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Author Topic:  ZZ Top with steel I don't understand this!?
David Mitchell

 

From:
Tyler, Texas
Post  Posted 28 Jul 2017 2:05 pm    
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Even if it's pre-recorded pedal steel the playing is horrible. Has that old pedal pumping whine like he got his first steel 2 weeks ago. Some people think that sounds good. I think it's an insult to the pedal steel community. That's the sound most people associate a pedal steel with. I can see their mouths going, wale, wale twang imitating one. ZZ Top is one of my favorite rock bands and their first 3 big albums including Tres Hombres was recorded right here in my home town of Tyler, Tx. by my old friend I talk recording with every week Robin Hood Brians. Yes the early ZZ Top albums before LeGrange had quite a bit of pedal steel on them. Nothing new with ZZ Top but I still say it's horrible. He needs to do some practicing and trash the cardboard amps if he's gonna be a steeler. Lol! I hope you all don't take me too seriously. They evidently are having fun themselves and have a sense of humor too.
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Chris Walke

 

From:
St Charles, IL
Post  Posted 1 Aug 2017 6:35 am    
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Tommy White wrote:
Haha! Love it! Stacks of cardboard box amps with LED lights! Kind of like faux store fronts in old western movies. Obviously, the steel player is prisoner to the band, according to his pants.😂


I wonder what's behind those "amps." Perhaps Gibbons has a Magnatone sponsorship but he wants to play different amps on tour. He can be running any number of amps behind the Magnatone façade. I'm seeing fewer and fewer cabinets actually on stage these days.
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Joey Ace


From:
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Post  Posted 1 Aug 2017 7:00 am    
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Quote:
I wonder what's behind those "amps."



Question
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Jeff Mead


From:
London, England
Post  Posted 1 Aug 2017 8:01 am    
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Storm Rosson wrote:
I don't think it's sync at all here's another piece "Webb Pierce" In the Jailhouse now,sound sucks but watch El on the intro, I'm positive he's playing by watching the hand movement...


Really?????

I'm positive he is NOT playing for exactly the same reason.
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David Mitchell

 

From:
Tyler, Texas
Post  Posted 1 Aug 2017 8:19 am    
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The steel playing is as fake as the amps. Sounds like Ralph Mooney's playing or someone imitating his style on a pedal steel behind the curtain or on a recording. I see no palm pedals and something is mechanically bending the strings. I've seen a few people that could pull the pitch around with their fingers but if you notice the pitch is fluctuating while he's hopping frets and that's impossible with the self pull method.
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Tony Palmer


From:
St Augustine,FL
Post  Posted 1 Aug 2017 11:24 am    
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Okay, I feel vindicated, of sorts...thought I was seeing/hearing things!
But the question remains....WHY???!!!
One of the best known rock groups, around forever, would stoop to such nonsense. And if you're going to overdub, make sure it's good playing, not very mediocre at best such as this is.
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Jeff Mead


From:
London, England
Post  Posted 1 Aug 2017 11:35 am    
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Tony Palmer wrote:
One of the best known rock groups, around forever, would stoop to such nonsense.


ZZTop have been doing basically a karaoke show for a few years now.

If the rest of them had been playing their instruments and they didn't want to use a pedal steel player for one or two numbers, those songs would have sounded fine with lap steel. For that matter, they could have used lap steel on the backing track.

But the fact is, they could have used the backing track with the pedal steel and Billy Gibbons could have put a slide on his finger and 99% of the audience would have been none the wiser - forget lap steel vs pedal steel.
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Ian Worley


From:
Sacramento, CA
Post  Posted 1 Aug 2017 11:50 am    
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Tony Palmer wrote:
...But the question remains....WHY???!!!...

They thought no one would notice, but you caught 'em! No more Christmas cards from ZZ Top for you.
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Ray Jenkins


From:
Gold Canyon Az. U.S.A.
Post  Posted 1 Aug 2017 12:16 pm    
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My son was a pro golfer in Keller Texas.He called and told me he got a call from ZZ Top for a tee time And said they would be golfing with Troy Aikman who was a member of the country club my son worked for.Thier bus pulled in and 3 guys got off the bus,none sporting long reddish colored beards.Naturally my son said ZZ Top had the time with Troy.
My son said ZZ Top has beards they said this way were not recognized and can go out and inner act with the public and not be bothered.Sure enough they played with Troy and he did confirm to my son they were the real deal.Your guess is ad good as mine.
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Ray Jenkins


From:
Gold Canyon Az. U.S.A.
Post  Posted 1 Aug 2017 12:21 pm    
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My son was a pro golfer in Keller Texas.He called and told me he got a call from ZZ Top for a tee time And said they would be golfing with Troy Aikman who was a member of the country club my son worked for.Thier bus pulled in and 3 guys got off the bus,none sporting long reddish colored beards.Naturally my son said ZZ Top had the time with Troy.
My son said ZZ Top has beards they said this way were not recognized and can go out and inner act with the public and not be bothered.Sure enough they played with Troy and he did confirm to my son they were the real deal.Your guess is ad good as mine.
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Jim Fogarty


From:
Phila, Pa, USA
Post  Posted 1 Aug 2017 12:39 pm    
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They've been forced to play with tracks since they started having hits with keyboard parts and drum machine grooves.

My guess is Billy G is an PSG hobbyist, and wanted to include it in the show somehow, so he played a track to be looped in during the performance.

Really, at this point, railing against big stadium/arena bands using some prerecorded tracks is "Get Off My Lawn, You Kids!!!" type stuff. It's the norm, not the exception and has little or nothing to do with the act's level of musicianship.
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David Mitchell

 

From:
Tyler, Texas
Post  Posted 1 Aug 2017 12:40 pm    
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As for amps rockers have been creating fake walls for decades. They make a good backdrop for the band and cover up the unsightly mess behind them and also used for advertisement. There is videos on YouTube explaining exactly what ZZ Top use. Search for ZZ Top rig rundown. They have some serious amplification but almost all rack gear. Mostly Marshall and some Magnatone. This pic I think was behind Judas Priest.

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Dustin Rhodes


From:
Owasso OK
Post  Posted 1 Aug 2017 12:44 pm    
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There has been rumor for quite some time that alot of ZZ Top's live show is prerecorded. And I'm not talking about key stuff that would need to be. I'm talking about the stuff that it looks like they would be playing.
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David Mitchell

 

From:
Tyler, Texas
Post  Posted 1 Aug 2017 1:47 pm    
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My friend Robin Hood Brians that lives and works 10 miles from me came up with the ZZ Top sound. He explained it all in detail to me one night in his studio. That fat sound requires overdubs on the guitar. It sounds like one guitar playing but it's really not. Rather than repeat what he said and what has been written here is Robin Hood's story of how ZZ Tops sound came about. The Country Tavern is still my favorite barbecue joint.

This is Part 2 of my conversation with the legendary Robin Hood Brians of Tyler, who has been recording hit songs in his Robin Hood Studios since the mid-’60s. We closed Part 1 with a story about John Fred & His Playboy Band.
After getting off to a good start in the ’60s, Robin struck gold — and platinum — in the early ’70s with a new band from Houston called ZZ Top.
“The first time they came up they were called the Moving Sidewalks,” Robin said. “They came up and we recorded and they went home and threw everything away.
“The next time they came up they were called ZZ Top. And they went home and threw everything away. The third time they came up, Billy Gibbons told me, ‘Well this may be the end.’ ” They weren’t the sound that manager Bill Hamm wanted.
After producing a concert in San Antonio where the band sounded nothing like their records, Ham made a hard and fast rule: No overdubs, Robin said. “He made a promise to himself that he would never let any group that he had anything to do with do any overdubbing. What you hear is what we’ve got.”
“Well, they came in here with a set of drums, a guitar and a bass. I kept telling Billy, I said, ‘Billy, I’ve got to overdub.’ He said, `Bill won’t allow it. No way.’
“I said, ‘When you play loud enough, nobody will know the difference.’ I said, ‘Dusty (Hill) can play 5th on the bass and the overtones will fill in. So he can basically play chords.’ He said, ‘Bill won’t let me do it.’
“About 1 o’clock that afternoon, it was getting sort of rough,” Robin said. “I looked at Billy and winked, and I said, ‘Bill, You promised Billy and the boys you were going to bring us some barbecue from the Country Tavern. Now’s the time for you to go get the barbecue.’ He said, ‘OK, where is this place?’ ” Robin gave him directions to go out Highway 31 on the east side of Tyler and Ham took off.
“The minute the door slammed, I said, ‘Fellows, we’ve got about an hour and 20 minutes ’cause that is in the next county,’ ” Robin said, laughing.
“I said, ‘Let’s do it this way.’ I said, ‘Billy, you play a rhythm that is so smooth that you can double it.’ They played this track right quick. I went out and just took his strings and just pulled on them and de-tuned them a little. I said. ‘Now just repeat that rhythm.’ He did and everybody just went, ‘Oh, my God.’ I tilted one side to the left and one side to the right. I said, ‘Now put me some lead on there.’ And he put some lead on top of it.
“Of course, when Bill Ham got back, he said, ‘Damn, that damn Country Tavern is in the next county.’ I said, ‘We go there so much it just seems like it’s a couple of miles.’ ‘It’s 22 miles over there,’ Ham said. I said, ‘I’ll be damned, is it really?’
“Billy said, ‘We’ve stumbled onto a sound that we love . . . see what you think about it.’
“We hit play on the recorder. Bill just stood there and his jaw dropped open. He said, ‘That is what I’ve been wanting to hear.’ And they said, ‘You want us to record all of them that way?’ ‘Yeah.’ They were all smiling and everything.
“He stopped and listened. He said, ‘Did you guys overdub?’ And I said, ‘Bill, you have one set of drums, one bass player and one guitar player. Of course we overdubbed. But don’t worry about it in person because as long as they play well and loud enough nobody will miss the other overdubs.’
“I said, ‘When you’re just a little speaker this big around on a transistor radio, you’ve got to add some character to the sound that the room will do when you’re playing live.’ We argued for about an hour. Ham said, ‘OK, you promise me you can pull it off in person?’ ‘I promise you they can.’ ”
“We had to roll the bass amp out of the vocal booth, where it had been put to isolate it. I said, ‘All right you guys, turn it up loud.’ We pulled the drums out of the drum booth, right out into the middle of the studio. I said, `Do this the way you just did it.’ We sat Bill down and just burned his ears off. I said, ‘See, we can do it.’ He said, ‘OK, OK.’ That’s the way we did all of them. We sold him on the overdub.”
My question: “Why did Bill keep coming back? Since he was having so many problems, why did he keep coming back to you?”
“Well, I was one of the very few studios at the time that wouldn’t throw people out for playing as loud as they played,” Robin said. “It’s funky. They felt comfortable. I’m easy to work with. I try to make it fun and relaxed and easy.”
The first four ZZ Top albums, originally released on London Records, have been the biggest sellers to come out of Robin Hood Studios.
Not willing to rest on his rock ‘n’ roll laurels, Robin added, “I did a Christian album that won a gold album.” A group called Candle put out an album in 1978 called Bullfrogs and Butterflies. They were part of a Christian group called Agape Force. They lived on a farm north of Tyler near the town of Lindale at the time. “It was mostly a children’s Christian album,” he said. “It was very unique.”
I asked if he’d ever recorded Don Henley. “Yeah, when he had a group called the Four Speeds. They came down and did some songs. Richard Bowden was with them at the time.”
He added, “It’s really funny. When you’ve been in it as long as I have, I was so busy working day and night that there were people who later became huge stars that came though and I didn’t even remember having seen them. Sometimes they’d come in at 2 in the afternoon and we’d record until 4:30 in the morning. I’d be dealing with the business guy, getting paid and getting all the masters ready.”
So some 40 years after they first recorded in Robin’s studio, the Five Americans and Richard Bowden have made return appearances.
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Jim Fogarty


From:
Phila, Pa, USA
Post  Posted 1 Aug 2017 2:00 pm    
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Not sure what the common practice of overdubbing in the studio has to do with playing to tracks, live????

Anyone with any kind of ear knows that ZZTop.....and most every act......overdub on records.
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Bryan Daste


From:
Portland, Oregon, USA
Post  Posted 1 Aug 2017 3:56 pm    
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http://youtubedoubler.com/?video1=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DBIDNJKe--Fw&start1=0&video2=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DdVxRoumz9Vo&start2=23&authorName=test

You can play them both side by side. Sync is a little fiddly.
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Chris Walke

 

From:
St Charles, IL
Post  Posted 2 Aug 2017 5:52 am    
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Joey Ace wrote:
Quote:
I wonder what's behind those "amps."



Question




Laughing I have that very same model of tape recorder buried somewhere in my music room. Never suspected I could pull it out and fake my playing!
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Jeff Harbour


From:
Western Ohio, USA
Post  Posted 2 Aug 2017 6:47 am    
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gary pierce wrote:
Looks like a milli vanilli job to me. Laughing


Or maybe 'turning up the fire on another dancing chicken'...
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Fred Treece


From:
California, USA
Post  Posted 4 Aug 2017 7:41 am    
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Greg Cutshaw wrote:
So a crowd attract a crowd and everyone has a good time. Are none of the audience true music lovers and did none of them come to see a live performance? What degree of fakery is acceptable? Why not as James above alludes to, just put body doubles on stage for ZZTop and complete the charade and of course still collect all the ticket fees.

Or go see a ZZ Top tribute band. You'll get a real show and a better performance. I'm not sure but I think a lot of these tribute acts are authorized by the original artist.

Love that term, "lap syncing".
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James Kerr


From:
Scotland, UK
Post  Posted 4 Aug 2017 11:35 am    
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The most popular Music show on BBC TV in the UK and syndicated to over 100 other countries, banned Miming in response to complaints from the Musicians Union in 1966. Their members who played on recordings in the studio when the management discovered the "Stars" were actually useless, went unpaid when these Stars mimed on TV to the original recordings. See these notes.

Miming[edit]

Main articles: Lip-syncing and Miming in instrumental performance

Initially acts performing on the show mimed to the commercially released record, but in 1966 after discussions with the Musicians' Union, miming was banned.[59] After a few weeks during which some bands' attempts to play as well as on their records were somewhat lacking, a compromise was reached whereby a specially recorded backing track was permitted – as long as all the musicians on the track were present in the studio.[60][61] The TOTP Orchestra, led by Johnny Pearson, augmented the tracks when necessary. This set-up continued until 1980, when a protracted Musicians' Union strike resulted in the dropping of the live orchestra altogether and the use of pre-recorded tracks only.[62] This accounts for a number of acts who never appeared on the show due to their reluctance to perform in this way. Highlights have included Jimi Hendrix who, on hearing someone else's track being played by mistake (in the days of live broadcast), mumbled "I don't know the words to that one, man", Shane MacGowan of The Pogues' drunken performance of "Fairytale of New York", a performance of "Roll with It" by Oasis in which Noel and Liam Gallagher exchanged roles with Noel miming to Liam's singing track and Liam pretending to play guitar, and John Peel's appearance as the mandolin soloist for Rod Stewart on "Maggie May".

The miming policy also led to the occasional technical hitch. A famous example of this is the performance of "Martha's Harbour" in 1988 by All About Eve where the televised audience could hear the song but the band could not. As the opening verse of the song beamed out of the nation's television sets, the unknowing lead singer Julianne Regan remained silent on a stool on stage while Tim Bricheno (the only other band member present) did not play his guitar. An unseen stagehand apparently prompted them that something was wrong in time to mime along to the second verse. The band were invited back the following week, and chose to sing live.[citation needed]

Occasionally bands played live, examples in the 1970s being The Four Seasons, The Who, John Otway, Sham 69, Eddie and the Hot Rods, Jimmy James and the Vagabonds, Heavy Metal Kids, Elton John, Typically Tropical, New Order, and David Bowie. In 1980, heavy metal band Iron Maiden played live on the show when they refused to mime to their single "Running Free". Solo artists and vocal groups were supposed to sing live to the Top Of The Pops Orchestra. Billy Ocean, Brotherhood Of Man, Hylda Baker and The Nolans all performed in this way.

For a few years from 1991, the show adopted a live vocal to pre-recorded backing track policy. Performing "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain dropped his voice an octave and changed the opening line to "Load up on drugs, kill your friends"; the band also made it very clear that they were not playing their instruments. (Cobain later said during an interview that he wanted to sound more like Morrissey during the performance.) It also exposed a number of poor live singers, and was dropped as a general rule.[63] It was not helped by the fact that it coincided with a sudden upsurge of chart success for dance tracks which were heavily sample-based and whose sound could not easily be reproduced in a TV studio – sampled vocals from other tracks had to be sung live.[citation needed]

In its final few years miming had become less and less common, especially for bands, as studio technology became more reliable and artists were given the freedom to choose their performance style. Former Executive Producer Andi Peters stated that there was "no policy" on miming and said that it was entirely up to the performer if they wanted to sing live or mime

James.
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James Kerr


From:
Scotland, UK
Post  Posted 5 Aug 2017 2:11 am    
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As a further little aside to this, I found a Tube recording I liked very much and posted it here with the comment "maybe Country Music is not quite dead yet" others commented on the recording too and I went to great lengths to find out who the Steel Players was with the help of others, only to be told by Mr. Franklin that it was he who played the Steel Guitar parts in the Studio, which is what my previous post was about.

Wonder how he feels about being paid once, while others get paid every time they pretend to play his parts in public.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDCFjYVKAkY

James.
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Fred Treece


From:
California, USA
Post  Posted 5 Aug 2017 9:14 am    
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James Kerr wrote:
Wonder how he feels about being paid once, while others get paid every time they pretend to play his parts in public.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDCFjYVKAkY
James.

Now that is very large can of worms. I doubt if there is a single lead player alive who hasn't copied a solo note for note at some point in their career, not to mention singers attempting to channel the original vocal. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Maybe even Paul Franklin has done it.

Cool song, btw.
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Jeff Mead


From:
London, England
Post  Posted 5 Aug 2017 11:07 am    
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Fred Treece wrote:
James Kerr wrote:
Wonder how he feels about being paid once, while others get paid every time they pretend to play his parts in public.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDCFjYVKAkY
James.

Now that is very large can of worms. I doubt if there is a single lead player alive who hasn't copied a solo note for note at some point in their career, not to mention singers attempting to channel the original vocal. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Maybe even Paul Franklin has done it.

Cool song, btw.


But I think you are missing the point that James was making. He wasn't talking about players who copy someone else's part - the video he posted was the band synching to the original studio recording so that was Paul Franklin's actual playing that you were hearing, not someone else duplicating his part.

Personally, I don't have a problem with that - Paul Franklin was presumably paid for his work on the original recording (which may or may not have included extra payments for airplay - depends what the contract said) and the guy in the video was paid as an actor.
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Joerg Hennig


From:
Bavaria, Germany
Post  Posted 5 Aug 2017 12:10 pm    
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It is unbelievable how easily audiences, or the "masses" believe everything they see, and how the band gets away with things like that. We as steel players may notice that, but most people obviously don't. I'm glad I stopped going to ZZ Top shows long ago, I liked them on their early records, wish they could have stayed that way. But, whoever actually recorded the steel part did a great job, sounds like a cross between Ralph Mooney and Tom Brumley.
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Fred Treece


From:
California, USA
Post  Posted 5 Aug 2017 2:54 pm    
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Jeff Mead wrote:

But I think you are missing the point that James was making. He wasn't talking about players who copy someone else's part - the video he posted was the band synching to the original studio recording so that was Paul Franklin's actual playing that you were hearing, not someone else duplicating his part.

Personally, I don't have a problem with that - Paul Franklin was presumably paid for his work on the original recording (which may or may not have included extra payments for airplay - depends what the contract said) and the guy in the video was paid as an actor.


James said "every time they pretend to play his parts in public". That is Kacey Musgraves' band in the video. It is not a public performance, and they are probably not actually playing (although they probably could play the recorded parts. The steel player has obviously done some homework on it). Not to beleaguer the point, but dang that looks and sounds like Willie Nelson too. I'm sure Paul Franklin knows how to authorize his contracts for this kind of thing.

This response will doubtless conflagrate things even further. Apologies for that.I think we all get the point being made by the OP, but James' post put a twist on it.
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