The Steel Guitar Forum

Does anyone know what amp Sonny Burnette used with his Bigsby steel guitar? I'd like to get a tone like that somehow....anyone know how?

Bob Jennings

On the old Al Gannaway produced Opry TV shows from the mid 50s, Sonny and guitarists Jimmy Lee Fautheree appear to be plugged into a shared narrow panel 4x10” Fender Bassman.

The narrow panel Fender amps debuted in ‘55, I would assume More And More was recorded through a Fender Pro with a 15” as that was the go/to amp for professional Nashville country guitar and steel players of that era.

I would think any 20-40 watt Fender tweed style circuit, combined with a Bigsby pickup (of which Todd Clinesmith makes amazing and accurate repros) will get you there.

Also, using the Bud Isaacs copedent without “split” pedals or a fixed root string in the center of the tuning helps push you more into that style:

……..1……2
E
B……C#
G#….A
F#
D…………E
B…………C#
G#……….A
E

Interesting side note, Sonny’s Bigsby was actually owned by Webb while he used it. It was originally owned by Carl Smith’s steel player Johnny Sibert and you can see in the bottom right corner where his name is covered over with some wood veneer.

Johnny had pedals installed after “Slowly” came out, but Carl didn’t want that sound in his band so Sibert sold it to Webb, as Webb desperately needed a pedal steel for his band. Remember, in 1954 pedal steels were hard to come by, and nobody played the E9 style other than Bud Isaacs! Bigsby had put pedals on this guitar with SPLIT pedals, two years before Jimmy and Buddy did the exact same thing (Day style, with the B pedal to the left of the A). Sonny didn’t like it though (because of the D string that raised to E, it added a third pedal so you couldn’t mash both with one foot and get the A6 tuning), so he had Shot Jackson modify it back to the Isaacs style pedals.

In the early 60s, the guitar was traded in to Sho~Bud where it was eventually sold to Lloyd Green with all modified Sho~Bud parts, and was the guitar he used on many of his early hit steel parts like “The Bridge Washed Out.”

Chris has spoken! Great info my friend!

Thank you Chris Scruggs for the valuable info. I have sent an Email to Todd Clinesmith for info on the Bigsby Pick ups.

Bob Jennings