The Decline of the Steel guitar

[Tommy Shown]

Last night while at my "day job"( which is actually my night job), I was talking to a man that I have befriended some time ago. We got talking about music in general, he brought up a point about the steel guitar not being heard enough in Country Music. Like it was back in the 60's and 70's. I informed him that it is being heard alot these days. Not only in country but other genres as well. He went on to say that when he listens to the radio and a country song plays, it's more or less drowned out by say a fuss guitar screaming in distortion. I then told him that there will always be steel guitars around. And I told him that the instrument is just as strong today as it was 40 years ago. And for him not to be discouraged.

[Buck Dilly]

And yet it seems to be appearing in many other music forms, such as Greg Leisz (with Bill Frizell) and quite a few others. I am seeing Lap steel a lot also. Too many to list, really. I do agree that the role of steel in country music has changed radically.

[Dennis Lee]

The pedal steel will survive, thanks to all the talented members of this Forum. We will promote ourselves, encourage one another, and our instrument will stand the test of time.

[Bobby Burns]

I get more calls to play alt.-rock these days than I get country calls. Personally if I were putting a country band together, I would choose the fiddle and steel player over lead guitar, if budget did not allow for all three, but I am clearly the minority, all places other than this forum. I play with some rock guys, who use me instead of a lead player when budget is an issue. Modern country bands almost never see it this way. The rock guys think that it makes them different, and different is cool. Modern country guys seem to all want to sound the same, and the same is anything but sounding like traditional country. They seem to think that the steel will make them sound to "Hokey". So what do you do? Listen to more David Lindley, Sneakey Pete, and Robert Randolph, get a distortion, and play with the guys who do actually want you.

[Mike Perlowin RIP]

My classical music trio (viola, cello and steel) has performed now at 3 concerts where we were one of several performers, and all three times we were the hit of the concert, and the steel guitar blew the audiences away.

We performed for the classical music community. Most of these people have never seen a steel before, and they find it fascinating and intriguing.

Al 3 times I had to give an informal lecture and demonstration after the concert, and let people inspect, and in some cases sit down at my steel and try to play it.

We have 3 more performances scheduled this week. (Friday night, and Saturday and Sunday afternoon)

These are all private, but I can invite a few friends to the one on Saturday afternoon. If anybody is interesated in attending, send me an E-mail and I'll give you the details.

[Greg Gefell]

I had a similar experience at a church gig we did not too long ago. After the show about 7 or 8 people came up and were fawning over the steel, asking questions, wanting a demonstration, etc. I think the steel will definitely carry on no matter how small or large the circle.

[Dave Mudgett]

The steel guitar is not declining at all. What's happened is that country music has radically changed to an amalgamation of various rock styles and country. Traditional instruments like steel and fiddle now must share the spotlight with fairly aggressive electric guitar and a more aggressive rhythm section. Not everyone uses steel, but that is not new. There's plenty of traditional country music that didn't use steel.

I think whatever is lost in country music is more than gained by steel guitar moving into other styles, as has been mentioned already. But steel has always been, and probably will continue to be, a specialty instrument. Stop complaining - it makes us "special".

[Donny Hinson]

You have to keep in mind that pedal steel was still a pretty "new" instrument back in the '60s, having been around (popularly) only since the mid '50s. It was in the forefront of country music until the mid '70s, when the novelty started to wear off. About that time, use of the synthesizer and the "urban cowboy" craze both became very popular, and as a result, country music became less and less "country sounding". The use of pedal steel in bands dropped off dramatically in the '80s as more and more line dance bands that didn't have (or didn't want) pedal steel got popular. The instrument has only recently begun a small resurgence, but, it will likely never regain the popularity it had in the '60s and early '70s, since it is no longer "new", and since the entertainment world has expanded so much (to include things other than music).

Music today is much more a visual thing and a hearing thing than it is a "listening" thing, IMHO.

[David Mason]

When I attempt modern country radio, what I hear more than anything is the death of all instrumental solos. You get a half a measure of fiddle, a half a measure of harmonica, a half measure of steel, a half measure of banjo - these serve as "signifiers" that you're still down on the farm. I personally would rather listen to a single solo from any of them with some melodic development, but to develop a 10-second solo, you have to assume that your listeners can remember anything for 8 seconds - ah the good old days.

[Kevin Hatton]

I agree Dave. Its dumbed down music. Not interesting.

[James Mayer]

People love steel guitar. Bands in "other" genres are using it to set themselves apart from the 4-piece horde.

Modern country can suck it. It's not country. It's pop with a cowboy hat. I think modern pop-country is some of the most generic and formulaic music ever recorded. I don't even like the steel guitar in that context. It's repeated cliches, just like every other part of the music.

[Jeff Evans]

The Decline of the Steel guitar

It's declined so much you can now purchase a used one for $12,500 . . . or much more if you shop at Seymour's World O' Steel.

[Donny Hinson]

Yeah, rare things do usually bring more money, don't they?

[Herby Wallace]

I really hate to add to this discussion, but sometimes I just can't hold back. I am thankful at this point in my career that I am not dependent on playing music for a living or I would have starved to death a long time ago, even though I could still stand to lose weight. I am 62 years old and starting playing lap steel in 1956. I got my first pedal steel in 1960 at age 13 and I was already playing in a garage band by then and on a local TV show. By age 15 which was 1962, I had more offers to play than I could possibly do. It wasn't that I was a seasoned pro at this age, but that steel guitar was in such demand. I landed a great 6 night a week job in Chattanooga at age 16, but I had to give it up because it was just too much to play every night and go to school. I hate to admit it, but I would have probably dropped out of school, but my parents wouldn't let me, so I did graduate in 1965. I went on the road two weeks after graduation and never had a problem getting a music job until about 7 or 8 years ago when the bottom seemed to fall out around here. The last good music job I played locally was with Jim Ed Brown, Con Hunley and Helen Cornelius which was a theatre in 1997 and 1998. I did one small theatre job after that about 7 years ago, but it only lasted one season and the money was terrible. Right now, in this area which is supposed to be noted for traditional Country Music, there are only three steel players working regularly, and two of them play several instruments and have to do that to hold the job. I still work some with Con Hunley but we have only worked 4 jobs in the past year and it used to be 6 nights a week. Of course, I still do a lot of steel guitar shows, but the local scene is terrible, and to be honest, I never dreamed that so called Country Music would end up this way. I even had a small spot job booked at a Church in the area and when they found out there was a steel guitar in the band, they cut me out as they think steel guitar is "old fashioned". It's pretty bad when a Church feels this way too, but that is a fact as I have never been told that steel guitar wasn't welcomed in Church.

I'll shut up for now, but as I said things are not looking better but worse every year around. One last thing is that pay scales never improve either. They either stay the same or go down and that is a fact too.

Herby Wallace

P.S. I don't mean to have a bad attitude, but it's just the way things are in East Tennessee.

[Jeff Evans]

Sounds like it's turned into Severeville.

[Bo Legg]

Geez! if it's that bad as high up on the food chain of steel guitar as Herby is, I'm not only going to starve but probably be exterminated down here where I'm at.

[Larry Bartram]

When I attempt modern country radio, what I hear more than anything is the death of all instrumental solos. You get a half a measure of fiddle, a half a measure of harmonica, a half measure of steel, a half measure of banjo - these serve as "signifiers" that you're still down on the farm. I personally would rather listen to a single solo from any of them with some melodic development, but to develop a 10-second solo, you have to assume that your listeners can remember anything for 8 seconds - ah the good old days.

Boy, you nailed it, Dave. The Carter Family wouldn't know what hit 'em. Most of modern country music sounds like a business model, not a soulful mode of expression.

[Bobby Burns]

Herby and I have had conversations about this before. One thing he pointed out is that a lot of the time the steel player is also the mandolin player, banjo player, or fiddle player. They won't hire a guy to just play steel, it's just not that important. I also play all thesed other instruments and sing. My steel gigs often start out as a gig for another instrument, I'll offer that I also play steel, they'll say "bring it if you want" without a lot of enthusiasm. Sometimes after they hear it they like it, and I'll play more steel than whatever I was hired to play. Sometimes I know if I push the steel, they'll just hire someone else who actually wants to play the other instrument. The point is, and I hate to admit it, I am one of those guys of the sort that my hero Herby has grown to despise. He has spent his life mastering this instrument, and I am just a hack who has added basic steel to my repertory. Because I do a passable job on several typical "hillbilly" instruments instead of just one, I suppose I get more calls than I would get if I played only the steel, and played it as well as Herby.
Just a little different perspective.

[Leslie Ehrlich]

I'm not worried about the decline of pedal steel guitar in country music. I think it's time for the instrument to shed its country stereotype and move on to other genres of music.

[Bobby Burns]

After reading my post above, you may be under the impression that I am playing all the steel gigs I could want. This is not true. What I intended to say, is that even though music gigs are hard to come by in east TN, I know that I get more opportunities than I would if I were a lot better steel player, but only played the steel.

[Clyde Mattocks]

Bobby, you're right. I was fortunate along the way
to pick up several other instruments, sometimes just
out of necessity. I get as many calls for other
instruments as I do for steel. I play a theater
Christmas show, and though I play steel on most of the songs and can do a decent solo on them, I always
get a bigger response when I play my mediocre banjo
solo.

[Barry Hyman]

We are playing the most interesting, most versatile, most complicated, most beautiful-sounding musical instrument in the world. The true potential of pedal steel has not yet been discovered. Forget what they call "country" music nowadays -- steel can play everything and anything. (I've used it -- recording and performing -- for reggae, Latin, Afropop, Celtic music, R&B, jazz -- even have performed some Arabic-sounding stuff on steel! Along with country and bluegrass and acoustic rock and blues, of course...) And everybody likes it!

But I will admit that I wouldn't want to be trying to pay the mortgage with gigs alone! Pay for performers certainly has declined, although around here it bottomed out a couple of years ago and is now getting slightly better.

Money aside though, when the steel sounds good to me, if I look up, the whole room has lit up like a torch! Forget those Nashville producers who have ruined country music -- everybody else LOVES pedal steel!

[Rick Campbell]

Herby is 100% right. Country music here is dead. Even the theaters in Pigeon Forge are so heavy into tourist music that they use a steel very little. Fiddle is the same way. All they want you for is to play Orange Blossom Special and maybe some corny "sawing" stuff. Also the money is the same, or less, than it was ten or twenty years ago.

I just turned 50 and I'm getting invitations to join AARP almost every day. I think I'll take one of their postage paid response envelopes and mail them back a letter suggesting they make steel guitar the official instrument of the AAPR.

About the church crowds. I was once hired to play on a session for a gospel group. When I got to the studio, one of the group's members didn't want me to play on their session because he knew me and that I played that "worldly" music too. (the rest of the session players were gospel only players)

They offered to pay me, but I refused and suggested that if they ever have a problem with the roof at their church, their only solution would be to hire a company that only works on church roofs. I didn't lose any sleep over it.

[John Lemieux]

I,m finding that many clubs and bars have been switching over to kariokee for the past 7 -8 years.A lot of weddings and stags are d.j.,s and have been for many years.The only regular gigs are the yearly regional festivals be they blues,country,etc.The ever changing landscape of country is hard to predict but a return to the golden years as most of us remember will take another couple of generations to recycle.The big cities dictate the music dollars and right now hip hop and the rest of that stuff is what sells unfortunately.

[Jeff Hyman]

There's ample work in Frederick County, MD. for 60's and 70's C&W... around 20+ gigs per year. Most of the audience are up in age... lets say 50 to 80 years old. They are a dying bread, literally. It's the younger crowd in their 30's that are drawn to the new modern material... where PSG is not featured like the old days. I play what I like. I play with other pickers that like what I like too. If the crowd likes it too, then great. If not, they can go listen to something else. I'm not trying to be arrogant, but I do play to have fun and make some cash at the same time. When the band is happy, it rubs off on the crowd. I am amazed of how many in the audience don't even listen to the radio any more. They prefer the old stuff that's no longer on the air waves.

$.02