The Steel Guitar Forum

Well, that ol' Wheel rolled right through my neighborhood last nite and the guys played a bang-up show for a couple hundred people in a new local restaurant/music venue, called North by Northwest. It's a small club for them, but hey, they were passing thru between Pittsburgh and NYC and needed the filler gig. Besides, Ray Benson grew up a few miles down the road, so his mom and dad, and a bunch of other relatives were there. As well as Lucky Oceans' family (he grew up here too).

It was a great show and my first chance to hear Big Jim Murphy play; just outstanding stuff on both pedal and nonpedal steel. His nonpedal was an old Fender that had been converted by a prior owner to pedals, and Jim took them off and just plays it nonpedal. His pedal was a Bethel. Both sounded excellent and he's got chops to burn of course. By the way, Jim also doubled on sax, which may explain the absence of long-time Wheel horn-man Michael Francis who is, um, er... "no longer with the band". (Can you add 2 + 2?)

They're at the Rodeo Bar tonite in NYC. Catch'em if you can.


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www.jimcohen.com

Guess who was not reading the AATW scedule.


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Janice "Busgal" Brooks
ICQ 44729047

Is "BIG JIM" the same big Jim from
Californ-eye-ay, who knows anything and everything about Band-In-A-Box?????

Nope. That Big Jim is Jim Baron. This Big Jim is Jim Murphy, Wally Murphy's older brother.

Big Jim has been around quite a while. I really enjoyed his picking on an old Carl (not Cal) Smith album, and used to play the instrumental he played on that album called Big Murph.

Never having met or seen him before, I was certainly expecting a much "bigger" fella. He's actually kind of a slight figure with a grey beard that makes him look a lot like George Carlin. Anybody know how he got his nickname of "Big"? Has he lost a lot of weight (or height?) since those days? Certainly his chops are big. By the way, he told me that he and Wally are actually half-brothers. Same dad. (This proves that the "steel guitar gene" is located on the Y chromosome!)<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Jim Cohen on 26 October 2001 at 08:56 PM.]</p></FONT>

You 'knuckleheads' crack me up. Keep it coming. Never let up. I love the agony
and the Ex-2-Sea. Jim S - gonna miss you in Waltham; and Jim C - will not miss you in
Waltham; CF