The Steel Guitar Forum

Posted: **26 Oct 2018 2:56 am**

I have always heard that "Slowly" was the first record with pedal steel. I found out through Facebook it appears there was others before Bud Issacs. Just curious if anyone here has heard the same info.

Posted: **26 Oct 2018 4:44 am**

Paul...The first time I heard a pedal steel was Marvin Rainwater's "Gonna find me a Bluebird". I was hooked right then...Don't know if that's the first, but it sure got my attention all those years ago!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn_RrJf1ko8

Posted: **26 Oct 2018 5:46 am**

The Country Music Hall of Fame has a little listening booth playing Slowly, and crediting Bud as the first artist to use pedal changes as a playing technique. I don't know the date of the record, however.

Posted: **26 Oct 2018 6:01 am**

According to All Music Slowly was recorded in 1956 on an album called That Wondering Boy.

Posted: **26 Oct 2018 6:21 am**

The well known version was recorded in November of 1953, but Pierce had recorded the song at least twice a year or so earlier with I think Jimmy Day on steel---but those other versions were not released until 40 years later.

Most likely you could find the other versions on Youtube, but I haven't looked and can't recall what they sounded like.

Posted: **26 Oct 2018 7:31 am**

So you're suggesting Jimmy Day may be The Godfather of pedal steel?

Posted: **26 Oct 2018 8:53 am**

I thought Isaacs was the first that had a steel with pedals that would change the chord while playing, versus other steels that would change the tuning.

Posted: **26 Oct 2018 8:59 am**

iknow the person that has the guitar that bud isiacs recorded slowly on. i understand the guitar was the first played using a tuning with split pedals? i also think the person that owns it has paperwook that states the fact....thanks jack

Posted: **26 Oct 2018 9:26 am**

I had a gentleman overseas tell me pedals had been used before Bud Issacs played Slowly. I had never heard that before and was just curious if all of you had heard anything different. Thanks for the responses.

Posted: **26 Oct 2018 9:56 am**

Darrell Criswell wrote:I thought Isaacs was the first that had a steel with pedals that would change the chord while playing, versus other steels that would change the tuning.

Alvino Rey made records where you can hear the pedals "change the chord" long before then. I think it was during the war, maybe 10 years before Slowly, but I'm not sure of the dates.

Posted: **27 Oct 2018 3:24 pm**

If itâ€™s on Facebook it must be true.

Posted: **27 Oct 2018 4:15 pm**

We have people on the forum who have even written books about the history of pedal steel, but nobody seems to be able to give us a good answer. I have always read and been told the modern pedal steel began with Bud Isaacs, there were other people that used pedals but Bud was the guy that modified a steel to make it sound the way we think of pedal steel sounding today. Seems like I have heard stories it was done with coat hangers. Somebody must be able to come up with a good answer!

Posted: **27 Oct 2018 4:22 pm**

I decided to look for myself, this article says Bud Isaacs was the first to use a pedal to alter his tuning while sustaining a chord.

https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/ ... eel-guitar

Posted: **28 Oct 2018 12:05 am**

While steel guitars with pitch changing mechanisms have been around since the late thirties, my understanding is that Bud Isaacs triggered the modern pedal steel sound on Slowly because of two reasons: he developed a pedal that changed a major chord up a fourth (ie the I chord to the IV chord, or the V chord to the I chord, which Buddy Emmons and Jimmy Day later split across what we now call the A and B pedals. And secondly his use of bending a note against a sustained note. For example playing strings 4 and 5 and pressing the A pedal. I read somewhere that he was trying to emulate the sound of a fiddle droning an open note while bending another note. Some of the early country licks on pedal steel sound like they were lifted from common fiddle lines of the same era.

Posted: **28 Oct 2018 4:22 am**

Ben: Thanks, that is very interesting!

Posted: **28 Oct 2018 5:10 am**

Well, Premier Guitar (among other internet sources) is wrong, and Ben is correct. It was that unmistakable 1-4 and 5-1 change in "Slowly" that got everyone's attention! But that wasn't the first time a pedal steel moving harmony was heard...or recorded. Here's one from Alvino Rey, recorded in 1946 -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56rVAMJ ... -C_8iVDNyB

Sharp ears will easily pick up an always popular pedal move @ 0:28 - 0:29 in the recording. It's subtle, but it's there, nevertheless. And that sort of stuff is out there to be heard...if one just takes the time to search. Lots of people read something on the internet without checking the resources, and believe it...and repeat it. That's how errors are perpetuated.

Here's another Alvino cut from 1946 that has lots more moving harmony pedal moves -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yLfd73 ... -C_8iVDNyB

And since Ben mentioned it, I'll throw another tidbit of (verified) info out there: It's widely "misunderstood" that Jimmy Day and Buddy Emmons were the first two players to split the A&B pedals on the E9th tuning.

Uhh...no. Sorry, that's not the case.

Education is not the filling of a vessel, but the kindling of a flame!

Socrates

Posted: **28 Oct 2018 7:40 am**

Thanks Donnie. Check out the riff at 2:12 of the second clip you posted. Way cool!

Posted: **28 Oct 2018 9:16 am**

There is plenty of lore in this world.

I think the timing for Slowly was just right. It would have had a lot of exposure through the radio and juke boxes around the nation.

It was a real ear-opener for steel guitarists.

Posted: **28 Oct 2018 5:06 pm**

The source I have shows Jimmy Day was on the "Gonna Find me a Blue Bird " recording with Marvin Rainwater.
Slowly #1 was Jimmy Day on 4-21-52, and later #2. It said they were not " issued", I guess that means not released. Number 4 was Bud Isaacs and was released on record.
Don Euton

Posted: **28 Oct 2018 11:13 pm**

Donny Hinson wrote:Well, Premier Guitar (among other internet sources) is wrong, and Ben is correct. It was that unmistakable 1-4 and 5-1 change in "Slowly" that got everyone's attention! But that wasn't the first time a pedal steel moving harmony was heard...or recorded. Here's one from Alvino Rey, recorded in 1946 -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56rVAMJ ... -C_8iVDNyB

Sharp ears will easily pick up an always popular pedal move @ 0:28 - 0:29 in the recording. It's subtle, but it's there, nevertheless. And that sort of stuff is out there to be heard...if one just takes the time to search. Lots of people read something on the internet without checking the resources, and believe it...and repeat it. That's how errors are perpetuated.

Here's another Alvino cut from 1946 that has lots more moving harmony pedal moves -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yLfd73 ... -C_8iVDNyB

And since Ben mentioned it, I'll throw another tidbit of (verified) info out there: It's widely "misunderstood" that Jimmy Day and Buddy Emmons were the first two players to split the A&B pedals on the E9th tuning.

Uhh...no. Sorry, that's not the case.

Education is not the filling of a vessel, but the kindling of a flame!

So Tell us Donny , who split A and B ? I always thought it was Emmons or Day or both independent of each other . If it was someone else I would love to know

Posted: **29 Oct 2018 4:05 pm**

Here's the answer right from the "Big E" -

Bud (Isaacs) originally pulled the B and lower G# strings with one pedal. I split the B string pull away from the G# pulls, and placed them on separate pedals in 1956. Sonny Burnette had split pedals before I did, but I did not get the idea from him. I got it from Jimmy Day and Spider Rich playing harmony on a Dave Rich album. The only way I could get that sound was to split the function of the single pedal. I told Day what I'd done, but I didn't tell him which way I split them. So he had his split just the opposite.

That quote (from a Tom Bradshaw interview of Buddy for Guitar Player magazine in 1976) would indicate that Sonny Burnette had split pedals first, then Buddy, and then Jimmy. I'll take it as gospel until I hear or can find out otherwise.

Sonny Burnette doesn't get a lot of mention, but he was very popular, playing pedal steel on most of Webb Pierce's records. Bud Isaacs played on only five of Webb's records between 1953 and 1954. Sonny played on over fifty of them from 1954 to 1958, and was later heard on some Charlie Lovin and Red Sovine records. Also, he was a staff player on the 'Opry for a few years.

Posted: **29 Oct 2018 8:51 pm**

Thanks for that info Donny!

Posted: **30 Oct 2018 5:57 am**

Sonny Burnette was the first steel guitar player I remember hearing-my parents had that Webb Pierce album with the yellow cover...years later I became friends with Sonny at the Grand Ole Opry...he was a wonderful man who loved bass fishing and UT football...we went to the same barber(Rick Thomson,Paul Franklin's cousin)and Sonny would back in and rev his restored Chevy PU(glasspacks)and get out laughing his head off...there's a great pic of Sonny playing on the Opry with a little girl standing right in front of him...Sonny retired to Center Hill Lake and passed a few years ago...I was honored to know him.

SH

Posted: **30 Oct 2018 6:08 am**

This topic is very similar to the two-handed tapping technique in the Rock Guitar world. Eddie Van Halen is credited with 'inventing' it... which he actually did on his own with no outside influence. But, many people don't know that several players had made recordings using the technique prior to Eddie, including Billy Gibbons and Brian May.

Posted: **30 Oct 2018 6:20 am**

It is rare that one person just "invents" something, that is somewhat the myth of our culture, usually multiple people have been working on a new technology and one person is responsible for really bringing the invention to prominence. Isn't this the case of Bud Isaacs? Doesn't he really deserve credit, more than others, for popularizing the sound of the pedal steel guitar?

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Bud Issacs and Slowly

Bud Issacs and Slowly

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