The Steel Guitar Forum

Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone knows of anyone that plays steel and sings solo? Like a singer songwriter would with an acoustic guitar I guess?

Thanks

I've seen Rick Schmidt do it... and just knock it out of the park.
On both necks, even....

I have heard stories from several folks of Julian Tharpe burning it up while singing when he was playing in club bands in Panama City and Birmingham.

A guitar player, Sid Manley, who I worked with for years, played with Julian back in those days. He said Julian would be playing one tune and look at you and say “let do xxxxx next” as he proceeded to sing or hum the tune he wanted to do next and never miss a note!

I do it often with weissenborns and sometimes with a dobro, and have done so a time or two on pedal steel.

I also sing over half our band’s material...Ext E9 plays like a guitar..Chet pick or strum or think piano...Larry

Chuck Back is really good at it! Randal Palmore ain't bad! Larry Toliver too!

Done that out of necessity for many years using either neck. A must when you're the only vocalist in a small group. (Trios as an example)

I thought the original question was about solo situations. I’ve done lots of singing in a band context while playing pedal steel. Often out of necessity as Len said.

Did it for years with several good bands.. I was one of 3 or 4 singers and we always had intricate harmonies, and I sang 1/3 of the leads.. It became 2nd nature, and I never even thought much about it. However, over the years, as I played less and less pedal steel, and more lead guitar as the club scene here in the northeast "evolved" and country died, I found that it became a major effort, and I simply had a very hard time as I got older and played less and less pedal steel on stage...

I think that by now at 65 I simply could not sing and play steel at all.. A shame really, as it was p a major part of what I did on stage for many many years... bob

Thanks for the input all, I'll check out all of these on YouTube 😊 really looking for people that just sing and play the steel with no other instruments. I can't find anything like that, although I'm sure it must have been done countless times, especially gospel players?

I sing while handling pedal steel and Dobro parts.

It's a little hard on 10 string E9, but it can be done. I started doing it on C6 doing jazz songs, mostly because of the low range...but when I started playing Extended 12 string E9, it seemed to show the greater possibility of doing more straight ahead stuff. At the risk of coming off narcissistic, here's the only clip I have of me doing it at a steel show in AZ a few years ago. Basically only the "front porch" of the tune. Thanks for the props my brother Skip!

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

Great job Rick.

Forum member Dom Franco does solo gigs with non pedal and sings. He does use his own backing tracks and does a fine job.

The program called Chordpulse would be a VERY great help in doing this,,,easy and quick to put down a bass, drums, rhythm guitar for a basic backing band.

Richie Dell in Colorado back in the late 70s. I heard him several times playing his Mullins. He was cool guy and great player.

I found this version of goodnight Irene by Kelly Joe Phelps, I know this Is just slide acoustic guitar and vocal but this is the kind of thing I was looking for but just with a pedal steel instead. So no backing track or anything.

https://youtu.be/eGH3FpeV_xI

Maybe I'm searching for something that can't be done on a steel. The thing is hard enough to play as it is!

Great playing on that video Rick! Love it

Bill Cunningham wrote:I have heard stories from several folks of Julian Tharpe burning it up while singing when he was playing in club bands in Panama City and Birmingham.

A guitar player, Sid Manley, who I worked with for years, played with Julian back in those days. He said Julian would be playing one tune and look at you and say “let do xxxxx next” as he proceeded to sing or hum the tune he wanted to do next and never miss a note!

Oh yeah, Julian was absolutely amazing. I watched him many times.

I'm interested in hearing more about this. I'm putting together a solo instrumental set of steel guitar (with minimal backing tracks of percussion and tones to fill in the sound and help me stay in time/in tune). I don't plan on singing any lyrics (you will thank me later for that), but I do want to hum and do other vocalizations to accompany the steel guitar at select times.

Marc (Marco McClure) used to do that exceedingly well when he played Steel and Lead Guitar in Spanky & Our Gang. He amazed me at his Superb Musicality and Shear Talent. I was Blest to have seen them many, many times in the LA Area.

I do it all the time, Every Thursday morning I lead a Gospel sing along, and I just use my steel to accompany the singing. (Of course I have an EHX B9 and a rotary simulator to make it sound like an organ) and with my 13string A6 extended tuning I can get massive chords with low bass notes when needed. I also sing through a Boss Harmonizer so I can have 3 part vocals. It all makes for a very full sound from 1 person.

That's just solo steel and vocals... if you count playing to backing tracks, I perform solo about 6 times a week with me and my mp3s!

I was just this morning thinking about getting into singing while playing steel. I grew up singing & playing guitar & never gave it a thought. I know the mind is capable of multi-tasking so why not? Look at keyboard players singing/playing. Thats 3 to 5 things at once depending on what the feet are up to. I think I'd approach it like this: Choose just one tune and maybe set up a good backing track. Play the thing through about 10,000 times until I'm not thinking about it--just doing it. After you get one down things tend to go a lot quicker. And then you don't have the dang steel player stepping on your vocals!

Forum member Ron Pruter just blew me away when he posted this a couple of months ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71UZB3N-fZw