The Steel Guitar Forum

Over 41 years of watching and listening to everything Buddy,is it me or did he not use his B,C pedals to play a typical 5,4,1 phrase like 99.9 percent of us do?

Most every major hit he's played on seems to played using primarily A,B

You may now enlighten me.

Dick, you are already enlightened. If you study Buddy's playing in depth, as you, I and probably 3/4 of the people on this forum have, you will find he rarely uses his C pedal. All you need to do is check all his tab courses. Even if it's a lick coming from the pedal down one chord to a six minor he will jmuch more often just slide up on strings four & five with no pedals. Likewise going from no pedal position one cord to a two minor. That's not to say he never used it.
One of the few pronounced times I noticed him intentionally using it is onLinda Ronstadt's In My Reply. During his solo you can hear him strike a harmonic on the fourth string and pedal up and down. Sounds very different than his usual slide.
Often imitated, never duplicated!

The C pedal was originally a means of lowering the G# strings (by sliding back two frets).

Buddy was one the first (if not the first) to lower 6 on a lever. Could there be be a connection there?

There are a ton of recordings, new and old, of Buddy using the C pedal. I will agree that he uses it less than most major players.

Maybe question wasn't clear as it was worded. I'm asking about him using B&C together and not just the C by itself.

Dick Wood wrote: I'm asking about him using B&C together and not just the C by itself.

Here he is using A, B, and C together (right foot on the C pedal)

https://youtu.be/qnEMOQTh27s?t=127

You'll hear it on "Touch My Heart" in some of his fills, behind Ray Price.

Dick, I understand your question and I'm forced to conclude that he simply didn't care for it that much. Maybe he thought it was corny or something.

Ian, I think you may have hit the nail on the head. Buddy was able to play any lick he wanted but that wasn't one of them for whatever the actual reason was.

I just wanted to hear if any of you noticed it and what your thoughts might be.

Hi Dick,
Buddy mastered and used every pedal combination on his guitar...With a musician at this level anything deemed useless would have disappeared over time. The fact it remained says it all.

Hi Paul, Thanks soo much for your thoughts on this.He did not leave a pedal behind for sure...lol

BTW-A little bit of trivia. Back in 1980, I was just beginning to take steel lessons here in Fort Worth.My band was playing a club but we wanted to hear Mel Tillis at Will Rogers Auditorium before our gig started later. We walked in the back door and I heard you for the first time and was just floored by your ability. Later that evening Mel and the band came to the club we were playing and sat in for a set. We had no steel as I was still on bass but I'm not sure you came with them anyway.

Thanks for 40 years of keeping me busy trying to learn all your work over those years.

Here's a picture from that night November night 1980.

I wonder if he maybe shied away from it because of hysteresis. I tune my 4th string to where my lower comes back in tune. Any subsequent use of the third pedal raise renders that string slightly flat.

I think maybe my tuning procedure for the 4th string "backwards" from the way many do it (?). I find that by tuning that way, if hysteresis does creep in, it's an easy fix to nudge my lowering lever a bit to bring it back up to pitch.

Sorry if I transgressed here....

Hey Tommy, If I had a push pull, I'd probably get fired from all the bands...LOL

I hear Buddy using bc pedals all over a couple cuts on Rays Another Bridge to Burn album. The songs are: I Want to Hear it From You, and Id Fight the World. That’s how I play what I hear.

This George Strait cut uses the B/C pedals on the wonderful solo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-Lo33Ep99I
Regards,
Mike

Edited here - From the replies below it sounds like this is NOT how Buddy played it.
Mike

I don't recall there being any pedal 3 in Buddy's "I Cross My Heart" solo.

Right, Ernie, at least not in his tab.

B & C pedals after the first and third vocal lines in "Our Yesterdays" from the Swingin' By Request album with Ray Pennington (and again after his great solo--one of my favorites):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHW-GC7onXA

Brint, that song is one masterpiece. you can get totally lost in it BC pedals and all.

I play I cross my heart in a Strait tribute band and I never heard him use the BC pedals in that solo.

Hi Dick,
I think this is where I saw the B & C pedals being used on "I Cross My Heart". It sounded right to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsc_9AG_IHU/

Regards,
Mike

Listen to Buddy's B&C usage on his intro for Nancy Sinatra's "Its Such A Pretty World"
Someone just posted her CD with Buddy on "Steel On The Web."

A couple more intros/solos of Buddy's using the C pedal
Rainbows All Over Your Blues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuxaVfeqTWA
Each Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z25idl85H58

- John

Thank you John. I had not heard those tunes before.

Paul, looks like I have missed some great tunes over the years. Thank you!

Tommy Detamore wrote: I think maybe my tuning procedure for the 4th string "backwards" from the way many do it (?). I find that by tuning that way, if hysteresis does creep in, it's an easy fix to nudge my lowering lever a bit to bring it back up to pitch.

Jerry Fessenden told me to do that years ago. He said, "tune to the lower". Meaning lower the string, let it come back, then tune your open E. I think tuning problems can definitely occur by unknowingly tuning to the raise, then the lower after a few songs, or vise versa. I stopped lowering the 4th, but I tune the 8th string to the raise bc I probably use the F lever more.