Jake Clayton - multi-instrumentalist including steel

[John LeMaster]

A friend told me about this young man who plays many stringed instruments, and plays them all very well. I did a search on YouTube and came up with this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEFIuC1Nch0

Jake plays both pedal steel and lap steel in the video, in addition to dobro, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, guitar, etc. I realize that the music was recorded in the studio, so this is not a 'live' performance. But, assuming that he played all the instruments as depicted, he is a super picker. The song is "Kickin' Up Dust".

By the way, the pedal steel that he is playing in the video doesn't look familiar to me. It appears to be an MSA, but it doesn't look like any of the MSAs that I have seen.

In doing a forum search, I saw some comments about him from 2007 and 2008, including that he played for Tanya Tucker for a while. We might be hearing a lot more from Jake Clayton as a solo artist in the future.

John L.

[Jerry Hayes R.I.P.]

John, that MSA looks like a "Sidekick" which was/is a student model similar to the Red Baron that MSA manufactured. They came with three floor pedals and one knee lever like the ShoBud Maverick, but the Sidekick lowered strings 4 and 8 instead of 2 and 8 like the Maverick......

All in all the guy looks like he's a pretty dang good picker on all of 'em......JH in Va.

[Kevin Mincke]

The steel is an MSA "sidekick" and was their entry level guitar, much like the Carter Starter, Maverick etc. I believe they came with 3 pedal and 2 knees standard.