Show for example. Was that you or have I found a completely different Craig Stock?

Very strange, but yes a completely different person. I thought I was unique, very neat though, where was he from, I'm a New Jerseyan, but went to Texas Tech and now my daughter is a student there also, she just flew home for the summer this afternoon. I studied Horticulture and graduated in'83. The Ronald Craig Letz I knew was friends with my roommate, Jason Stone also from NJ, and he always joked that I was Craig Ronald and your cousin was Ronald Craig. Small world.

I'm not sure which came first, but that opening is the same as how Earl Scruggs kicks off FLINT HILL SPECIAL:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ5SzHd8-gY

Good observation Doug, I do hear it in the beginning.

Douglas Schuch wrote:I'm not sure which came first, but that opening is the same as how Earl Scruggs kicks off FLINT HILL SPECIAL:

That song by Earl goes back to the '50s, at least.

Did you ever get an answer as to who the steel picker was?...I just heard this single for the first time today and there's some mighty fine pickin'on that track!!

Still not sure Joe, the answer must still be out there in the West Texas plains to be discovered

Wally never got back to me on that, but his Dad Wally Sr. was fully capable of playing that. The Covid has stopped our steel jams but the next timeI see him or Jeremy I’ll try to think to ask again.

Great picking and clean blocking. Really tasty.

That is some slick playing, great stop-on-a-dime ending. It's curious that there is no rhythm guitar or piano, just bass, drums and steel.

Someone should ask Lloyd Maines if he knows who the masked steeler is on this record.

Follow-up: Lloyd Maines says the name of the player is Lynn Frazier:

He was only about 19 when he played that. He went on to play with Johnny Bush and also played on the sound track recordings to Roger Miller’s Broadway Play, called Big River. The last I heard anything about him he was living in or around Austin.


Mystery solved--thanks, Lloyd!

Thanks Mike for clearing that up, Lloyd would be the one to know!