The Steel Guitar Forum

Check out below weblink to see The New Riders of the Purple Sage" performing "Garden of Eden" at Sweetwater in Mill Valley, Ca. a few years ago...great shots of Buddy Cage playing some interesting steel with distortion... http://www.nrpsmusic.com/gallery/sweetwater_garden_small.html

Thanks Kirk for posting the Cage,
still going strong after all these years.

Looks like they are playing here in Portland OR on Dec 4th, at the Alladin!

Those U Tube vids are really poor compared to the live show. I saw them this past Sat. They are way better than the vids. Here is a link to an earlier vid(they were kids) with much better Cage playing:
http://www.newridersofthepurplesage.com/new_riders.wmv

Great - except they chose Mr Cage's solo as the appropriate point to block the whole screen with the NRPS logo and credits.

Somebodys low E string is way out of tune on that first clip. I'm not perfect but it sends shivers down my spine.

JT, the whole song is a Cage solo! JP

Right JT. It brings back foggy memories of the early days of country rock. Great to hear Buddy riffing.

The top video clip was posted earlier this year. It was a rotten song, sung badly then and still is. And waaaaaaaay too long.

Archie, do you like the other one? JP

excellant video!,brings back some great memories.Buddy tears it up and still does today.I saw him a few weeks ago playing locally with some of my friends.He was playing his Fessy D12,but has an Excel S14 uni being built for him as we speak.-JD

Being a Bay Area boy (and now in middle age) I go back to New Riders from the beginning, and have the utmost admiration for Buddy Cage as a steel player.

But I have to say that video of "Garden of Eden" from the Sweetwater was pretty poor. I guess you had to be there.

Some of Buddy's playing sounded good, but man, I don't know about the rest of the band on that one.

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Mark

I enjoyed the playing on the second one. It's a pity we couldn't see more of Buddy.

Arch.

Yeah, Those were the days-it's down to just Cage and Nelson now. Torbert and Spence are gone, and Duke is in pretty bad shape. Of course, Cage and Nelson have some pretty fabulous guys sitting in, and it's still a great show.

To hear them really tearing it up live you have to get "Home, Home on the Road". One listen to that and you'll understand what all the fuss was about. The New Riders were THE country rock act for quite some time there. They still hold the attendance record for a 5 night stand at the Academy of Music in New York.


JB

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Fulawka D-10 9&5
Fessenden D-10 8&8
"All in all, looking back, I'd have to say the best advice anyone ever gave me was 'Hands Up, Don't Move!"

"Your first mistake was listening to your wife instead of your steel instructor." (H.Steiner)
www.johnbarnold.com/pedalsteel
www.buddycage.net

http://www.nrpsmusic.com/index.html

Archie- I don't get what's the matter & just what makes it a "rotten" song? Is it the subject matter? They still play it, in fact, introduce it as "as relevant now as it ever was then." are you by chance one of those SUV driving steelers?
BTW, I have no audio card on the computer I post from, so, sorry, I can't give my opinion on the performance. But I always thought this was one of McDuke's BETTER compositions, all the way round. And maybe it was one of the first "ecology songs" ever written- ahead of its time, and now, succinctly poingnant.

Sorry, Mark. I was just offering a short critique of the video. I'm assuming you are a fan of the band, but I, personally, think it was not a very good performance. The singing seemed strained and the whole tune was over-long. I have no complaints about the steel playing at all. The ol' `Boss-Tone` is something I use regularly myself.

Arch.

Archie, I agree on the performance of "Garden",the band I saw in St Louis was very well rehearsed and tight as a drum. David Nelson was in really good voice. JP

I admit as a long-time NRPS listener that the "Eden" video is a bit rough. Nelsons guitar popping is great, as is Cage's riffing. The vocals are...well, I can't even go there.

But it's not too long. That's jam-band world. It's just a different musical environment.

I found somewhere on youtube a video with Cage and some other band playing Zep's "Whole Lotta Love". It's another jam-band thing....Cage is great, even bouncing around on his seat and smiling, which you rarely see him do. But it's another vocal..errr..."error" might be polite.

I could listen to Buddy a lot more if he found some bands with singers....

Just to put in a word in MarmaDuke's defense- this video it seems was recorded about a decade ago >?< more or less, at least five?
The last two years at least he has suffered from poor health (I think fighting off his own cancer or lung related disease- i a m not a complete expert on it-) -so much so that doctors advised him NOT to go on the current touring with Nelson & Cage. As well he lost his wife to cancer a couple years ago as well- his current state of health is such he appears to be one of the Miner's Kids from "Dirty Business".
Well, I think it was & still is a great song, but you know about youtube- what you see is often what you get, and it's usually not always what the performer would have preferred you to see.