Bill Keith with Artie & Happy Traum 1970

[Dave Zirbel]

I bumped into Happy’s son Adam in the coffee shop yesterday and had a good long talk. Thought I would YouTube Happy & Artie since I was never familiar with their music. I was surprised to see Bill Keith with his push pull backing them up. I first learned about Bill from the Winnie Winston book, and found his pedal steel work on some obscure albums by the Blue Velvet Band, Jonathan Edward’s, and Ed Saunders(of the Fugs).

https://youtu.be/VHOSIp6RsuM?feature=shared

[scott murray]

cool footage, thanks for sharing.

Bill is one of my earliest pedal steel heroes, I owned that Blue Velvet Band album a few years before getting my first steel and his playing really inspired me. he’s best known as a melodic banjo genius and creator of the Keith tuners, it’s no surprise he was a fairly quick study on pedal steel.

I actually phoned Keith banjo tuners once and Bill himself answered the call. I spoke to him another time at Merlefest and even got him to sign my Blue Velvet vinyl. he said he just gave up on steel one day when he looked down at all those strings and could no longer orient himself. hard to believe, but I guess he was much more comfortable on 5 instead of 10.

always loved this quirky instrumental he wrote for the BVB album
https://youtu.be/SYuxzz3NkGA

[K Maul]

I knew Happy, never met Artie unfortunately. I saw them play in Woodstock a few times in early 70s. I met Bill while I was playing the festival circuit. When I (finally!) got married in 2013 he was gracious enough to play in the bluegrass band at our reception. That blew some musician minds who were attending!
A great guy and( as we know) ground breaking musician.

[Craig Stock]

We were lucky to have Bill attend and play at The PSGA show a bunch of years back, at the the time I didnt know how influencial he was.