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Topic: Here is something you don't see everyday: Franklin pedalbro |
Bill McCloskey
From:
Nanuet, NY
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George Piburn
From:
The Land of Enchantment New Mexico
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Brett Day
From:
Pickens, SC
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Posted 8 Jul 2018 8:36 pm |
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| According to Paul Franklin Sr., only 25 pedabros were built. The first country song to feature the pedabro was "Forever & Ever, Amen", then a few years later, a steel player/songwriter/record producer, Carson Chamberlain had played steel and pedabro with Keith Whitley until Keith died. Carson's pedabro was different because it had an E9th pedal steel neck and a pedabro neck-it was seen in Keith's video, "I'm No Stranger To The Rain", and also when Keith was on Austin City Limits, playing "I Never Go Around Mirrors". In the 90s, the pedabro was heard on a few Shania Twain hits, including the fourth single on her "Woman In Me" record, "If You're Not In It For Love, I'm Outta Here", played by Paul Franklin. I think Sonny Garrish had played a pedabro a few times, and a pedabro is also heard on Josh Turner's very first song, "Long Black Train", and it's also featured on "Good Directions" by Billy Currington. |
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Mark Eaton
From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
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Posted 8 Jul 2018 8:56 pm
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Bill, it’s a Pedabro.
As pointed out by Brett, Paul Sr. made 25 of these guitars.
The asking price in the past several years has been $12-$15K. The seller is saying it’s discounted from $20K. Why not say $30K - then it sounds even better.
There is a certain cool factor with these guitars, but IMO they aren't $12,000 cool unless you have money to burn.
I have been around a few of these over the years up close and personal. Nice sound, interesting concept, but lacking in volume next to a high quality modern resonator guitar.
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Mark
Last edited by Mark Eaton on 10 Jul 2018 11:24 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Dale Foreman
From:
Crowley Louisiana, USA
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Posted 9 Jul 2018 11:11 am Pedanro
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My friend and fellow steeler Joe Rodgers brought his to my house one night many moons ago and I got to play it. Very good sounding guitar and hopefully Joe will chime in here on the serial number which I think was like 2 or 3. I believe he sold it back to Sr.
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Rittenberry Prestige(2) |
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Mark Eaton
From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
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Posted 10 Jul 2018 11:20 am
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Brett did his usual fine job above in supplying some steel guitar history to the thread, but conspicuous in its absence - and I believe we have been down this road in the past in another Pedabro thread - is a CD where the Pedabro was played on almost every track: Resocasters
Resocasters came out in 2003 featuring Jimmy Heffernan and Mike Auldridge on various dobros/resonators, and Hal Rugg on the Franklin Pedabro. All three pickers are simply magnificent. After listening to Hal on this guitar, it makes me want to buy a stack of lottery tickets on the very slim chance I would win a nice chunk of dough and I could buy a Pedabro for myself.
But if you're playing at a decent sized acoustic jam, you probably have to mic the Pedabro into something like an acoustic guitar amp to be heard. Sweet tone (in a player with the chops), but as I alluded to in my earlier post - they aren't very loud.
If somehow you missed out on this album over the years you can purchase it from Jimmy Heffernan:
http://www.jimmyheffernan.com/store-2/products/the-resocasters-cd/
And what's cool for us dobro players is that Mike and Jim play in some alternate tunings beyond good ol' GBDGBD, and these are listed for each song in the CD booklet. So there's a little bit of education for the player beyond the quality of the music itself.
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Mark |
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