The Steel Guitar Forum

Some inquiries from Lloyd Green:

“Do any of you Forum members, or other readers who are old enough to remember 1965, have any recollections of seeing or hearing anyone mention seeing the 12 episodes of the Flatt & Scruggs Martha White syndicated TV shows on which I played steel behind a different Grand Old Opry singer each week in that era? I was the token steel guitar musician hired by my friend the late Joe Taylor, Martha White liaison and prominent Nashville promoter to give the Country singers authenticity. The backing band was the Flatt & Scruggs band, including the great Josh Graves who would just play a rhythmic strum on his Dobro , I being the sole fill and solo electric instrument with the guest singer. The Country singer would do 2 songs on the 30 minute TV show. To be clear, I played ONLY with the Country singer, not Flatt & Scruggs!!
After 3 months the decision was made to not use a steel anymore on their Bluegrass show, so I was un-hired ( nicer than fired) and no Country singers appeared again either. I remember playing on the show with Roy Drusky, Margie Bowes, Ray Pillow and Warner Mack. The other Opry singers I don’t recall.
The tapes have never surfaced despite efforts by Marty Stuart and later the Country Music Hall of Fame to find them after I told them about the shows. They were unaware a steel was ever on that show. In all likelihood the video tapes were destroyed…unless hopefully… some steel player or fan asked the TV station which was playing it in their area to save the tape for them afterwards.
A batch of the shows, not the ones I played on, did surface a few years ago in somebody’s basement and were presented to the Hall of Fame where they were preserved and restored, before being transferred to a different format for the future. Those are the ones the Hall shows now I believe. Chris Scruggs no doubt has more accurate info on this part than I .
Anyway, nobody around Nashville who is still alive seems to remember those 12 shows…except me!
Any help or information would certainly be appreciated by me. Nobody has asked nor suggested I try to find those things, just something I’d be happy to know still exist."

Thanks ,
Lloyd Green

I'm wishing Lloyd good luck on unearthing these shows from someone's vault, or at least finding someone who actually remembers them!

Remember seeing Flatts and Scruggs back in the 60's but do not recall seeing Lloyd on them, though I'm pretty sure I was yet unaware of the importance Lloyd and Steel Guitar would have for me but a few years later.

Think you'd be hard pressed putting Lloyds "Encyclopedic" recall on this type of thing up against most anyone else's as Lloyds recall on things of this nature is pretty outstanding.

several volumes of these Martha White shows were released on DVD by the CMF and Shanachie, but they date from 1956 to 1962 https://www.countysales.com/products/25370

I sure hope the episodes with Lloyd turn up! sounds special indeed.

while we're at it, how about a recording of The Byrds' legendary '68 Opry appearance with Lloyd sitting in? hard to believe nothing but photos survived from that day


Lloyd has also mentioned that there were several more songs recorded with Charley Pride at Panther Hall. wonder if those tapes exist?

LOVE YA LLOYD!

A lot of the footage from the Martha White shows is available on YouTube. You may have to access by entering specific songs by Flatt & Scruggs. I've seen a lot of it, but I don't recall seeing the ones Ricky mentions.

Flatt & Scruggs were at the top in 1965. They were taping the Beverly Hillbillies & the Martha White Flatt & Scruggs TV show, top of the bill on package shows, appearing on the Grand Ole Opry, "Flatt & Scruggs At Carnegie Hall!" was still charting. In 1967 F&S were even recording music for The Monkees TV Show.

February 13, 1965, Billboard, Joe Taylor announced the addition of four new members to the Flatt & Scruggs: Roy Drucky, Bobby Lord, Dottie West, and Ray Pillow, with Lloyd Green, hired as staff steel guitarist to accompany the artists. Joe Taylor, who started his booking agency in 1965, died on May 24, 2014.








Here are the TV listings for April 19, 1965, with Flatt & Scruggs at 6:00 pm on WSM-TV Channel 4. Included at the top is “Night Train” (WLAC Channel 5), a local R&B TV show featuring a staff band and guests, including local performers, and acts like Freddie King plus an early appearance by Jimmy James (Hendrix) as a sideman.




In 1967, Flatt & Scruggs recorded music for an episode of the Monkees TV Show broadcast on October 23, 1967. (Billboard October 28, 1967)

Here are some more tie-ins to Lloyd Green's tenure as a staff steel guitarist, February 1965 to ca. April 1965, on the Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs Grand Ole Opry Show.

On March 16, 1965, about a month after Lloyd Green was hired on the Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs Grand Ole Opry Show, Warner Mack cut "The Bridge Washed Out" at Columbia with Lloyd Green on a Bigsby pedal steel, Owen Bradley producing. After the song was cut: "Bob Moore put his bass down and came over and said "Son, that's a career for you right there – there's your sound!" While Lloyd Green was appearing on the Flatt and Scruggs Grand Ole Opry Show," and cutting "The Bridge Washed Out" he was working his day job at the SESAC Performance Rights Organization.

In 1968, Lloyd Green recorded "Some of Shelly's Blues" with the Monkees at RCA Studio A, Nashville, TN. Produced by Michael Nesmith, the cut remained unreleased until January 1990, included on "The Monkees - Missing Links Volume Two." (Rhino Records)

Bob Johnston, a staff producer at Columbia, produced, among other artists, Flatt & Scruggs, Johnny Cash, and Bob Dylan's LP's: "Highway 61 Revisited," "Blonde On Blonde," "John Wesley Harding," "Nashville Skyline," "Self Portrait," and part of "New Morning." In 1970, Bob Johnston called Lloyd Green to overdub on an alternate version of Dylan's "If Not for You" from "New Morning." The overdub session was on July 23, 1970, 1970 at Columbia in Nashville. The alternate version of "If Not for You," with Lloyd Green on steel, was released in 2015 on "Dylan, Cash, and the Nashville Cats: A New Music City" by Legacy Recordings and CMF Records, the Country Music Hall of Fame's record label.

"The Bridge Washed Out"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ho-Tq3XGGY

"Some of Shelly's Blues"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9veXZ4p5hs

"If Not For You"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68Q_1WrmNdQ

Here is an excellent source for studying Lloyd Green's career and the source of the Bob Moore quote:
Rich Kienzle, "Lloyd Green - From the A-Team to Americana," Vintage Guitar Magazine, May 3, 2010.

https://www.vintageguitar.com/3683/lloyd-green/