Learning to play the steel guitar

Jerry Berger · From: Nampa, Idaho USA

What was it that made you want to learn how to play the steel guitar? For me, it was my mom. Back in the 50's my mother always listened to "Hawaii Calls" on the radio and she had a brother that tinkered with a lap steel a little bit. When I turned seven she went down to a local music store and signed me up for lap steel lessons. The rest is history. Here is a pic of me, on the right, and my first lap steel guitar. The other guy is my brother who quickly decided that learning to play steel was not for him.

John Booth · From: Columbus Ohio, USA

When I heard Hughey play Lost in the feelin with you
I said "WOW"

When I heard Bruce Bouton on the Skaggs album I said "OK, let's do this thing"

Then I heard Lloyd play something and I went to the music store and bought one.
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Jb in Ohio
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GFI S10 Ultra, Telecaster, a Hound Dog, and an Annoyed Wife
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Richard Sinkler · From: aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana

Hearing John Hughey on Conway Twitty's "Wine Me Up", and Jerry Garcia playing with the New Riders Of The Purple Sage, and seeing him live with the Dead a couple of times, and once with the Rowan Brothers.
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Carter D10 8p/8k, Dekley S10 3p/4k C6 setup,Regal RD40 Dobro, NV400, NV112 . Playing for 54 years and still counting.

Brett Day · From: Pickens, SC

For me, I don't think it was one player, it was mainly the instrument itself. I remember as a kid, watching Ricky Skaggs on CMT in the early 80s playing a song called "Don't Get Above Your Raisin' and, there was an instrument that I thought looked like a table. Being very curious about that instrument, I asked my aunt Denise what it was, and she said, "It's a steel guitar", and my eyes lit up! A few years later, when I was nine, I was at a show in Myrtle Beach, SC, and there was a steel guitar onstage-it was a Zumsteel. I listened to the sound and the more I listened, the more I loved it! Then in 1993 or 1994, I heard John Hughey playing on Vince Gill's "I Still Believe In You" record and I wondered what it'd be like to play steel. Players who made me want to play include Bruce Bouton, Paul Franklin, Sonny Garrish, Pat Severs-Pirates Of The Mississippi, Teddy Carr-former steel player for Ricochet, and many others

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

1. Buddy Emmons on the Judy Collins album Who Knows Where The Time Goes?

2. Al Perkins with Manassas Down The Road

I should thank Stephen Stills.
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Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs

John Peay · From: Cumming, Georgia USA

Seeing Chris "Tiny" Olson playing steel with Gene Watson live about 1983 at the "Hitchin Post" in Bristol TN/VA, doing "Farewell Party"...

John Boogerd · From: Calgary, Canada

For me, many years ago in my teens, it was actually a mistake. My family was from Holland and we had been in Canada a few years. Some terminology was not yet familiar to me. I liked the sound of the electric guitar in various songs and movies at the time and I knew the electric guitar I liked was not an ordinary guitar. Going by a music school, I saw that it had lessons for steel guitar and I assumed that's what it was. So I inquired and ended up playing a guitar on my lap with three picks and a steel bar. I knew it wasn't the one I originally wanted but I did like it and kept going with it. That was more than 40 years ago and I am just taking up the steel guitar again albeit a more complex pedal steel Jackson Sho-Bud.

Charley Bond · From: Inola, OK, USA

I was about 11, we use to go to a certain store. Sometimes we walked by a Guitar Studio, where we heard music playing. One Saturday morning , I heard a man playing the Steel Guitar . I knew what is was, because we listened to country music on the radio. This was in 1953.

My Dad bought me a cheap flat top & the teacher put a Steel Nut on the guitar. I signed up for lessons, I was headed for the stage. I did get pretty good on that old flat top, so my Dad bought me an electric Gibson.

In 1959, I discovered girls & my music career was history. That was a bad discovery.

I've had several Pedal Steels, but back in the day, there were no teachers. After trying & trying... I'd sell the Guitar. That went on for 20 years. In 95, I got another Steel & gave it a rel go. I was in a band with my friends & trying to get better every day. The band broke up & I sold it all again.

Today, it took me about an hour to tune up my steel Guitar. Needless to say, I remembered some things & forgot others. I was pickin on the Emmons setup, which I know nothing about, but I could fake some of it. I can do some grip work, pick blocking & palm blocking until I get the guitar changed over.

I know my chances are very slim, but who cares. I've got nothing but time & what time I have, I'm gonna do some Pickin N Grinnin....

Ian · From: San Francisco, CA

Tendinitis in my left pinkie:

"Doc, it hurts when I play guitar."

"So don't play guitar."

I switched to bottle neck and then got a wicked country jones and started playing lap with my old G&L single coil Tele knock off. Bought a Emmons student model on e-bay, Tom Bradshaw helped make it serviceable, I then made the leap to a Carter D-10. Love playing the pedal steel - so magical, the contrary motion - and loved the sounds (the harmonics on The "Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald" chilled me the moment I heard them).

I also used to stop by Sandy's Country Hollow in Tyngsboro, Mass. to check out the band after work back in the early '90's. It was the first time I heard live pedal steel and I was floored, but never considered playing steel until years after my tendinitis diagnosis. Around the same time I started listening to Alison Krauss backed by Jerry Douglas ("I've Got That Old Feeling"). I also picked up a cheap Regal dobro before I got the PSG bug; I played them concurrently for a while.

Got back into lap steel when my acoustic band went electric (too much feedback with a dobro when you're playing with a "vigorous" rock drummer) gave it a year and quit the band that I started. Still dabble with the lap steel but I when I play, it's almost always dobro (about to install a Beard Legend cone in my Vintage-R).

Sure, the great players inspire me (Rob Ickes with Trey Hensley in Felton, CA last year was amazing) but I just love hearing steel - lap, pedal, dobro, Weissenborn. So I guess pragmatism inspired me to play steel guitar - that and the infinity that exists between two different notes which the steel so wonderfully expresses.

I love this forum, thanks b0b!

Ian

Allan Jirik · From: Wichita Falls TX

Besides hearing steel on the radio and records I used to attend all the package country shows that came to Detroit. I saw many of the greats (steel players that is) with Merle Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty, Charlie Pride, Bill Anderson, Ray Price, etc. I remember looking up in amazement at the underside of those steel guitars. At age 15 I started on a Fender Dual Six and I got my first pedal steel, a Sho-Bud Professional in April of 1971 (saved up the money by washing dishes and cutting lawns). I had the good fortune to take lessons from Billy Clark, Casey Clark's son at Freeman Cowgar's music shop in Lincoln Park MI. Those were the days!

Tom Quinn · Posted 16 Aug 2015 4:52 am

Doing something most folks were afraid to attempt. I remember trading in a mint Firebird III for a Maverick at Don Weir's Music City. Six months later it was a D-10 8X2 Professional. Never looked back.
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I need an Emmons!

Jim Sliff · From: Lawndale California, USA

The Byrds' "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere". Was not my style, but I was a Byrds fan and found it an interesting departure.

But when I first heard Sneaky Pete I was stunned, It was MANY years before I made my first aborted attempt - my second time around years later stuck (finding that Sneaky's B6 was almost "autopilot" for me)
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No chops, but great tone
1930's/40's Rickenbacher/Rickenbacker 6&8 string lap steels
1921 Weissenborn Style 2; Hilo&Schireson hollownecks
Appalachian, Regal & Dobro squarenecks
1959 Fender 400 9+2 B6;1960's Fender 800 3+3+2; 1948 Fender Dual-8 Professional

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