The Steel Guitar Forum

I’ll be visiting in Tx the coming weeks. Are there any pickers doing gigs in the state during that time? Would love to hear some great country music! /Sven

Mike and the Moonpies will in Sweden mid-April, then back in Texas the beginning of May. See them if you can. They are great. https://www.themoonpies.com/tour

Texas is a big place. Where will you be ?

I’m with Bob. Where will you be Sven? If in Austin I can let you know some places and bands to check out.

Good bands and steelers play throughout Texas every week. As Bob and Robert said, I might be able to help if I know where and when you will be here.

Okay, I'll go out on a limb to surmise and suggest that Texas -- being both the second-largest geographically (behind Alaska), and second-most populous (behind California) -- is number one for the number of steel pickers (among other distinctions) within its borders in the entire USA.

It should not be too tough to find a few on any given weekend in any given locale.

Sven, will this be your first trip? The first thing you will learn is just how BIG the US is. Texas from north to south alone is over 1,600 Km (or a thousand miles). You'll get better advice if you say WHERE in texas you are going to be.

Sorry for not answering y'all - been travelling. Am now outside of Phoenix, Az. Honestly, I can go more or less anywhere in Tx. Am on a 3500 mile roadtrip in the South West just to meet local people, to experience this beautiful country, having no plans, taking it day by day. Austin - sure, I'll go there. Will be there probably on Thursday 30th. Will be driving around on the countryside to avoid tourists... I'll be driving into Tx at El Paso. From there I'll go where the road takes me. First time in the US doing this kind of crazy thing in the Southwest. Maybe you could call it "living my life" - and I love it! I'd love to meet up, having a couple of cold ones, hear great country music, WITH pedal steel of course. Am here with my son in law who also is a 100% country music lover.

Check out Jeff Woosley and the Dancehall Kings and listen to Jody Cameron play steel: http://www.jeffwoolseymusic.com/index.html
Jody is an amazing picker, and the band is one of the best Texas dancehall bands around.

Brandon Rosage usually has Allen Kentfield playing steel: https://brandonrosage.com

Sam’s Town Point in Austin features steel every Sunday and Monday. Rose Sinclair plays jazz and old songs on her Fender Stringmaster each Sunday. Steel Guitar Monday features different steel pickers each Monday. https://www.samstownpointatx.com

There are other places that have great country bands with steel, like The Broken Spoke in Austin. I am sure others will post with details.

And last but least, I’m often seen playing a Fender Stringmaster at the country music jam session each Thursday at Buddy’s Place in Austin. There is usually a pedal steel player there too. http://www.buddysplaceatx.com

Wow! Thank you Brian Robinson! Exactly what I was hoping for!
Please post more suggestions!
/Sven

Check out McDonnell and the Neon Eagles on thursday night at Sagebrush. Simon Page is playing steel. I think the other bands have steel players too.

https://sagebrushtexas.com/calendar/events-calendar/


I'm playing a country gig Friday (31st) in Austin at The Little Longhorn at 6:00

Asleep at the Wheel is playing in Luckenbach on Saturday the first.

There are usually a couple bands featuring steel players playing the White Horse every night.

There tends to be about 10 steel players playing someplace in Austin every night. Along with country gigs you will find them at singer/songwriter gigs, rock and a surprising number of experimental situations. Zack Wiggs is doing the music for this event going on the week you are in Austin:

http://www.blipswitchmovement.com/?fbcl ... v0EVkk-up8

Find Ricky Davis here:

https://weldonhenson.com/schedule/

The Merles play pretty often and they have a steel player.

https://themerles.com/shows

LiL Red's Lomghorn Saloon is an iconic honkytonk in the stockyards area of Ft. Worth They play only traditional country music. Landon Dodd and the Dancehall Drifters play every Wednesday night. Friday and Saturday nights have various bands. C.W. Sturgeon appears every Sunday afternoon/evening.

https://www.longhornsaloonfortworth.com/

The Stagecoach Ballroom in Ft. Worth is an iconic dancehall with a large dance floor. They have bands on Fridays through Sundays. We find Saturday nights are the best.

http://stagecoachballroom.com/eventscalendar.html

The Cotton Country Club in Granger Texas, northeast of Austin is another long standing honkytonk/dancehall. They have live music on Saturdays and Sundays. Catch the B Side Boyz if you can-great band. This is also an easy drive from Austin if you are in that area.

https://www.cotton-country-club.com/

The Hall on 2268 in Holland, Texas, is becoming popular. It's just up the road from The Cotton Country Club.

https://www.facebook.com/TheHallOn2268/

Both Granger and Holland are very small towns. There is lodging available in several nearby cities, though.

There are many similar places throughout the state. Some are large. Some are in little, out of the way towns like Granger, Holland, Deleon, and London. Check out the below link.

https://texasdancehall.org/category/dance-hall-map/

Going to Brady, TX for the Heart of Country Music Festival on Saturday, April 1st. Will be listening to Gary P. Nunn & The Lost Gonzo Band, Darrell McCall, Tony Booth, Amber Digby, Heather Myles, Landon Dodd, Justin Trevino, Rance Norton & Dottsy. Feels like a good start on our Texas tour.

Bob Hoffnar wrote:Find Ricky Davis here:

https://weldonhenson.com/schedule/

The Merles play pretty often and they have a steel player.

https://themerles.com/shows

I play with the Merles a few times a month when I'm not on the road with Jesse Raub, jr. Sometimes Jordan Stern or James Shelton play with them as well. Playing at Mercer Dancehall in Dripping Springs with them on the 21st of April.

Fellow pickers,
I'm now back in ol' Sweden after a fantastic road trip in the US of A!
We covered 4200 miles over 16 days, driving from LA all the way to Eastern Texas - and back. There is a whole lot of nothing in AZ and NM...
We've experienced some places not even residents of the US have seen... like Douglas, AZ.... directly on the Mexican border. We had very few things planned for the trip, taking it day by day, which one evening led to us ending up there. When we got there I began to feel really uncomfortable from what I saw... I Googled for crime statistics for Douglas, AZ, and found that 99% of the cities in the US were safer than Douglas... The risk of becoming a victim of a violent crime was 1 in 2... No, we didn 't stay there....

I regret to say we didn't get to hear a lot of PSG being picked... However, we actually got to listen to and got to know Mr. Kenny Grohman - a great picker and a super nice man!
We had planned to go to Brady, TX, to a country music fest, but at a store in San Angelo we learned there was this Outlaw & Legends festival in Abilene where Willie Nelson was about to give a (a)live concert in Abilene! Sorry to say we had to change our plans...
In addition we went to the Broken Spoke outside Austin and enjoyed really good down to Earth country music - unfortunatley w/o PSG.
The most disappointing evening was at Billy Bob's in Ft Worth... A not so bad sounding band had their and our night ruined by two really worhtless sound engineers... It was REALLY, REALLY bad..! I had expected more from Billy Bob's...
But all in all it was an adventure to remember! We met lots of friendly locals in smaller towns, some of whom will remain good friends.
Thank y'all for your suggestions and help!

//Sven

Sounds like a great trip. Sorry you didn't get to see much pedal steel in Texas. There are a lot of players here, but you just have to catch the right bands on the right nights to see them.

and got to know Mr. Kenny Grohman

Was he playing that pea green Emmons guitar?

Sven Kontio wrote: We've experienced some places not even residents of the US have seen... like Douglas, AZ.... directly on the Mexican border. We had very few things planned for the trip, taking it day by day, which one evening led to us ending up there. When we got there I began to feel really uncomfortable from what I saw... I Googled for crime statistics for Douglas, AZ, and found that 99% of the cities in the US were safer than Douglas... The risk of becoming a victim of a violent crime was 1 in 2... No, we didn 't stay there....

The most disappointing evening was at Billy Bob's in Ft Worth... A not so bad sounding band had their and our night ruined by two really worhtless sound engineers... It was REALLY, REALLY bad..! I had expected more from Billy Bob's...

If you went to Douglas, did you also go to Bisbee? Not too far out of the way, and a totally different ambience.

Loudest show I ever saw in my entire life -- with the possible exception of The Who at the Mpls Auditorium back in the '60s -- was Johnny Winter at Billy Bob's Texas. My ears are still ringing!!!

Robert: That's true. Now, we came in around Easter break, so many had time off at that point.
Lee: Yes sir! He sure was!
Jack: We actually got to Bisbee after visting in Tombstone, driving through the town, and it seemed quite small, so we figured we wouldn't be able to hear any music there at that evening. So we continued to Douglas... Didn't get to hear much of anything that evening... Other than getting stopped by the Border Patrol asking if we were US citizens. Told them we were Swedish. They asked for our immigration docs... We told them we had our passports, so they let us move along. Guess we didn't fit the description...