The Steel Guitar Forum

Did curly chalker have a C6 instructional course

Not that I have ever seen.

I'll second what Richard said (about no courses). Curly used a very unique tuning and pedal setup, a setup that (to my best knowledge) no one else used. Therefore, no player using an ordinary-setup C6th guitar could replicate what he did, anyway.

He had a very unique style and sound. He was a genius, a one-of-a-kind, a truly unique player who was vastly under-appreciated, IMHO.

Curly was a one of a kind. I do know that Johnny Cox was very close to Curly and could probably give some insight into his tunings.

Curley’s album called “Nashville Sundown” of Gordon Lightfoot songs is pleasure to listen to. Although not C6 it’s a great album. I wish this was available on CD as well as “More Ways to Play” that is great C6 playing.

This seems to be an appropriate place to mention that I still have over 100 copies if the DVD I made of him in concert, sitting in boxed in my garage.

Please let my know if you want one.

Mike, I would love to buy one of those DVD’s 👍

Perhaps a bit off topic; however, it does fit within the greater topic of Curly Chalker. If you don't have the DVD from Mike do yourself a great favor and purchase it. It contains footage from a couple of shows and is Curly being completely amazing. His prowess is evident in every song. In addition, Mike is a super guy with whom to do business. I have had various interactions with Mike over the years and all were very pleasant. While you are ordering the Curly DVD you might want to get a copy of Mike's "Firebird Suite" as well. Not country, not jazz, just superb music.

Thanks for the kind words.

The DVD was a labor of love. I felt of that this incredible footage of Chalker in concert had to be preserved.

Jack Lox, who produced the Concert that comprised California portion if the DVD, also produced concerts by Buddy Emmons, Jimmy Day and Doug Jernigan. All those concerts were videotaped, and all those tapes were lost when he died. This one survived because Jack allowed me to make a copy for myself.

Now I wish I had copied them all.

I bought Curly's DVD's from Mike Perlowin a few months ago and they are fantastic,Some amazing playing!

Another two thumbs up for Mike Perlowin. Always a great guy. Y’all might like this story

https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewto ... e+perlowin

Guys, enough about me, This thread is about Chalker.

The DVD was authored by our fellow forumite Mike Brebes. Mike is a computer wizard who is an expert in both audio and visual production. He's also a killer guitarist, and a hell of a nice guy to boot. I can't say enough good things about him.

It is 2 hours long. The footage was shot in December of 1986, when Curly first gave a concert here in California and then performed again at Scotty's Christmas party 2 weeks later. The St. Louis performance opens the DVD.

The St. Louis performance was videotaped by Johnny Cox. I inadvertently left his name off the cover. Johnny, if you're reading this, I apologize again for the oversight. The other musicians are Bobby Caldwell on guitar, Russ Wever on bass, and drummer Jimmy Queen.

The California concert features guitarist Johnny Davis and bassist Jim Bob Sedgewick, both of whom are excellent steel players, and drummer John Mauceri.

This was one of the steel guitar concerts produced by Jack Lox. Jack's idea was that instead of having several different players doing 1/2 hour sets, he'd have 1 player play the for whole afternoon, and give him a chance to really cut loose.

And that's what Curly and the band did. They kicked butt for whole time they played. I've been to a lot of steel guitar shows. This was far and away the best one I ever attended.

I think of this DVD as a treasure that could have easily been lost. Fortunately, Jack was kind enough to allow me to make a copy of his recording of the concert. I had to preserve this priceless footage. All of Jack's other videotapes of his concerts were lost. I couldn't let that happen to this footage. It needed to be saved and made available to our community.

If I remember correctly, Curly's setup was published in Winnie Winston's book, although Curly had a couple of vertical levers on his C6 neck that he preferred not to disclose what their function was.

I asked my friend Maurice Anderson when he was staying with me one time just what those levers did (after Curly had passed). He did tell me but said that I must not disclose it, and I never have. I will say that I didn't find the information overly exciting. To this day I think that Mr Chalker is in the top 3 players of all time IMHO. He was exceptional on both necks.