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Topic: Jerry Garcia Talks About Discovering Pedal Steel |
b0b
From:
Cloverdale, CA, USA
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Jerry Overstreet
From:
Louisville Ky
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Posted 5 Feb 2016 9:48 am |
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| Interesting read. Sounds a lot like my own introduction to the thing. |
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Mark Eaton
From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
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Posted 5 Feb 2016 10:32 am
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Thanks for finding that one Bobby.
How cool. Just when I think I've read every Garcia interview in existence there is more to be found. Great stuff.
He mentions how you just didn't find pedal steels for sale in stores in the Bay Area. Jerry, I've got news for you: 20+ years after you left us - nothing has really changed there!
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Mark |
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b0b
From:
Cloverdale, CA, USA
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Posted 5 Feb 2016 1:57 pm
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I saw my first pedal steel in the old Guitar Center on Van Ness in San Francisco. Must have been in '72 or '73. All I remember was that the strings were so close together! A guy there was trying to explain it to me - I think it might have been Larry Petree!
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-𝕓𝕆𝕓- (admin) - Robert P. Lee - Recordings - Breathe - D6th - Video |
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Roger Kelly
From:
Bristol,Tennessee
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Posted 5 Feb 2016 3:09 pm
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b0b, I've wondered what Jerry Garcia would have been like as a Steel Player if Jerry Byrd had been willing to give him lessons?
Jerry Garcia told Byrd that if he would give him lessons he would move to Hawaii for as long as it took to learn.
Byrd didn't want to give him lessons for reasons unknown but I believe Byrd just didn't think that Garcia would play the "Right" kind of music on the Steel...and wouldn't agree. |
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Brad Bechtel
From:
San Francisco, CA
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Posted 5 Feb 2016 4:03 pm
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Here's another interview from 1971 where he discusses pedal steel a bit more thoroughly.
If I recall correctly, this was reprinted from Guitar Player magazine.
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Brad’s Page of Steel
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars |
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Charlie McDonald
From:
out of the blue
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Posted 6 Feb 2016 6:35 am
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Garcia: 'It’s not a guitar, and it’s not a banjo, either.... It would be like picking up a saxophone and, “What is this?” You know?'
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I enjoyed this interview. Took me back to a time....
JERRY: That was the whole thing.
DENNIS: You know—
JERRY: That was exactly what it was.
DENNIS: Get your hands on it and the feel, the inspiration.
JERRY: That’s it, getting my hands on it, feeling it....
DENNIS: Makes sense.
JERRY: Yeah, really.
DENNIS: Makes sense.
JERRY: It was very obvious, you know, when—
DENNIS: Once you know.
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He sounds like a typical musician: just got to get my hands on one of those things.
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Those that say don't know; those that know don't say.--Buddy Emmons |
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Mark Eaton
From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
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Posted 10 Feb 2016 9:53 am
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Brad, thanks for digging up that Garcia interview from Guitar Player - hadn't read it in years.
I like this comment:
And because there are ten strings, you have to be able to select different strings. There are some really terrible discords.
Amen Jerry! I am an authority on many of those "really terrible discords." 
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Mark |
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Dave Zirbel
From:
Sebastopol, CA USA
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Posted 10 Feb 2016 12:20 pm
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He talks about PSG for 30 seconds in this interview. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve3NqNo7yEA
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Dave Zirbel-
Sierra S-10 (Built by Ross Shafer),ZB, Fender 400 guitars, various tube and SS amps |
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John Bresler
From:
Thornton, Colorado
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Posted 11 Feb 2016 12:24 pm
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Interesting article. I bought my D-10 Emmons about 1970 and contacted Jerry about his tuning after hearing him play on one of the Grateful Dead records. He didn't have a lot of information for me but I got a lot of invitations and tickets to their concerts later. I never did take him up on the concerts because I have always been a Country player and his music was a little too different for me at the time.
Wish I still had those letters!!
I wonder who sold him the steel here in Denver? Dick Meis?? or it could have been Don Edwards, but I think Don was pushing Domeland steels and Jerry's first one was an Emmons, I believe.
Anyone have more info on the purchase??
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Dave Zirbel
From:
Sebastopol, CA USA
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Posted 11 Feb 2016 12:37 pm
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His first guitar was a Fender 1000 but never played it. He bought a ZB D-10 after he gave the Fender to Banana of the Youngbloods....I think.... The Emmons came later.
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Dave Zirbel-
Sierra S-10 (Built by Ross Shafer),ZB, Fender 400 guitars, various tube and SS amps |
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Paul Awalt
From:
Greenwich, Ct.
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Posted 3 Mar 2017 7:45 pm
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| Just found a old album, "Baron von Tollbooth and the Chrome Nun", that was one of my favorites back then (73'), in a record store. Little did I know back then that Garcia was all over it on Steel and guitar, along with David Crosby, Grace Slick, and the rest of Airplane. |
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