The Steel Guitar Forum

Working a CD presentation show tonight www.kandijohnston.com and I am covering the steel tracks done by "Doug Livingston". Does anyone have current info about him? www.genejones.com <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Gene Jones on 03 November 2001 at 04:37 AM.]</p></FONT>

I think that you can contact Doug @ Ebovine@earthlink.net <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Jim Palenscar on 03 November 2001 at 07:23 AM.]</p></FONT>

Doug Livingston is flat out one of the most underrated players in the country.

Doug Livingston is a great player. I first became aware of him on a classical recording of "Steel Chords" by composer Sasha Matson. Ever since, I've seen his name all over the place. I get the impression that he's second only to the great Jay Dee Maness when it comes to recording in Los Angeles.

I especially enjoy his tracks on The Simpsons TV show. Doug is a proficient reader, a talent that gets him in the door of sessions that many players can't do. I've heard that he's also a very good piano player.

He posts on the Forum now and then. His one-line retorts are legendary, rivaling E's. To my knowledge, he's never been invited to play at a major steel show. I'm sure he could be considered a "star" among steel players if he wanted to be. His recording credits may propel him to stardom anyway. He's a great player!

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<small><img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b.gif" width="64" height="64">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Williams 400X (E7, D6), Sierra Olympic 12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop 8 (D13), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6)

Correct

Ditto...

Couple years back, Doug posted a reply concerning 3rd string breakage. He suggested wrapping it around the post 10 or 20 times. This was the best single piece of advice I've ever received over this forum. More winds = less breakage. (I hope this doesn't activate Bill Hankey)

..apparently he also played banjo, at least in 1976... http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=R98933#APPEAR

Doug is a great player.

His stuff on South Park and Simpson was great!

Tim

Doug always played piano when I played with him, so he couldn't be all that great a steel player, because I was never anything to write home about. Plus, he never got those car chase scenes in the Dukes of Hazzard, so he must not be any good. Plus he is way too picky.....who cares if you play the right chords to jazz standards? Also, who could ever trust a steel player who can play Stravinsky (in real time) or read all those gnat notes that those film composers write. It's just not natural. If God had intended steel players to read music, he (or she) would have given us at least three eyes.

So whatever you do, don't pay attention to Doug Livingston. Now that Earnest Bovine, that boy can pick......

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www.tyacktunes.com

In regards to the 'banjo'credit previously mentioned I asked Doug about that and he suggested that it was one of those situations where a producer asked "Hey, can you do a little fill on banjo?"... I don't think he even recalled playing it and I don't think the banjo is an instrument he usually plays.
I have heard from some of the L.A. crowd that Doug plays some pretty mean impro blues-jazz when the mood strikes.

I don't know about any of you guys, but I want some info on Gene Jones. What kind of a steel player is up and around at 6:00 in the morning??? Maybe he was just getting ready to go to bed???

For those who've not got to hear or pick with this fellow, holly*&^# he's AMAZING!!
I was fortunate enough to get to stand beside him on several occasions where he'd brought his steel to the gig, and on long nights toward the end of the evening on the last set, he'd reach in the back of his amp and pull out a long fretted fingerboard he'd had made, about an inch thick, that fit under the strings of his "C" neck of his old Sho-Bud, which made it (im)possible to play like a guitar. (ala Thumbs Carlisle)
Sticking his dangling feet out on his pedal bar, volume preset, he then would play like I nor I'm positive anyone else has ever heard before! Bigger chord voicings with way tone, better than any 6 string guitar can sound. I left town shortly after that!
He was Donna Summer's, and Jose Feleciano's band leader and arranger.
Not ONLY that, he's one of the funniest men alive! Redd V

Kenny.....My highest energy level is at 6AM, and then it's downhill the rest of the day. I survive the evenings only by taking short naps with my head laying on my C6 neck during the guitar players solo's.

Anyone whose pseudonym means "sincere bull" is someone I'd love to meet!

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Don Walters
Carter D-10, 8p/6k
Session 500 with Lemay Mod


<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Don Walters on 05 November 2001 at 03:13 PM.]</p></FONT>

Don, always remember that sincerity is the key to life. Once you learn to fake that, you've got it made. (Thanks to George Burns or whoever wrote that one)

And thanks to all you who wrote those nice things about me.

There is no bull here. "Bovine" references my dictionary's second definition : "slow, patient, and stupid".

Redd, what you describe is the Bovichord (fretted steel.) Adie Grey made up that name for me altho I'm sure she doesn't remember it. This allowed me to achieve a lifelong ambition of being the only name listed under a particular instrument in the Union book.

I had a luthier make me a 3 inch wide fretboard, and with shims I screwed it on the S-12 MSA. Thumbs didn't like it because the strings were much too close together for his giant fingers. When I found out that Gene Fields had already invented this many years before, I took it off the Sho-Bud to get my C6 back, and got a GFI with 12-string steel and 8-string fretted. I tune the middle 6 EBGDAE or EBGDAD like most guitar players, and add a high and low string as fancy dictates. A knee lever lowering D -> C# is useful. Unfortunately life is too short for me to learn E9 let alone C6 or Bovichord so they usually sit in the closet.

Thanks for all of the response to my question that started this thread..... If I had been aware of all of Doug Livingston's credits in advance I would have been too intimidated to have accepted that job.

It must have been his chart-book that they sent me because I had to simplify everything to "numbers" before I could begin to play any of it. www.genejones.com

You should hear him play live, it's a humbling experience.

Back around 76'-79' when I lived in Leadville, Co, someone either gave me the LP or I bought it out-of-the-blue, but it
was "Fools Gold". Doug Livingston[e] was listed as the steel player and just played some great stuff to mostly all original numbers;
many of which were Dan Fogleberg tunes.
I think the band by the same name, Fools Gold, was indeed touring with DF, for a period there, as his back-up band. FWIW

ChipsAhoy