Do you still play slide guitar?

David Doggett · Posted 26 Jul 2005 3:13 pm

I know what you are saying Jim, but that does not have to be the case. I started out playing acoustic folk and bottleneck blues. Living in North Mississippi, I sat at Fred McDowell's knee. I still play that stuff on a round-neck as good as I ever did, mostly acoustic (not that great, but passable). Later I lived in Nashville and took up Dobro and pedal steel (also not that great, but passable). It took a long time to switch from the tense, shakey blues vibrato to the slower, more relaxed country vibrato (which is more similar to classical string vibrato), but it eventually happened. I didn't play blues on pedal steel for a long time, except for myself. Because it was a sound I had never heard anyone else play. It didn't sound like something either country pickers or blues pickers would do.

Then I discovered the sacred steelers, Robert Randolph, Chuck Campbell, and the Holmes Brothers. And hallaluya - there it was. Lots faster, and way more notes than I can get, but the same sound I had been playing to myself all those years. I joined an electric blues band (Chicago blues all night long) and now play with them on a regular basis, Zum pedal steel with a Shubb-Pearse #2 bar and Fender tube amps, and tenor sax. People come up to me at the first break and say, "I heard a slide guitar, but didn't see one anywhere. Then I realized you weren't playing keyboards." I play country and alt-country pedal steel with other bands. It's a whole new ballgame out there now, thanks to Robert Randolph. People play blues, country, rock, jazz and classical music on a 6-string. There is no reason we can't play it all on a pedal steel.

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 26 July 2005 at 04:19 PM.]

Leslie Ehrlich · From: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

I tried slide guitar a couple times and never got the feel for it. The slide tends to hit the frets and I get a buzzing sound, but even the best players get a bit of a buzz because the action on a conventional six string electric guitar is too low.

Lap steel is fine for slide, but pedal steel is even better because the pedals allow for open chord changes without retuning the whole guitar.

Some PSG players might not like pedal guitar for slide because it may sound too clean or tinny, but I argue that tone largely depends on the type of amp you are using. An all tube amp with smooth singing distortion is perfect for getting a good blues slide sound out of PSG.

Jim Peters · From: St. Louis, Missouri, USA, R.I.P.

It's a very rare musician that can authentically nail different styles. The limitation in this example is more the player than the instrument.But there is no way that a steel guitar sounds like a 6 string with a tubescreamer thru a Fender. Yeah you can come close, but it ain't the same thing. JP

David Doggett · Posted 27 Jul 2005 5:02 am

What if you use a lighter bar, a Tubescreamer and a Fender tube amp? Well, I guess the pickups are wound different. What if you raise the action on a Tele and turn it over in your lap and play with a bar? I think one way or another you can get to the point where the average listener can't tell the difference.

I still would like to know if anyone can convincingly play the classic Elmore James "Dust My Broom" lick on an E9 or C6 pedal steel. My band keeps asking me to do it, but I just don't feel good with it, and I'm considering going to an electric 6-string round-neck just for when that lick is called for. But I hate to admit defeat on the pedal steel.

Should I keep trying?

David Wren · From: Placerville, California, USA

Dave, try starting on strings 5&6 in the "no pedals" position for your key chord, and end on the "pedals down" position down the neck) sluring the flated 5th string up to the key chord.... leave your fingers behind the bar up so the strings ring....

and DO use the tube screamer(:>)>=[

You be dustin' now! (don't forget b0b glare if there is another slide player on stage).

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Dave Wren
'95Carter S12-E9/B6,7X7; Session500; Hilton Pedal
www.ameechapman.com

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

Quote: "Ry C. or David L. et al can play some great stuff but I've never seen either of them try to share the stage with a pedal guitar - it's a combination that's bound to sound bad, and I don't mean that in a good way."

I'm sure Messrs. Cooder or Lindley are more than capable of sounding just fine with a PSG. They both have exquisite taste, and could find a good way to fit in, even if the PSG player couldn't. I have played steel with much lesser slide players than these guys - it can sound fine if everybody's paying attention.

Quote: "Most of the blues guitar players I know suffer not only from an accent but more importantly a small vocabulary and a lack of fluency."

This comment applies to many players in a lot of styles. From a musical structure view, blues is fairly simple music, and lends itself easily to hackdom. But sometimes getting a good overall feel is much more important than virtuosity. As with most styles, blues is hard to play well.

Quote: "The slide tends to hit the frets and I get a buzzing sound, but even the best players get a bit of a buzz because the action on a conventional six string electric guitar is too low."

Well, if you want to play slide on a guitar, the action shouldn't be too low. A compromise needs to be made between easy fretting and clean sliding. Slide players tend to use heavier strings and a somewhat higher action - still low enough to fret, but too high for most shredders. Still, I prefer a faily light touch with a glass bar.

Quote: "... but I argue that tone largely depends on the type of amp you are using. An all tube amp with smooth singing distortion is perfect for getting a good blues slide sound out of PSG."

Of course, the amp is important, but 'singing distortion' is not the only slide tone, and the guitar and pickup matter a lot. From the point of view of most guitar players I know, including me, a typical steel pickup wound to 16-20 KOhms is way overwound for the cleaner sounds. Through a real clean amp, it sounds like a pedal steel, but through a tube amp, it just sounds different than most slide guitars. Not bad, just different.

Quote: "Hard to lose that accent."

Developing an accent requires immersion. I think many accents can be developed.

Quote: "It's a very rare musician that can authentically nail different styles."

It's real tough if one tries to authentically nail lots of different instrument-dependent sounds on only one instrument. But again, one must immerse oneself in an instrument and a style to really 'own' it, most people don't have time.

Quote: "I still would like to know if anyone can convincingly play the classic Elmore James "Dust My Broom" lick on an E9 or C6 pedal steel."

I can't. I play some blues on steel, but I've never been able to play Elmore's tunes on any steel, straight or pedal. Even if I get the lick, it doesn't sound the same horizontal-style, to me. The guitar and pickups are critical, and the sliding style involves essentially no muting and tons of sliding hammer-ons and pull-offs. I've tried it on various steels with a Stevens bar or glass slide, but just never could get it to sound 'right'. These licks sound most correct, to me, on something like a thinline Gibson or Harmony/Kay archtop.

Quote: "But I hate to admit defeat on the pedal steel."

I don't think about it like that. Elmore did it his way because it fit naturally on the equipment he had. I'm sure there's way to do a reasonable approximation on a steel set up appropriately. The first thing I'd do is get a coil-tapped alnico-magnet pickup, with taps around 6-8 KOhm. But I can't see why it's important, since I've been playing this kind of thing on guitar for a long time. Why re-invent the wheel on steel?

My experience on trying to 'be all things to all people' on one instrument is that one needs to make too many compromises on each to fit the others. Each instrument has a natural voice.

Alvin Blaine · From: Picture Rocks, Arizona, USA

Wow, I've always though of a steel guitar and bottleneck slide as being two different instruments. Each having their own characteristics and tones, kind of like comparing a five string banjo with a tenor banjo.
I never thought about it as a competition or each other trying to smoke the other. Just think if that happened each time a violin player got on stage with a cello player. They both play non-fretted instruments with a bow, so someone has to try and smoke each others ass. Don't they? There's no way that two instruments like that would ever play a song together, that could never happen.

Dave Grafe · From: Hudson River Valley NY

Marty P. and others, I agree completely that pretty much any combination of instruments can coexist if everyone is paying attention. My reference was to those guitar players who think that they have to pull out a slide to "compete" with the PSG.

Dave M. I am in no way denying the superb talent and musicianship of either of the slide artists mentioned, only that from a producer/arranger's point of view it's a very difficult combination to reconcile artistically, although I'm sure that someone, someday wil find an appropriate opportunity to do so.

Jim P. your point is well made in that it refers to the players' limitations and not that of the instruments themselves. I played lots of blues and other slide stylings on six-string long before I got my first pedals, so when I get a chance to play some nasty blues stuff on the ShoBud I'm pretty stoked - I regularly go out to blues jams just to confound the guitar players and amaze the ladies.

re: the difficulty of copping Elmore James' riffs - my experience with trying this feat is that to get that sound one would have to play a strumming style which (1) is pretty durn hard with thumb and finger picks and (2) tends to strike strings on the PSG that don't exist on the six string guitar.

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Dave Grafe - email: dg@pdxaudio.com
Production
Pickin', etc.

1978 ShoBud Pro I E9, Randall Steel Man 500, 1963 Precision Bass, 1954 Gibson LGO, 1897 Washburn Hawaiian Steel Conversion

David Doggett · Posted 27 Jul 2005 10:38 am

Dave M. said:

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

Yes, I know - the old Harmony Sovereign, but I think he also used archtops. I've used lots of old Harmony flattops with the DeArmond soundhole pickups, they do sound great, but I prefer the archtops, with the DeArmond floating pickups. Those pickups are getting harder and harder to find these days, unfortunately. A good substitute is the cheaper ones on Harmony Rockets and such,
or Japanese-made Kent pickups.

I do agree, a lot of different old cheap guitars sound great in this style, since that's what most of these guys had the money for. Hound Dog Taylor - the cheesier and more knobs and doo-dads, the better.

I guess that's what I'm trying to say. A big part of what these guys sounded like is cheap old guitars with cheap, often microphonic, pickups. That's completely antithetical to the rigs most pedal steel players use, and I don't think it's that easy to put the 'grease' back in a real clean rig.

On the 'mixing' of pedal steel and slide guitar, it seems to me that that's a huge part of the modern Nashville sound. I don't like all of it, but some of it is excellent. Perhaps not a household name, but my favorite in that bag is Mike Henderson and the Bluebloods. Mike's a great guitar/slide player, and on some of his older records, he used steel players to great effect, like Steve Hinson and Tommy Spurlock.

Marty Pollard · Posted 27 Jul 2005 12:47 pm

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

Alvin Blaine · From: Picture Rocks, Arizona, USA

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

Well of course, it is the player, not the instrument. I think slide tends to lend itself more towards lick playing than melodic development; I personally find it easier to unleash coherent melodies on a pedal steel guitar than on slide. That said, if you listen to Duane Allman's slide solo on the second half of "Mountain Jam" coming out of the bass solo, it's a full two minutes of pure savage bliss - one of the finest and best-constructed solos I've ever heard. Standard tuning, so I would guess it's his '58 Les Paul, 9-42s, Coricidin bottle, cranked 100w Marshall stacks. David Lindley, Derek Trucks and Dave Easley can approach that snap and swagger too, besides tone it has a lot to do with how you get in and out of each note to shape it. It's a lot easier to work in that area with a lighter bar than with the standard 8-9 oz. steel bar.

Why didn't Duane Allman, Derek Trucks have any problem with fret buzz? Why do Dan Tyack, Dave Ristrim, Dave Easley get an "acceptably" great rip-roaring rock & roll tone out of a prissy-clean instrument like the pedal steel? Gosh, I wonder if they practiced?

[This message was edited by David Mason on 28 July 2005 at 06:35 AM.]

Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

Klaus Caprani · From: Copenhagen, Denmark

I often experimented with using a normal guitar slide on pedal steel. Sounds quite authentic (though no fret buzz).

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Klaus Caprani

MCI RangeXpander S-10 3x4
www.klauscaprani.com

Yann Obergfell · From: Gottenhouse, France - Soon in Bloomington, Indiana

...The next step is playing with a flat pick.

[This message was edited by Yann Obergfell on 28 July 2005 at 05:21 AM.]

Yann Obergfell · From: Gottenhouse, France - Soon in Bloomington, Indiana

B0B is right when he says that the pedal steel is the ultimate step in the evolution of steel guitar. So is the electric guitar; but people still bother playing those quiet, expensive and fragile acoustic flattops. Go figure...

Playing a regular gutar with a bottleneck or whatever leads to many imperfections but they are part of the sound-- depending on the style you play. On a regular guitar it's like an effect such as vibrato, tremolo, distortion. It's a certain sound people look for. Now I understand that when there already is a steel player in the band playing slide sounds redundant. Everybody knows that most guitar players have ego problems. By the way, I'm in therapy. Learning to play the pedal steel instantly cures any of those egoistic problems. You feel so stupid when you try to play a pedal steel for the first time, it is very humbling.

[This message was edited by Yann Obergfell on 28 July 2005 at 05:22 AM.]

Roger Edgington · From: San Antonio, Texas USA

Bobby, Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel. I'm with you all the way--smoke em! Although a few can play it pretty well, most make the same sounds I was trying to not make when I was first learning on a lap steel.
In all fairness, I guess it works the other way to when we play the lead players licks on steel. I think I've seen that glare before.

Buck Dilly · From: Branchville, NJ, USA * R.I.P.

Two words: Sonny.... Landreth

John Macy · From: Rockport TX/Denver CO

Man, I was just headed to post about Sonny--an absolute monster and totally unique slide player. I have had the opportunity to work with him in the studio a few times, and it is amazing to watch him work

... (and no offense b0b, but it would be mighty hard to smoke his ass

)

I also saw Duane Allman when I was 17 at the Boston Tea Party before the Brothers hit big time, and it is permanently burned into my brain--we sere stunned at the power and soul he played with.

I just put together a "lap tele" with a raised nut and the Brent Mason pickup setup (Vintage Stack Bridge, Hot Stack Strat and 1971 Gibson Minihumbucker at the neck) and Bigsby Palm Pedals on the B and G. Just got it back and can't wait to mess with it.

Paul Franklin has been playing some really great slide on a lot of newer records that most people think is Brent (like "Lesson in Leaving"). He plays a regular Tele and/or Strat in his lap for that...

Bob Smith · From: Allentown, New Jersey, USA

I was thinkin Sonny L . too. Or maybe Lowell George( the master)., but what the heck ,why not try and smoke um? bob

CrowBear Schmitt · From: Ariege, - PairO'knees, - France

Variety is the spice

& who plays a Diddly Bow ?

i have'nt
even tho' i recognize the superiority of the Steel Guitar & play mostly just that, i still play bottleneck &/or slide since so many of my heroes have.
Son House, the Black Ace, Earl Hooker, One String Sam, Bukkha White, Lonnie Johnson, Muddy Waters, Ry Cooder, Jesse Ed Davis, Duane Allman, Lowell George, Bonny Raitt, Sarah Jory, Sonny Landreth, & so many i ferget to mention.

Bob Smith · From: Allentown, New Jersey, USA

Crow, Who was " One string Sam" ? now thats sounds wild there! bob

Klaus Caprani · From: Copenhagen, Denmark

Buck you're right!
Sonny rocks!

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Klaus Caprani

MCI RangeXpander S-10 3x4
www.klauscaprani.com

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