love of traditional country music causing PSG to die

Bo Legg · Post by **Bo Legg** » 16 Jun 2011 11:49 am

From my research it appears that your great love of traditional country music ( music that the public is familiar with) is contributing to the decline of Steel Guitar. I know this sounds strange but it is true.

The public wants original recordings of Traditional Country and live performances of Traditional Country performed by the original Artist (and they could care less about who or what musical instruments are used by the live band).
In other words unless you’re playing Country live with the original artist you're pretty much going to be out of a job or you're going to be playing low money small venue imitation Traditional Country and those few folks who'll pay to see and hear that could care less if you show up with a Steel Player.
The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the problem not Nashville. The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self-destructing.
Over 40% of the music purchased today is "catalog items," meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with. Older established artists. This is also true on the live concert. They only want the original Artist and can care less about the band.

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 16 Jun 2011 11:55 am

...not!

Kevin Hatton · Post by **Kevin Hatton** » 16 Jun 2011 12:50 pm

Bo (is that even your real name?) What is your expertise or background experience that allows you to make such a statement? Do you even play steel? Your statement is way off the mark. The kind of music that you play at a given venue is key to audience satisfaction. Traditional country or otherwise. Do you do research for a living? Love of traditional country music is what is keeping the pedal steel alive. It will never die.

Leslie Ehrlich · Post by **Leslie Ehrlich** » 16 Jun 2011 1:37 pm

I agree wholeheartedly with Bo's statement. The country stereotype is a major factor in scaring people away from pedal steel guitar.

Franklin · Post by **Franklin** » 16 Jun 2011 2:06 pm

Bo,

....I can't say I disagree.......From an overview of the music industry in general...Its difficult to argue with the points you've made......There is a lot of accuracy in your observations.....

Paul

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 16 Jun 2011 2:18 pm

Well, fellas, in light of that information, what's to keep us all from packing it in right now?

Sonny Jenkins · Post by **Sonny Jenkins** » 16 Jun 2011 3:22 pm

,,,,,"Greed and corruption is the problem not Nashville",,,news flash!!!!,,Greed and corruption IS Nashville.

Let's not forget the "roots" of country music. The "Music" in "Music City" was started by an insurance company (out to make a buck?), National Life and Accident, who happened to have, among the other investments insurance companies have, a radio station,,(how convenient). A hard working debit salesman would cover the hills and dells of rural America, i.e. Eastern Tennessee and those great smokey mountains where "country" music was being picked on a banjo and sawed on a fiddle on most every front porch. "Hey Mr. Hatfield, ole Bubba there picks a pretty good guitar,,if you'll buy one of our policies, I'll take him to Nashville and get him on the radio where all the kin folks can hear him". So off goes Bubba to Nashville (along with several more Bubbas) and they gits to sang and pick on the radio!!!,,and guess what,,,the radio station SELLS advertising (make a buck off of ole Bubba comin' and goin'!!!),,,kinda reminds you of the Grand ole Opry don't it?,,,course Bubba don't git paid nothing (later on they did start git'n a minimal amount),,,,hence was born "country music",,,,(Looks like them city fellers done pulled a shuck on us don't it),,,,has anything really changed??? And we wonder why the "suits" are dictating what country music is. Think about it. JMHO

Roger Shackelton · Post by **Roger Shackelton** » 16 Jun 2011 3:31 pm

Seems to me I heard that Country Music of the 30s, 40s & 50s was an embarrassment to the city of Nashville.

Theresa Galbraith · Post by **Theresa Galbraith** » 16 Jun 2011 4:45 pm

We're moving on UP!

Jamie Lennon · Post by **Jamie Lennon** » 16 Jun 2011 5:26 pm

What Theresa said !

Tony Glassman · Post by **Tony Glassman** » 16 Jun 2011 5:38 pm

Forget Nashville.......Texas is the new Nashville

Bo Legg · Post by **Bo Legg** » 16 Jun 2011 6:21 pm

Kevin Hatton wrote:Bo (is that even your real name?) What is your expertise or background experience that allows you to make such a statement?

Kevin When I keep hearing That Steel Guitar is dying and That traditional country is the only thing keeping it alive I decided to research it thoroughly before I agree with that opinion.
As I researched the subject and became more informed I came to the conclusion I drew in this topic and my name, how or if I play Steel and what kind of music I like has little to do with it.
Along with writings by various studio Steel players which included Paul Franklin there are several books by folks who are close to the industry that I think are a must regarding this topic. Also check out the book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction" by Steve Knopper (I borrowed it from a friend and I'll admit I skipped around in it a little).

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 16 Jun 2011 6:48 pm

It might be easier to just provide a link to the other 500 times this comes up... Ummm. the easiest article to write in all musicdom is the one about the death of the music industry - you call up an industry guy who used to buy a new Cadillac every year with the money he made off the talents of others, and he'll tell you how the evil "downloaders" are taking food from his li'l chillun's mouths. One interview, one article, or you could just as easily reprint last year's.

The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it.

- Bo
http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/2011/03/c ... s-in-2010/ - CDBaby.

It would seem that the -thousands- , no make that tens of thousands of artists who now get to keep the majority of the money generated by their music sales are pretty happy about it, but it would be a lot of work for a reporter to actually seek out a real, playing musician, while the record co. executive is pretty much just sitting around anyway. Among my guitar students, serious about music - no one listens to the radio at all! not a SINGLE ONE... they get their new references from the "sound likes..." referrals at Pandora, from iTunes freebie trials of new artists, but mostly from word-of-mouth. The radio world only exists to serve old people. To use a computer to go online and complain there's no new music? Dag nab, you're dying of thirst in the middle of the river.

You're sitting RIGHT IN FRONT of the greatest democratizing machine the music world has ever seen. Granted, everybody out there is trying to make money - but YOU choose what you listen to, not them.

The music industry is dying a slow death.

Hallelujah! It's way past time. And even though CB Baby has even reported a slight decline in CD sales - because more people are buying single downloads, which is certainly one way consumers are serving notice that they're not going to buy a $16 CD to get one or two decent songs - overall CD sales are still up, because of bands and artists selling more and more of their product directly to listeners. One big new bump has been the ability to purchase a CD of the concert you just heard - this used to be just a few of the bigger jam bands, but now there are services that make it available to every band that wants it.

Over 40% of the music purchased today is "catalog items," meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with. Older established artists.

- That's great news, if you can even trust the usual "industry sources." This means that over 50% of of the music purchased is by newer, younger bands, who are getting the sales through genuine talent and "listen BEFORE-you-buy".... what can you say but, "it's about time!"
1st rule: turn OFF your radio....
http://www.pandora.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Genome_Project
http://www.cdbaby.com/
http://www.apple.com/itunes/

Well, fellas, in light of that information, what's to keep us all from packing it in right now?

I play music because I love to play music? If getting rich was the point, I've already made enough bad decisions to guarantee failure, for sure.

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 16 Jun 2011 7:10 pm

David, my comment was made based on the posts of Bo, Leslie, and Paul Franklin. It had nothing to do with getting rich playing the psg.

Bob Simons · Post by **Bob Simons** » 16 Jun 2011 7:11 pm

Bo- you might as well quite flogging a dead horse. Other than those seeking technical information and generally useful information, this a forum of myopic people dedicated to the one form of music closest to their hearts to the exclusion of everything else.

Personally while I can admire the technique and cleverness of traditional steel players, I'm weary of hearing the same licks to endlessly redundant tunes. There is no great distinction in memorizing and reproducing something done 40 years ago (except in the classical performance sense, and in that I include classic country.)

I want to hear something new and I'd like to hear it on the pedal steel. Why is that a big deal? (Who memorizes other people's licks and looks for places to stick them in anyway? That is study and practice, but Is that really playing music?)

For that matter playing other types of music just to show it can be done is of limited interest. How many times can you hear "The Flight of the BumbleBee" played on a comb and tissue paper?

Give it up Bo. It's a hopeless argument.

Let's all quite yapping and go play guitar!

Dave Hopping · Post by **Dave Hopping** » 16 Jun 2011 7:58 pm

Well,the advent of digital recording technology makes it feasible for anyone to make master-quality recordings right at home,and the Internet makes it possible to sell or give those recordings to anyone on the surface of the Earth who has a computer,so in that sense the starmaker machinery that controlled who made the Top 40 is a shadow of its former self.

But I do think the rumors,however exaggerated, of the demise of music have an uncomfortably large basis in fact.Most of the so-called music business is local live performance,usually of cover tunes,by local players in local bars and fraternal organizations,and it's that part of the business that has been regulated to the point of non-existence.It's all that local stuff night after night that gave players the means to learn how to perform.Think Beatles in Hamburg.You can't make good music if you can't make music ALL the time,and you can't make music all the time unless it pays well enough to make the day job irrelevant.And that,folks,is most specifically not what's happening.Most of us know why.

Bo,I gotta disagree with you on the relevance of:
Your real name.Most of us are comfortable with using our real names.If Paul Franklins's name(or Bruce Bouton's or Russ Pahl's or Lloyd Green's) is good enough for any of those SGF'ers,what's YOUR reason for anonymity?
Same with not saying what,or if,you play.We are a community of people whose interest is steel guitar.Most of us DO play.Someone who won't discuss his playing sounds more like one of those "suits" than he sounds like a musician.Sorry!

Leslie Ehrlich · Post by **Leslie Ehrlich** » 16 Jun 2011 10:33 pm

David Mason wrote:The radio world only exists to serve old people.

Before this thread fizzles out I need to throw my two cents in regarding the above quote:

Commercial radio and network television are two media that an older generation grew up with, and since the 1950s (when teenagers were discovered as a lucrative market) they have been fixated with providing entertainment that appeals to a younger generation. And the way to get to that younger generation is to provide entertainment that reflects the current styles and trends. These media are still doing that in spite of the fact that teens and young adults have alternative ways of obtaining entertainment.

So what is happening is that there are some members of an older generation hanging on to 'traditional' media (i.e. network TV and commercial radio) and complaining about entertainment geared toward a shrinking audience of younger viewers and listeners. Meanwhile, the executives of the corporations who control the traditional media are wringing their hands over declining ratings.

Bo Legg · Post by **Bo Legg** » 17 Jun 2011 2:23 am

David 178 million divided among all the musicians and singers in the world wouldn't buy each one a tic-tac, a 178 billion wouldn't help a whole lot.
The Music industry as we know it, the post office, checks, newspapers, books, land line telephone, television will soon all be a thing of the past.
Many of the possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in "the cloud."
Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing. In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That's the good news. But, will you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big "Poof?" Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical?
Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest "cloud services." That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud and we may have to buy Cloud Stocks from a Virtual Stockbroker.

Owen Barnes · Post by **Owen Barnes** » 17 Jun 2011 2:30 am

Well thought out and "well" experienced comments are what I gleaned from this thread. I play "live", "creative" music because it is for people who truly enjoy it. Also, I love the creativity that steel playing has "unleashed" in me. The Nashville thing started hittin home to me a few years back in becoming great friends with a local, much listened to, DJ (who eventually hit the big time with WSM in Nashville) who shared with me "real world" scenarios in the radio business about things like his station bringing in the "suits" from far removed places (not central and south Texas where he was on the radio at the time i.e., San Antonio, TX). These "suits" (and don't get me wrong, I had to wear one for years), would dictate what was to be played even though most of the music was far removed from what the local's were wanting to listen to. So, bottom line, keep on taking the music to those who REALLY WANT TO hear what you're doing. Even if you "break even" on the $$. I do believe that REAL talent ultimately prevails anyway. Sorry for the ramblin guys, but it woke me up (in a good way).

Bob Simons · Post by **Bob Simons** » 17 Jun 2011 4:17 am

Bo I appreciate your insights about disposability in our society and the ephemeral nature of these slices of our aesthetic life we call music and art and the best examples of which we used to cherish and venerate. Generational change has been much accelerated of late without the glue of traditional ways of doing things. This unbounded freedom is great, but when everyone writes their own script in their own language it can be disorienting.

The classical country/steel crowd seems to me to be exceptionally slow to change in any modern sense. And OF COURSE the important music to any of us is the music of OUR lives. NOBODY LIKE'S THE WAY TIME AND THEIR KIDS CHANGE EVERYTHING! Spend an afternoon with my 88 year old mother trying to get me to listen to Rosemary Clooney or some such and complaining about hiphop and you will recall what I mean.

Don't thin I don't like country music. I sit there and sing along with all the great tunes in my lifetime, many of which are country tunes. But I want the pedal steel in my hands to be my voice, not just a way to clumsily recall the past.

The same issue of freedom and the disposability of our lives and efforts came to my mind when I examined the last two years of my diligent and hard-earned visual artistic production and found that it all fit neatly on one easily overlooked, lost, and forgotten DVD! I've gone back to painting pictures. They are much harder to throw away!

By the way, where is HANKEY???? All this elevated diction must certainly have caught his eye by now!javascript:emoticon(':D')

Kenny Martin · Post by **Kenny Martin** » 17 Jun 2011 5:21 am

I would have to agree with the Greed factor as i have seen that first hand.

As for nobody caring if there is a steel player?

Can't speak on anywhere else but i promise you in West Columbia SC they stand in line every thursday night from 7 to 10:00 at a small place called Vellas Resturant to hear it.

Not that i'm that good, but they come to hear me play and i can't get to the bathroom on break from the people that love steel guitar. I know its small town USA and doesn't have any impact on the big picture you described, but its pretty cool!

Ages are from 10 to 75 and we only play real country!
Connie Smith, Loretta, Jones, Womack, Price, Tillis, Paycheck and the list goes on. I'm ask more than not if i know Paul Franklin, Buddy Emmons, Tommy White and a few others. I was amazed at how many younger people knew who these awesome players were!

I played last night and a request came from a 25 year old for "There stands the glass" and he said Web's version. I made a sorry attempt at playing it as a instrumental because the singer didn't know it but the crowd was defining with applause when i finished palying!

People say you can't find a steel player anywhere and the owner of the resturant only let's us play because of the steel. He said if he finds another real country band with a steel he would let them play!

Ok, so to stop ramblin, i hope it stays on the level of a small town USA place because steel is what they come to hear. The tip jar ended up with $412 for the night!
I don't feel i'm even qualified to comment but around here, greed hasn't taken over and steel is off life support and doing fine!! Thx...Bo!

PS: Thx Paul for the help with your lead on "King Of Broken Hearts"! It was a hit!!!

Jim Cooley · Post by **Jim Cooley** » 17 Jun 2011 5:36 am

"love of traditional country music causing PSG to die" like love of early Rock and Roll killed the Stratocaster?

Dennis Ellerbee · Post by **Dennis Ellerbee** » 17 Jun 2011 6:52 am

I totally disagree with you Bo. Yeah I don't like what is coming out of Nashville anymore than the rest of you, but you have to adjust your playing to fit the times. I play all over including Nashville, and I can 100% tell you that people do care about the musicians that are playing. They love the steel guitar no matter what age. I have young and old come up to me all the time and tell me how good it sounds. I play with a new up and coming singer - songwriter that is writing great material. He is young, but loves the steel guitar. He wants it in his music no matter what. When he is signing his CD's, they also want the band members to sign. That blows your theory about the fans only caring about the main singer. This happens all the time. I love the old country as well as anyone, but to keep playing and supporting the steel guitar you have to adjust. You have to have an open mind to succeed in this business!

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 17 Jun 2011 7:10 am

I didn't take up the steel guitar because of how popular it is. I didn't become a musician to get rich. It's just something I had to do and I did it. Lots of things have changed in my lifetime, not only the music industry. So what? I will continue to make music the way I always have. My mortgage payments are not riding on it.

Marc Jenkins · Post by **Marc Jenkins** » 17 Jun 2011 7:21 am

I'm hearing lots of steel these days, on new recordings from non-country artists. Bon Iver (Greg Leisz playing with multiple 80's synth tones!), Ray Lamontagne, Raphael Saadiq, Dawes, Patrick Watson, Maggie Bjorklund, Fleet Foxes, Okkervil River, to name a few.

Lots of my musician pals have commented on how much steel they're noticing too, and how much they like it! I heard the word renaissance used twice this week.

Can't be that bad.

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love of traditional country music causing PSG to die

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