What tuning is this?

[Bill Leff]

https://youtu.be/c-Q9Bg6-_2A?si=ABQvNbFoD0WuHYr4

Sounds like a 6th tuning with third on top, but there’s some kind of 13th chord stuff going on in the bottom strings. Anyone know who the player is? Is it Murphy?

[Jon Light (deceased)]

I turned this up. Chalker!
Discography Of
American Historical Recordings.

[Bill Leff]

I turned this up. Chalker!
Discography Of
American Historical Recordings.

Nice one Jon!

I am totally unfamiliar with him. I can’t find anything about his non-pedal tunings but did find a post on the forum about his C6 pedal tuning and this is what the poster wrote:

Low to high, A,D,F,A,C,E,G,A,C,E

I hear thee c6 on the recording, but don’t see how he’s getting that fat dominant 13th chord (or something similar) that I associate with Leon McAuliffe’s E13 with this tuning.

[Cody Farwell]

A common 8 string version of C6 has the dom 7 in the bass. Hi-Low E C A G E C Bb G

I've transcribed some of Curly Chalker's solos before from the mid 50's when he was playing a quad stringmaster. He definitely used that tuning on one of the necks, but had some other 13 tunings on the guitar as well. There's some great footage of him on Youtube playing on the Ozark Jubilee.

[Mikiya Matsuda]

I’m pretty sure Curly is using a variation of Leon’s E13 on these.

Low - high
E D F# G# B C# E G#

https://youtu.be/q6oSZB6DLZY?si=KYZ2fUiZonCnHWhW

https://youtu.be/yL4DuIpPfeI?si=T8cjspobcI0K9ecX

https://youtu.be/F0WRV2oB4Jc?si=2Zl3Oj_E4k_NFb25

[Joe A. Roberts]

I thought it was Curly Chalker too but apparently Curly had already left for Hank Thompson’s steel chair by then:

From a thread about The Western Cherokees:
“For their two Coral label sessions in late 1951 and early 1952, rec Fort Worth. Vocals were supplied by Crawford, Johnny Rector, and Danny Brown. Some releases only credited the vocalist and not the WC's. Chalker was gone by then and Wayma "Pee Wee" Whitewing played steel. The guitarist was Tony 'Tawnee' Hall, with Les Bryan (piano), John Anderson (bass)and Jimmy Dennis (drums)”

https://steelguitarforum.com/Archives/A ... 13006.html