The Steel Guitar Forum

Western Swing and jazz great Wyble with the legendary Bob Dunn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6O-5fvznVQ

Love it. Bob Dunn and his electric clarinet is one of my favorites.

This is great! Mr. Dunn’s playing has always reminded so much of Louis Armstrong…the Swing & Joy in every note!

So nice and swinging.

Yeah, the horn influence on Bob is unmistakable. Even though, if dim memory serves, he studied with a Hawaiian player, he has almost no audible Hawaiian influences in his playing. Here's another killer solo transcribed by Guy Cundell. Thanks, Guy! Dunn was fierce in the way he could dive in to a song, swinging hard from the get-go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3bESwYW9_8

Recorded in Dallas on October 9, 1941.

The other 5 titles recorded by the Mounce band that day were:

I'm Sorry That You've Gone
18 Months, Little Darlin'
What's Bob Done
I Thought About You
I've Been Drafted

All with Wyble and Dunn. Vocals by Sock Underwood.

There's another 6 Mounce titles from the previous April that have Dunn, but not Wyble.

All 12 worth getting.

They could all be on Youtube...I haven't checked. If not there, look at Archive.org.

Archive.org does have Dunn's stuff with The Sons Of Dixie.

I just ordered this, i have maybe six songs from him on a comp but i wanna cop some of his technique, I'm guessing he plays in A tuning, at least it feels right to me in that tuning.

The set just got here and its beautiful, a must have.

Bob Dunn was a monster player! I love his music but it can be hard to find. Thanks for posting this Andy.

I appreciate the introduction to great sounds of the past which are unfamiliar to me

PostPosted: 16 Jul 2021 7:05pm Post subject:
I just ordered this, i have maybe six songs from him on a comp but i wanna cop some of his technique, I'm guessing he plays in A tuning, at least it feels right to me in that tuning.

Just looked at this cd on the Origin Jazz Library website and one of the reviews summed up pretty much exactly the words running through my mind after hearing some of Bob Dunn's music:

“When Dunn solos, you don’t hear the sweet and dulcet tones of the familiar pedal steel (which had not yet been invented), You hear a lurching, perpetually off-balance-sounding cascade of bent broken tones, raw trombonelike swoops and smears, advanced harmonic substitutions that occasionally make Dunn sound like a proto-bebopper, abrupt squeals of feedback, bell-like harmonics, and above all, a sense of delighted discovery and bemusement, as if the unlikely sounds coming out of Dunn’s amp were startling him as much as his listeners.”
– Robert Palmer

Yeah, the horn influence on Bob is unmistakable. Even though, if dim memory serves, he studied with a Hawaiian player, he has almost no audible Hawaiian influences in his playing. Here's another killer solo transcribed by Guy Cundell. Thanks, Guy! Dunn was fierce in the way he could dive in to a song, swinging hard from the get-go.

Thanks Andy and Guy for the transcription—this one solo alone will provide me with months and years of masterclasses for outlining chords/melodies and harmonies and how to sound 'jazzy' in high bass A tuning!

Glad to intro you to Bob, Dan - he's unique in the steel guitar world. As for the transcription above .... measures 17 &18: the mind boggles!

Here's a list of 115 songs with Bob Dunn on steel, from the mid 1930s to about 1950. Only a very few after the early 40s.

The Milton Brown recordings are not included.

Other than the Brown stuff, this is probably 70 or 80 percent of his output.

I'd guess most are findable on the Internet. Go get 'em if interested.

Here are 7 songs that I posting on my channel last year.All from 1939.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC0cK1GLVYk

Here's a list of 115 songs with Bob Dunn on steel, from the mid 1930s to about 1950. Only a very few after the early 40s.

Here are 7 songs that I posting on my channel last year.All from 1939.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC0cK1GLVYk

Thanks, Mitch and Chris! The master song list is helpful to know who he played for, not under his own name. Funny that one of the first youtube vids I saw (and have put into my burgeoning 'Steel' list is this very video you linked to

I think that approach is the most used among many players, learning licks/phrases in order to improvise/ speak the musical language.

Interestingly, since Andy posted the transcription, I've been using individual measures as practice licks, ways of 'drawing out' arpeggio shapes of particular chords. And it's fun!

Even the 'mind-boggling' measures 17-18. It looks to me like 'sweep picking', the way it's written and the speed at which it's performed. So now I'm playing with that concept using the tip of the bar and either index finger to sweep from high to low, or thumb to sweep from low to high.

And it's a blast—even if it sounds a bit drunken because my barring isn't as precise as it needs to be