The Steel Guitar Forum

How does it feel to hear your steeling on the airwaves? It takes a lot of work and accomplishment to get there, and is clearly a milestone in any musician's life. Any interesting stories out there about the first time you heard your playing broadcast?

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<font size=-1>Bill, steelin' since '99 | Steel page | My music | Steelers' birthdays | Over 50?</font>

I almost wrecked my car. LOL

"That couldn't be me. Nobody plays that lousy!

Well, I did fine in the song till I got to the lead ride and just bungled the middle of it. After that I started having the utmost respect for pros and though what ever they make it ain't enough.


J.C.

Very cool. I've done a few public radio gigs recently. Had some local airplay with a c&w band years ago as well.

Nice to know your music is traveling out to M31 and will get there before you do

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Chris Kennison
Ft. Collins, Colorado
"There is no spoon"
www.book-em-danno.com

I felt quite a sense of achievement when my playing was featured on the radio recently.<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by richard burton on 03 July 2003 at 02:09 PM.]</p></FONT>

I felt a sense of accomplishment and pride. To turn to my daughters and say, "hey thats your dad's music there". My girls look at me with that wow my dad's a star look. Its a great feeling.

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D 10 Thomas with 8&6, '61'D-10 Sho-Bud 8&3
S12 Knight 6&4
Nashville 400 and Profex II
81' Fender Twin JBL's
Asleep at the Steel

It's just an unbelievable, great feeling.

I have to thank The Man Upstairs and Mr. Gene Watson for getting the chance to cut major records. I worked for Gene for almost ten years. Prior to my recording with him he used Lloyd Green, Sonny Garrish then myself 'til my departure. I started cutting his recordings in the early '80s and played on about eight albums of which about 15 top ten songs came from.

There were and are plenty of better players than myself around but I guess I got the job done. To my knowledge the only other road guys cutting hits with the star at that time were Bruce Bouton and Terry Crisp, both with Ricky Skaggs back then. I could be wrong. Thanks to Gene using me I also did some stuff with other folks too after a while.

One time just after I left Gene, I was driving through Pa. listening to a country station. Gene's hit "Forever Again," which I cut with him came on the radio. The DJ stated, "Man listen to that singing pedal steel" at the end of the song. He had no way of knowing I was listening. I wanted to find the station and buy the guy dinner !! It was such a fine feeling.

I have been very blessed. And you know, I still hear one of those songs of Gene's from time to time and still find it hard to believe.

Chris "Tiny" Olson

Hi Tiny, nice to see you on the Forum. Yes, you've been greatly blessed with your musical talent and also with having the opportunity to play and record with some really great artists. Although I did get to play some shows with several Nashville stars, at the time I didn't believe I really had what it takes to be a great steel player and consequently avoided putting myself in the position of prooving myself correct. Of course now with a lot more age, experience and wisdom (I hope), I know if I'd been positive instead of negative, I may have found out differently.....but oh well!

Every time I've been on the radio it's been a live broadcast, so it's not possible for me to turn on the radio and hear myself....I've never been into recording much, either. I was with a band that had a single, recorded before I joined (got on the charts too, but never made it) and said Buddy Emmons played the steel solo. Whenever it came on the radio I had the pleasure of hearing BE play a fantastic solo and then having to hear my version of it when we'd do it at live shows, ugh!

I did get to watch myself on TV a few times, that was kinda neat. Right now, Lorena Prater, who is the bandleader/lead vocalist of the band I play in, and myself are regular Friday morning guests (when we're not out of town on a gig) on ex-senator Jim Cates' show on KMAJ, a Topeka radio station, we do a couple songs on acoustic guitar, live, and it's fun. Again I don't get to hear it.... and it's not like Tiny, BE or Franklin (and others) who can hear themselves on the radio all over the world, that's got to be weird. I bet if you said to someone, "hey, that's me there on the pedal steel", they'd probably say, "Oh, surrre it is.....and what's a pedal steel?" Must be strange, a mixture of pride and irony.....I doubt I'll ever know but that's life....Don Meredith never made it to the SuperBowl either, did he? When my wife and I move to Mexico in 4 months, I plan to take over Mexico City with my steel, hahahahah! If anyone there cares about steel, that is. Plan to do some recording if I get the chance. Maybe someday before I kick the bucket I'll get to turn on the radio and hear me playing.....<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Jim Phelps on 03 July 2003 at 04:18 PM.]</p></FONT>

One of the times I heard myself on the radio, the (usually well-informed) deejay made special note of the fiddle and steel in the record, and then proceeded to mis-identify both me and the fiddle player!

My one shot at "fame & notoriety", gone...like tomato blossoms in a hailstorm.

I have posted this before but it fits here so bear with me. I was cutting steel tracks for an album by Randy Howard, a local entertainer at the time. The producer was Paul Hornsby of Capricorn/Marshall Tucker renown.

I couldn't do anything right and I sweated for three or four hours trying before we both gave up. He tried to pay me but I refused. It wasn't worth a beer he had given me.

Almost a year later, back at work on the Avionics bench for Zantop International Airlines: I noticed I was getting all tense and aggravated with my work. Finally, I just pushed it back and took a break. It was then I noticed the song on the radio.

It was the one I tried that whole afternoon to get right and I was back in the studio, sweating again as I was hearing it. I called Randy when he was back in town and he told me that when the album went to Nashville for sale or what ever, the only track they were interested in was the one I flubbed all over. Just shows to go you!!

I never heard it again but it left a lasting impression on me, if no one else.....

Regards, Paul

Paul, I can believe it! It seems the times I really think I'm playing great, no one notices anything special and the times I feel I totally suck and can't do anything right are the times people come up and tell me "how great I am" (tongue firmly in cheek here!)!!! Go figure!

The first time was when I was 20 years old and driving with my girlfriend in San Francisco. Some tune I wrote and played on in a band was playing on KSAN. I was pretty thrilled. Next thing you know it was off to the races with the whole rock band touring thing. It was big fun while it lasted.

Now when I hear myself on the radio I tend to cringe a bit wishing I could have another shot at that solo.

Bob

A couple years ago I was listening to one of the local NPR stations and an "art music" piece, played on steel guitar, came on. It sounded like I had heard it somewhere before, but I couldn't place it. Since it was steel guitar, I listened in. I also couldn't help but notice that the player wasn't very good so I stuck around to see who it was and maybe gloat a little bit on their ineptitude. The announcer announced it was me.

My experience in radio goes back to the late forties...I had a weekly 15 minute Hawaiian radio show every Saturday nite...(1949-53) I was also on a c/w show on another radio staion the SAME time! To accomplish this fete, we transcribed all the Hawaiian shows onto 16" discs...(no tape recorders back then!)...for broadcast on Saturday evening. Once the cutting arm hit the blank disc, there was no stopping, no erasing, no editing, etc. Quite the experience! When the Hawaiian show was finished in 1953, I was able to buy all the (huge) discs and have since transferred those 50+ year old shows to cassette as the shellac on the 16" discs had a nasty habit of becomming brittle with age.

I dislike referring to those times as being the "good olde days", however one thing was very common back then...radio stations featured and encouraged live talent every day, some stations often had a number of live programs during the day and/or week. Every radio station had a 'Studio A' in which a grande piano was always present. Times change, but not always for the better.

It's kinda funky how it all gets squished with the FM thing. I was playing a student guitar on morning becomes eclectic, by god, it sounded baaaad. You just can't tune some things. CH

Jim:

You know, it has happened a couple times like you said... someone with me would say, "Yeah right" if I told them it was me playing on that song on the radio. So it did have a bitter-sweet moment or two. But at least I knew it was me so I focused on that. Hey, did you move ??

Bob:

You're so right about wishing you could get another shot at a solo or fill. We cut Gene's records REALLY quickly and if I asked the producer for another run at a solo I usually got a "nope, it's just fine like it is." Many of his hits were done in one or two takes including "Memories to Burn". "Farewell Party" which, of course had Lloyd Green on steel, was done in one take in the last seven minutes of a master session. I was fortunate enough to be in attendance. Lloyd's a great guy and player as we all know.

It must be something for guys like Lloyd, the late Pete Drake, Buddy, Hal, Weldon, Paul, J.D. and Sonny G. who have litterally played on thousands or tens of thousands of hits. My hat is off to them.

Tiny O.

It's kinda funky how it all gets squished with the FM thing. I was playing a student guitar on morning becomes eclectic, by god, it sounded baaaad. You just can't tune some things. CH

You know I heard you in NY with Jim White and noticed you were playin' a hard-to-tune student guitar, and you know what? It wasn't that bad at all. Kinda fit the mood.

Ages ago, while headed to a distant Oregon town on the southern coast to play a BIG EVENT, we chanced to pickup their local small town radio station and lo-and-behold, they were playing our band's records on the DJ's program. What a thrill!!!

But even more INTERESTING, was being seated in my home one evening when a small group of family friends dropped by for an inpromtu visit. When asked what I was watching on TV, my wife informed them that I was watching our local TV SHOW that we had recorded the previous evening for Sat. nite
release.
The first remarks to be heard were: "Oh, that ain't YOU!" "Really, what are you watching?"

hey tiny,
all your stuff with gene is classic as far as i'm concerned. saw a picture of you with a blue zum like mine, is that what you used on the recordings?

Thanks Mike,
Now I have a Pro 1, so no excuses any more. You wouldn't want to play a Zum in that ramshackle outfit anyhow.

Had my own radio show back home,so I steeled anytime I wanted.At first I would record the whole show on the tape but when I got used to it didn`t even pay attention anymore.At the end they cought me steeling...too many country records end up missing from the archives...

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In this same vein; from Fender/Fretts, 1965 Volume 2:

"The man who made this work was a newcomer to the top but by no means a newcomer to steel guitar. His name is Tom Brumley and he makes his home in California. The record was cut with a Fender 1000 pedal guitar and the basic idea was something he had come up with sometime before the session. And again, as is so often the pattern with things exceptionally good and beautiful, he thought it was just a trivial thing and didn't want to keep it on the cut. Another man on the session told him it appeared to be exactly what was needed and it was left on the cut; with Tom thinking it was a wasted take."

The song, of course, went on to make pedal steel guitar history and was the envy of every pedal steel guitarist of that time.
Togeather Again is a country classic and has endured the test of time since 1965. If memory serves me correctly; the other man noted on the session was The Late and Great, Don Rich.

Regards, Paul

I admit it still gives me a tingle...
LTH were driving back to DC after our gig tonight and punched in "Cross Country" on XM satellite radio just at the beginning of a cut off our second CD...seeing the band name in the LCD readout AND hearing it, knowing it was going out nationwide, was fun...
also on XM I got to listen to myself every 10 minutes or so... the steel guitar "signature riffs" on "Hank's Place" classic country and "Cross Country"Americana/ roots/country rock broadcast streams are me...

narcissism can be fun <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Dave Van Allen on 04 July 2003 at 10:10 PM.]</p></FONT>

This wasn't my first radio experience but it was certainly the most memorable. By the time I got to work the Opry for the first time,I was a veteran of the stage. I had played in front of large crowds before,so the 5,000 or so fans in the Opry House surely wasn't going to bother me. It was going to be a job like any other. Just as it came my time to play the intro,I realized we were being broadcast live,all over the states. A numb feeling set in as the thought, of there being millions of listeners out there,penetrated my feeble brain. I froze and the guitar player did the intro.
~~W.C.~~