love of traditional country music causing PSG to die

Sherman Willden · Post by **Sherman Willden** » 17 Jun 2011 7:39 am

Kenny, are you referring to Mandy Addy and the Diving Horses Band? They sound really good and thank you for sharing.

Kenny Martin · Post by **Kenny Martin** » 17 Jun 2011 11:14 am

Hey Sherman! Yep, that's us man! Thanks for the kind words.

Sorry Bo, don't mean to hi-jack!

Just "Steelin"!

Todd Brown · Post by **Todd Brown** » 17 Jun 2011 3:59 pm

I guess I'm part of the younger crowd, I'm 31 , and I can tell you that pedal steel and fiddles ,and the traditional style country is what alot of people want to hear.

I grew up with an older brother in the metal scene and even him and his friends have started listening to Paycheck, Waylon , Jones . They're wanting to start country bands with steel and fiddle. They love that old school sound.

So I got to agree with Kenny. I know it's regional, and it's a cyclical thing, but the want for pedal steel and traditional country music is just fine in the Southeast.

Kevin Hatton · Post by **Kevin Hatton** » 17 Jun 2011 5:18 pm

Bo, I think I know who you are. Would you want to reveal yourself so that we may all have a laugh? Right now I'm smiling.

Douglas Schuch · Post by **Douglas Schuch** » 18 Jun 2011 2:37 am

As perhaps the newest member of this board, I will chime in. I am an old fart, even if I have just ordered my first psg. My roots are Country Rock, Folk Rock, "Americana", blues etc. About 10 years ago I heard a psg on a Brazilian song, and realized the sound I had always heard and associated with Nashville had potential to go new places. Around the same time, I also began appreciating current trends in Nashville music, which is bigger than ever. A broken left index finger means I can never play 6 string guitar or 5 string banjo the way I once could. So, for years I stuck to my harmonica, jamming some blues. But I was frustrated by the limited scale. I love country, folk, jazz, and many other forms of music. After thinking about it for 10 years, I realized psg offered me a way to incorporate my past musical skills (rusty as an old barn nail) and move into new areas. I am eagerly awaiting the delivery of my Stageone guitar. I've been listening to songs I have not heard for 30 years that have psg in them. And I have a huge list of songs I've never heard on psg that I think are ripe for the unique sound only steel can give them. Musical styles go in and out of fashion, as do instruments. In the end, though, there are only two types of music: Great music, and all the rest. I listen to a lot of both! It is not the instrument that determines which a song is, but the musician.

Doug

Mike Perlowin RIP · Post by **Mike Perlowin RIP** » 19 Jun 2011 11:18 am

The love of traditional country music is not causing the PSG to die. It is the love of traditional country music to the exclusion of everything else that is the problem.

It’s like some of you guys are saying “I like apple pie. I know it’s delicious, so I’m not even going to try peach or cherry or blueberry pie to see what they taste like."

Now there’s nothing wrong with loving Lloyd Green’s “Live at Panther Hall" album (in which he was accompanied by Charlie Pride,) but Lloyd himself is a big fan of Susan Alcorn.

There’s a ton of steel-friendly music out there. All you have to do is open yourselves up to it. There’s Motown, Broadway, 50s pop tunes (from before rock and roll took over), Latin music, classical music, British rock tunes, R&B, the music of Burt Bacharach and Henry Mancini, even some 70's disco tunes, etc. A lot of Abba’s tunes are almost tailor made for the PSG.

Every time I hear a piece of music, regardless of genre, I ask myself “Would this be a good tune for the steel?” The answer is yes for so many songs I can’t learn even a small fraction of them.

Joe Miraglia · Post by **Joe Miraglia** » 19 Jun 2011 2:06 pm

I think that wherever country music was big, dating back to the 50's and 60's the topgun steel guitar players deliberately kept the steel guitar in a box. They were afraid that the steel guitar would go to other styles of music. It would have opened a Pandora's box as some of you country music folks would say "a keg of worms"

. To this day, many of you say that you will only play traditional country. That's part of what is hurting the steel guitar. Let's take the steel guitar out of the box and spread it around.Joe

Dave Hopping · Post by **Dave Hopping** » 19 Jun 2011 2:27 pm

Mike's right about our instrument's ability to enhance a great deal of music with which it has no present connection.That's because steel is identified with country music's Southern,agrarian,rural,traditional,religious,male,and white roots,and those states of being do not play at all well with the urbanized,cosmopolitan cultural mainstream-see "Deliverance" for what they think of us.
As far as I'm concerned the mainstream's dislike of steel guitar is their bias and their problem.It isn't my job to educate the proletariat,and although I applaud Mike's efforts along those lines,as well as the ethereally beautiful music he shares here with us,I think he's given himself rather a Sisyphean task .Me,I'm happy wearing a cowboy hat at work doing my pedal-mashing for the folks who already get it.

All that notwithstanding,once in a great while I do get to work for an audience with some members who DON'T get it,and I have to say it's nice to hear the applause when they DO get it.

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 19 Jun 2011 3:11 pm

It’s like some of you guys are saying “I like apple pie. I know it’s delicious, so I’m not even going to try peach or cherry or blueberry pie to see what they taste like."

I don't think that love of traditional country music is the root problem. So I agree with Mike with this extension: It's even more than "I like apple pie. I don't want to try anything else." Frequently on this board (which certainly includes a lot of steel players), it's, "I like apple pie. I don't want to try anything else, because everything else is crap. Anybody who would eat that other crap is a degenerate loser."

If that stereotyped image of a steel player becomes ingrained in the music biz, it will be a problem for the steel guitar. But I don't think this will happen because I believe that, frankly, most real steel players who are visible in the music biz are much more open-minded. But I think it is somewhat of a problem for this forum, because it leads to far too many completely unnecessary musical 'turf wars'. I don't really care what anybody else listens to or plays - go for it - but can we just let these turf wars go? Frank Zappa still said it best - "Shut up and play yer guitar."

You should not take this the wrong way. I love hardcore traditional country music. I hear many times, "Oh, jeez, Dave - pleeeeze - not another crying in your beer whining country song." To me, apple pie really is great. But rhubarb pie, chocolate cake, cream puffs, fruit torts, and blueberries in cream can also be great once a taste is acquired for them, and the people that eat them are legitimate dessert lovers. Some of them even love apple pie.

Bo Legg · Post by **Bo Legg** » 19 Jun 2011 3:57 pm

Kevin Hatton wrote:Bo, I think I know who you are. Would you want to reveal yourself so that we may all have a laugh? Right now I'm smiling.

I knew sooner or later someone would see through my phony beard.

Mike Perlowin RIP · Post by **Mike Perlowin RIP** » 19 Jun 2011 6:24 pm

Dave Hopping wrote: I applaud Mike's efforts along those lines,as well as the ethereally beautiful music he shares here with us,I think he's given himself rather a Sisyphean task .

I didn't know what Sisyphean task meant so I looked it up, and it doesn't apply. According to the legend, Sisyphis was condemned to eternal failure and frustration. He was to never achieve his goal, no matter how hard he tried and how much effort he out into it.

You guys have to understand, you may be my friends, but you are not my intended audience. My goal is not to introduce classical music to people who play and love the steel guitar, but rather to introduce the steel guitar to people who play and love classical music. And I've already had a small degree of success with that. My CDs are now on a classical music label that caters exclusively to that audience, I played in a chamber music trio whose other members played with the L.A. Philharmonic and Pasadena symphony, and I've been invited to perform next year as a guest soloist with this group:

http://www.palosverdes.com/peninsulawinds/

I'm currently in the process of writing the music for the occasion.

All the trio's performances were for classical music audiences who for the most part had never seen a pedal steel guitar before. And at every performance, I gave a 30 second lecture and demonstration of how it works, and invited the musicians in the audience to come and sit at it and try it or after the performance.

I can't say that I've achieved all that I wish to. (At least not yet.) But unlike the legendary Sisyphus, I do seem to be making progress.

Twayn Williams · Post by **Twayn Williams** » 19 Jun 2011 7:02 pm

Oddly enough, this thead has got me jonesin' to play some doom/black metal on PSG. I wonder what'd be a good tuning/copedant for that??

Kevin Hatton · Post by **Kevin Hatton** » 19 Jun 2011 8:00 pm

Bo, I thought so!

David Mason · Post by **David Mason** » 19 Jun 2011 11:34 pm

"I like apple pie. I don't want to try anything else, because everything else is crap. Anybody who would eat that other crap is a degenerate loser."

It seems to me that a very large percentage of everybody who was a real game-changer was one time or another called "a degenerate loser", at least the ones in my lifetime. Can you say, "Elvis?"

Those disgusting, long-haired Beatles... Jimi Hendrix, humping his guitar and burning it! But, I'm pretty sure Granny had it in for Frank Sinatra, all those screaming bobby-soxers passing out from, ahem, "exhaustion"... truth be, radical musicians like Chuck Berry, Bix Beiderbecke and Amadeus Mozart did turn out to be pretty degenerate, but they did a lot of winning too, didn't they.

Joachim Kettner · Post by **Joachim Kettner** » 20 Jun 2011 4:55 am

For as long as I've listened to music, where steel was part of, there were always examples where it was played in a non- Country context.
Is "High Time" by the Dead country? "Heart Of The Night" by Poco? John Mc Fee's Clover with almost Disco like sounding stuff, I could name hundreds more.
But a good traditional country band, how can it cause the steel to die?
I think when traditional or neo- traditional Country fades it's bad for steel players.
I don't think that the new wave of bands or singer/ songwriters will compensate for it.

Dave Hopping · Post by **Dave Hopping** » 20 Jun 2011 8:06 am

I think that the composition and performance of music is not quite the same thing as eating sweets,and that the perversions of famous entertainers are less germane to public well-being than,say for example,the perversions of those who wield political power.

Maybe the reason I personally love country music is that country music is where one is most likely to hear steel guitar.My appreciaton of the cultural context came later on.Where some might consider country music a ghetto,I consider it something of an oasis,but I do take the position that if you add steel guitar in musical places where it doesn't usually appear,what you get is better music.And if listeners think it sounds "more country",that's better yet.

Mike Cass · Post by **Mike Cass** » 21 Jun 2011 11:43 pm

This is all well and fine, but if in 250 years this little orb in space is still holding its own, they'll be talking about Buddy Emmons and Jimmy Day and their musical genius, and scratching their heads asking how it was that the music that those fellows contributed to/partially invented was lost for so long? Followed by the inevitable question; "what in the hell was everyone thinking back in the 21st century?" Then some smartass will cue up a ca. 2011 Top 40 Country Radio hit into everyone's aural-cybernetic music link and they'll all collectively sigh and exclaim; "...oh yeah, right, we remember now."
Thats why I endeavor to keep the push/pull's in working order....they will be needed.

Herb Steiner · Post by **Herb Steiner** » 22 Jun 2011 4:29 am

Mike Cass wrote: Thats why I endeavor to keep the push/pull's in working order....they will be needed.

Amen, brother. Amen.

Johan Jansen · Post by **Johan Jansen** » 22 Jun 2011 7:40 am

The world keeps turning in it's self choosen direction, and we are on it.
Go with the flow, stay open to all musical influences that will reach your ears. Decide what you like or not and play what you like. Believe in your own taste and believe me , you will not be alone with that taste. As long as I don't have to live from just playing steel,I have the luxuery to play the music that I like and leave out the music that is not my taste. The instrument will not die, it will evaluate with the music, as long as we all stay open for that.
It is not the instrument, it's the musician that decides in this. No matter what kind of business there is, everywhere will be corruption and other bad behaving. Do your own thing and believe in that.
And if you need a Push-Pull for that, go for it!

my 5 cnts, JJ