The Steel Guitar Forum

I bought a CD of Webb Pierce The Wondering Boy (The King of 50's Country) and the song "Slowly" is a different version than the Original with Bud Issacs playing Pedal Steel..this one has a non-pedal steel player, and I am wondering if anyone knows who is playing this non pedal steel on this recording.

Bob Jennings

I think it's Bob Moore, and that cut was made only 5 months before the famous Bud Isaacs' version that was made in late 1953. The song was also cut twice by Webb in 1952, one version featuring Jimmy Day, and one featuring Bob Foster, but those versions were never released.

Donny Hinson,

Thank you for the information; it would be nice to hear the other two versions and I would imagine Jimmy Day was still playing a non-pedal steel. And, what would it be if the Bud Issacs version was never done--would the pedal steel have not started?

Bob J.

Donny Hinson wrote:I think it's Bob Moore, and that cut was made only 5 months before the famous Bud Isaacs' version that was made in late 1953. The song was also cut twice by Webb in 1952, one version featuring Jimmy Day, and one featuring Bob Foster, but those versions were never released.

Never knew Bob Moore played steel. The same Bob Moore that played bass for everyone from Elvis to Moby Grape?

I can't say for sure, Frank. Maybe he did, or maybe it's a mistake on the session roster. I can't tell anything from the style, as the playing isn't very accomplished. Here's the session info from Praguefrank's site (which is usually very reliable).

30 July 1953 [10:00-13:00] Castle Studio, The Tulane Hotel, 206 8th Ave. North, Nashville, TN - Webb Pierce (Webb Pierce [vcl], Hank Garland [gt], Chet Atkins [gt], Doyle Wilburn [rh gt], Bob Moore [steel], Ernie Newton [bass], Dale Potter [fiddle], Farris Coursey [drums], Owen Bradley [piano])

As far as "Would the pedal steel have not started" if it weren't for the hit (Bud Isaacs') version, the pedal steel had already been used on recordings many years before Webb's hit, but I think it was the prominent major (I-IV, V-I) changes featured in the recording that made it so catchy and identifiable. If Bud hadn't done it on that recording, someone else surely would have at some later date, maybe a few months or few years later. It was, after all, "progress" for the instrument and for country music, and you can't stop progress.

It was time.

It sure put Webb Pierce on the map.
Erv

https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/ ... oore_Bob_L

Erv Niehaus wrote:It sure put Webb Pierce on the map.
Erv

Well, maybe. (With us steelplayers).

But Webb was highly successful even before that recording. By the time "Slowly" came out, he already had eleven previous hits in the top-10, five of which made it all the way to number one!