African/Latin/Hawaiian Steel-VIDEO

[Steve Cunningham]

This was originally inspired by Congolese Soukous music and quickly went it’s own way…much fun to play! (featuring 3 Horseshoe pickups)

https://youtu.be/JxQczlq9cyw

[John Rockefeller]

Fantastic!

[John Laidler]

Love it!

Thanks Steve.

[Tim Whitlock]

Wonderful! You have such a unique and masterful style Steve!

[Joe A. Roberts]

Wow that is some awesome playing and the underlying groove is so cool, like a Congolese musical vacation to the Caribbean!
How did you make/get that awesome backing track?

[Paolo Conti]

Love it too ! Thanks for sharing Steve !

[Lee Baucum]

Well, that was fun.

My foot is still tapping to the beat and the video ended some time ago!

~Lee

[David Matzenik]

So good to be able to see what you are doing. Some of those syncopations are pretty slick. Wonderful music.

[Nathan Laudenbach]

THAT music should be on the radio, so good. What tuning or tunings?

[Steve Cunningham]

Fantastic!

Thanks John!

[Steve Cunningham]

Love it!

Thanks Steve.

Thanks John!

[Steve Cunningham]

Wonderful! You have such a unique and masterful style Steve!

Thanks Tim!

[Steve Cunningham]

Wow that is some awesome playing and the underlying groove is so cool, like a Congolese musical vacation to the Caribbean!
How did you make/get that awesome backing track?

Thanks Joe. I found the soukous drum loop and played bass & guitar over it.

[Steve Cunningham]

Love it too ! Thanks for sharing Steve !

You’re welcome. Thanks Paulo!

[Steve Cunningham]

Well, that was fun.

My foot is still tapping to the beat and the video ended some time ago!

~Lee

Yeah Lee, my foot was still tapping the next day…such fun music to play!

[Steve Cunningham]

So good to be able to see what you are doing. Some of those syncopations are pretty slick. Wonderful music.

Thanks David.

[Steve Cunningham]

THAT music should be on the radio, so good. What tuning or tunings?

Thanks Nathan. They were all tuned to Open E

[Levi Gemmell]

Congolese rumba is the only other music to make an impression on me as deep as Hawaiian music in the past decade - the latter being the reason that I even started to play the steel! I've been exploring very similar ideas myself.

Interesting that Docteur Nico introduced the steel guitar to Congolese rumba before 1960, but he used it basically for effects on a few recordings, and never really attempted either fast runs or full legato melodies. It makes sense that his gifted style of playing electric guitar was never going to be the thing he tried with a steel.

However for us, it makes so much sense to play the fast runs and the harmonised scales!

All the things that the great Congolese soloists did with their electrics are things that steel was made to do: especially the so-called "mi-solo," the riffs which sit in between the improvising lead and the rhythm guitar, so easily executed in say, C6th, playing harmonised thirds on adjacent strings, etc.

As a side note on Demola Adepoju's pedal steel playing in King Sunny Ade's Nigerian group: it seems to have much more in common with Docteur Nico's early style than it does with typical E9 playing or anything else, even though Ade talked about country music in interviews!

Sounds gorgeous, Steve, thanks for sharing!

[Joseph Lazo]

Love it!

[Steve Cunningham]

Congolese rumba is the only other music to make an impression on me as deep as Hawaiian music in the past decade - the latter being the reason that I even started to play the steel! I've been exploring very similar ideas myself.

Interesting that Docteur Nico introduced the steel guitar to Congolese rumba before 1960, but he used it basically for effects on a few recordings, and never really attempted either fast runs or full legato melodies. It makes sense that his gifted style of playing electric guitar was never going to be the thing he tried with a steel.

However for us, it makes so much sense to play the fast runs and the harmonised scales!

All the things that the great Congolese soloists did with their electrics are things that steel was made to do: especially the so-called "mi-solo," the riffs which sit in between the improvising lead and the rhythm guitar, so easily executed in say, C6th, playing harmonised thirds on adjacent strings, etc.

As a side note on Demola Adepoju's pedal steel playing in King Sunny Ade's Nigerian group: it seems to have much more in common with Docteur Nico's early style than it does with typical E9 playing or anything else, even though Ade talked about country music in interviews!

Sounds gorgeous, Steve, thanks for sharing!

Cool info, thanks Levi!

[Steve Cunningham]

Love it!

Thanks Joseph!