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Topic: Need a good source for history of the steel guit |
David Ziegler
From:
Lancaster, Ohio, USA
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Posted 25 Jan 2005 10:26 am |
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I have searched high and low on the internet and found only sketchy history on development and history of the steel guitar. I have become as obsessed with the history as with playing this glorious instrument. If anyone has any insights I would love to know where to search.
Dave Ziegler |
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Duane Becker
From:
Elk,Wa 99009 USA
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Posted 25 Jan 2005 1:45 pm
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| David, I do agree with you. When I was with a music group several years ago, we traveled to Nashville quite a bit. My love was Sho-Bud. I looked high and low for info and history that had been written about the company. Since I also worked at a local county historical society back home here, I was more determined. I found nothing. I began to contact old Sho-Bud employees and the older long time Nashville steel players. Over a couple of years, each time I was in Nashville, I would compile this info. I did taped interviews(still have the tapes)and put together a short history of the company and it is now on the Unofficial Sho-Bud website. But my point is this: No one is writing this stuff down. No one is thinking that just maybe the steel guitar needs a national museum. I think that the leaders of the steel guitar industry could make this happen, and I hope that someday it will. I do know that Bobby Seymour is leading a project to write a history, and I comend him for that. Sorry, didnt mean to go off into a speech. By the way, there are little bits of historical info out there, like Winnie's book and a couple of other things. Personally I have been gathering and saving steel guitar literature and catalogs over the last 30 years, and hopefully one day I can donate this to a steel guitar museum. Duane Becker |
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Dr. Hugh Jeffreys
From:
Southaven, MS, USA
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Posted 25 Jan 2005 3:35 pm
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| Start with Joseph Kekuko who was a student at the Honolulu School for Boys. When about 15 y/o, he had completed a guitar lesson and was walking home beside a RR track; he saw an iron spike; picked it up and began to slide it upon the strings (c. 1893). There is a parallel story (c. 1904) written by W.C. Handy in which he mentioned a "lonesome sound" made by a man sliding a glass bottleneck up and down the strings of a guitar in Tutwiler, Ms. I talked to Jeff Blackwell (a Forumite) recently; he is doing some research in that area. You might contact him. ---j--- |
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Jim Loessberg
From:
Austin, Texas U.S.A
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Posted 25 Jan 2005 6:16 pm
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Hello,
Herb Steiner is very knowledgable on the history of the steel guitar. I'm sure he will weigh in on this post when he sees it but you can e-mail him at www.herbsteiner.com.
Also I'd say one of the inventors of the pedal steel, forum member Buddy Emmons could tell you anything and everything you want to know.
Best,
Jim |
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David Cobb
From:
Chanute, Kansas, USA
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David Ziegler
From:
Lancaster, Ohio, USA
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Posted 26 Jan 2005 8:19 am
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| Thanks guys! Kepp the good info coming. Brads Page of Steel has the most I have found so far thanks to David Cobb. It seems to me the Country Music Hall of Fame should have some info at least as it pertains to country music. I may try to pry some info out of them. |
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Michael Johnstone
From:
Sylmar,Ca. USA
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Posted 26 Jan 2005 10:34 am
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The Japanese had a koto-like instrument which was played overhand w/a slide called a Yamoto Goto which is traceable back to China as the Ch'in and back further to India as a Vina. In the middle of the 1900s after the fall of the feudal system in Japan,the Japanese started emmigrating in large numbers for the first time. One of the first places they went was Hawaii and they took their culture,religion and music with them. I find it more likely that Joseph Kekuku was probably peeking thru the bushes at a Japanese musical event,then adapted the slide technique he saw to the instrument at hand(a spanish guitar)than the "bolt by the railroad tracks" version of the story.Regardless,he was responsible for integrating it into Hawiian culture. Also,Hawaii was a main whistle stop on the Pacific trade routes used by colonial Europeans. We know also that the uke and 6-string standard guitar were introduced to the Hawaiians by the Portugese and that the idea of singing in European harmonies of thirds and fifths was introduced by European missionaries. No disrespect to popular legend intended - quite the contrary - the Hawaiians,to their credit,took these ingredients and forged something completely unique out of them.
Now the delta blues slide style has different roots that go back to Africa and were brought over by slaves.The Africans would play the string of their hunting bow with a smooth stone to communicate w/each other without speaking during a hunt so as to not scare away their prey. Later this was elevated to an artform and practiced on special bows with gourds attached as resonators.These instruments are are still used in their intact form by slave descendents in Brazil,BTW. I saw them played onstage during the popular and long running Brazilian musical stage play "Oba Oba" some years ago here in Los Angeles. Based on their memory of that instrument,19th century slaves in America would rig a wire strung between two nails on a porch post and called it a "Diddly Bow" They would play repetitive pentatonic slide figures with a wine bottle and chant about their woes and that's really the root of that whole one-chord slide blues thing. And like the Hawaiians,they adopted it to a standard guitar - it was more portable than a front porch. BTW,the elemental "shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits" rhythmic figure popularized in early R & B by Bo Diddly and 50's rock & roll by Buddy Holly is called "Polonga". It's from Ghana and at least a thousand years old.
No doubt these two roots intertwined somewhere along the way - probably during the days of vaudville,blackfaced minstrelsy,traveling tentshows,early radio and records of the 20s and 30s,I'd guess.
From there,the hillbillies picked up on it and we know the rest.........
-MJ- |
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Dave Van Allen
From:
Doylestown, PA , US , Earth
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Roy Thomson
From:
Wolfville, Nova Scotia,Canada
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Posted 26 Jan 2005 1:02 pm
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Michael, that is a priceless posting.
I beleive you have a lot of truth in there,,,,,,and in just a few paragraphs!!
If I were ever asked about the evolution of the Steel Guitar I can think of no better resource than the information you have provided.
Thank you for taking the time to put that together.
Roy
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Bill Thomson
From:
Ocean City, Maryland, USA
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Posted 26 Jan 2005 7:48 pm
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Check out the book by Lorene Ruymar, Centerstream Publishing, The Hawaiian Steel Guitar. Excellent sourse of information with extensive documentation on the origins of the steel guitar. This book should be in every steel guitarist collection.
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Dave Boothroyd
From:
Staffordshire Moorlands
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Posted 26 Jan 2005 11:32 pm
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Don't forget the Indian Veena, an overhand slide Sitar, which was a development of an earlier Persian instrument.
Both Indian and Persian mariners sailed the Pacific since early times.
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Cheers!
Dave
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Ernie Renn
From:
Brainerd, Minnesota USA
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Posted 27 Jan 2005 2:39 am
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Check out: Ask Buddy! and the archives, too. There's a lot of information there. Have fun!
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My best,
Ernie
www.buddyemmons.com
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George Kimery
From:
Limestone, TN, USA
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Posted 27 Jan 2005 5:01 am
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| How about Carl Dixon? |
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John Lockney
From:
New Market, Maryland, USA
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Posted 27 Jan 2005 9:47 am
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There was a great article about steel guitar in the December, 2004 issue of "American History Magazine". It mostly focused the origins and history of Hawaiian guitar and then goes into how it influenced Western Swing.
My favorite part was a few lines at the very end about how pedal-steel guitar is supposed to be "ferociously difficult." They quote a banjo player saying something like “playing pedal steel guitar is like log-rolling while balancing glasses of cognac and singing Dixie, naked.”
There was a two-part article on the history of Western Swing in “Pedal Steel Guitar Magazine”
http://steelguitarmusic.com/reference.html
[This message was edited by John Lockney on 27 January 2005 at 09:49 AM.] |
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