The Steel Guitar Forum

For the real country music fans a really nice steel break on this classic (Apartment #9)
Not sure who the steel player is though?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvuTxyYzKE0

yes, that is a really nice steel break! Is that a Lashley Lagrande he's playing? I really like the tone.

Mitch

Could it be Leonard Bick?

Nice post John. Man,,that tone!!

I don't recognize the steeler.

But man, wouldn't you hate to be on the OPRY, cameras fixed on you and make a blunder?

Just shows we are all human.

Bill Ferguson wrote:I don't recognize the steeler.

But man, wouldn't you hate to be on the OPRY, cameras fixed on you and make a blunder?

Just shows we are all human.

Ain't that the truth Bill

When I worked for Bobbe Seymour, in the late 80s, at Steel Guitar World/Nashville/etc. , he did some roadwork for Johnny.
I wish I still had that tape he gave me.
My favorite song on it was this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXRLozwejDk

Actually, I enjoyed the blunder. (Had I been on the seat, I'm sure that I would feel different though.) We live in a world where so many things are not real anymore. The blunder told me that I was listening to real music, not a recording. It probably put a knot in his stomach and made him grit his teeth. That's what it does to me. It's all part of the fun and excitement of playing music in front of a crowd. It was a fine steel ride blunder and all. And man what a tone! I've already asked this, but can anyone tell what kind of Emmons he's playing? Is it a Lagrande?

Mitch

As blunders go those weren’t bad. The guitar player gave him a look on the first one where the notes were just wrong and the second was just a miss. Wish I could control my nerves to do that well!!! And a great tone as others have said.

Did anybody else notice the perfect doubling effect the fiddle player was using? As perfect an effect as I have heard. I kept looking for other fiddlers.

Thanks all for the comments!

Maybe Jay Andrews...

Kevin Mincke wrote:Maybe Jay Andrews...

Kevin, I'm thinking the same. Thanks

Johnny didn't care. I've seen him so drunk on stage he couldn't even speak let alone sing. The band was dying laughing, At Cowboys. Biggest Honky Tonk in Dallas. He was just setting in. Lol!
I did that when Brad Maul was filming a band I played for for his cable TV show. For other reasons they shot the two featured songs again and I played it beautifully and quite proud of that take. I was copying what Steve Hinson had played on Crystal Sands albums. Crystal was a young good looking hard country singer that could have been the female George Strait but decided she would rather be like her friend Taylor Swift. She told the band one night she didn't want to spend the rest of her life in a honky tonk so she left Texas and went home to Baltimore. She had Texas oil millionaires backing her paying for everything. What a waste. Anyway I told Brad please air the second take because I royally screwed up the first one. Quess what? He aired the horrible one. I had to turn it off. Couldn't watch it. Here's the song I messed the steel break up on and the band followed me mistakes and all like that's the way the song went. Lol!. I don't know how Crystal knew how to come back in. Crystal wrote this song and many other good ones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKz1mauh5-k

That was really nice David!

John Palumbo wrote:That was really nice David!

Thanks John! I really enjoyed working with Crystal. Still a good friend. Steve Hinson did some really nice steel and Dobro work on that album.

Lets be clear, they are not blunders or wrong notes, they are just phrases and notes for a different song

Tony Prior wrote:Lets be clear, they are not blunders or wrong notes, they are just phrases and notes for a different song

I agree. I think it all worked out just fine. Jay Andrews is one of the most soulful players in Nashville. He's from Rhode Island originally. Last time I saw Jay was at the Midnight Jamboree when Dicky Overbey was playing. We weren't playing just spectators along with many more steel players and other musicians that came out to see Dickey. I think Jay plays a mid-70's Emmons guitar. He can sure get the tone and his playing fit Johnny so well. Here's another Opry video with a great Paycheck performance. Johnny's brother Jeff on guitar

https://youtu.be/TDFCvfh-Dj8


RC

It was just a little jazz line. Nothing wrong with that!

Really nice tone, and a nice mix too!
Shame they can't do this kind of stuff on recordings anymore.

Why? Because they've traded "capturing a sound" for re-engineering it, and re-imagining it, and it almost never turns out very well.

Pity. People are still making good music, but not a damn fool in Nashville knows how to record it.

Blunder/Jazz aside the opening of that ride was KILLER. Wish the very beginning had been on camera. Gonna try to figure it out. That opening was really cool.

It is worth noting when Johnny starts the video he says "we wrote this". The story I heard is Apt #9 was written by Bobby Austin and Johnny Paycheck wrote just one line and sang the harmony part on the original recording. The Bobby Austin original recording was done at Tally Records in 1966 with Ralph Mooney playing Steel.

Here is the Booby Austin original.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2biYdyIgneo

Wow, Thanks again all.

Great information!!

Dale Rottacker wrote:Blunder/Jazz aside the opening of that ride was KILLER. Wish the very beginning had been on camera. Gonna try to figure it out. That opening was really cool.

Dale please share would like to learn that
Riff...
Pw

Dale Rottacker wrote:Blunder/Jazz aside the opening of that ride was KILLER. Wish the very beginning had been on camera. Gonna try to figure it out. That opening was really cool.

I believe the intro is similar to a riff or style Lloyd Green first used called “shotgunning” catching the same note on a diff string as you go up the neck. Did a search but couldn’t t find much, maybe someone else will jump in.

Chris Clem wrote:It is worth noting when Johnny starts the video he says "we wrote this". The story I heard is Apt #9 was written by Bobby Austin and Johnny Paycheck wrote just one line and sang the harmony part on the original recording. The Bobby Austin original recording was done at Tally Records in 1966 with Ralph Mooney playing Steel.

Here is the Booby Austin original.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2biYdyIgneo

According to wikipedia: "Apartment No. 9" (also referred to as "Apartment #9") is a song written by Fern Foley, Fuzzy Owen and Johnny Paycheck.