What if....

Leslie Ehrlich · Post by **Leslie Ehrlich** » 14 Jun 2013 2:57 am

...the so called 'traditional' country music made a comeback, but the next generation of steelers played non-pedal guitars?

A non-pedal steel is less expensive, less complex, easier to set up, and some pretty good country steel sounds can be gotten out of it. Just listen to any of the old Hank Williams tunes or anything that was recorded before Webb Pierce did 'Slowly'.

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 14 Jun 2013 3:34 am

I think many would consider it a huge step backward. There is already a movement of traditional players who straddle the fence between western swing and early country, but it sounds like music of the past.

That said, I still think that non-pedal steel can and will be a big factor in the future, just maybe not so much in country music.

Gene Jones · Post by **Gene Jones** » 14 Jun 2013 8:37 am

"a huge step backward" indeed!

Pedal players reverting to non-pedal would be like owners of cars with automatic transmissions returning to manual shifters. It could work, but not as well. $:\$

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 14 Jun 2013 9:30 am

I play non-pedal in Rice & Bean:

http://b0blee.bandcamp.com/album/rice-bean

It seems more appropriate to the style of music than pedal steel.

http://reggaerockoldies.com/

But I think Mike Neer is right. Non-pedal in country music makes it sound old fashioned.

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 14 Jun 2013 9:40 am

Non-pedal in country music makes it sound old fashioned.

Did you mean more old fashioned?

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 14 Jun 2013 11:33 am

Barry Blackwood wrote:
Non-pedal in country music makes it sound old fashioned.
Did you mean more old fashioned?

Hey!! I resemble that remark.

Mark Eaton · Post by **Mark Eaton** » 14 Jun 2013 1:23 pm

I think it's in the mind and the hands of the player.

It's pretty obvious that the classic E9th "Hugheyesque" sound is not what many producers are looking for today in commercial radio and record sales and it seems more and more session pros are called on to supplement their pedal steel work with non-pedal/lap steel work.

One guy I can think of off the top of my head who has been known throughout his career as mainly a pedal player, but has gotten a lot of calls in the past several years for lap steel is Dan Dugmore. But not for the C6th sound but more for the open tuning sound be it G, D, or perhaps E.

Unless one has reached a certain level of skill, it seems kind of difficult to play C6th non-pedal and not make it sound anachronistic or retro nostalgia country from a bygone era.

Maybe my favorite player who has the ability to play eight string non-pedal and make it sound contemporary is Cindy Cashdollar. She obviously can get the western swing, 6th sound whenever she likes since she was after all with Asleep at the Wheel all those years, but I've seen her play with Dave Alvin & the Guilty Women where the song is more of a country rocker, and she sounds very contemporary.

Leslie Ehrlich · Post by **Leslie Ehrlich** » 15 Jun 2013 12:29 am

Mark Eaton wrote:It's pretty obvious that the classic E9th "Hugheyesque" sound is not what many producers are looking for...

That's exactly what I'm getting at. Steel players and country bands of the future might not be after that sound. The reason why I started this thread was because it seems like many of the forum members who lament the passing of 'traditional' country music are really lamenting the passing of a particular type and style of steel playing.

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 15 Jun 2013 6:57 am

It seems that many professional dobro and pedal steel players have the lap steel in their arsenals now, which is cool. The style of playing they do with it is more akin to David Lindley style playing, which a lot of us started off with, or even Travis Tritt and Steve Wariner slide guitar styles.

For Country music that may be sort of new, but many of us lap steel players started off playing that way a long time ago. It took me years to purge that stuff from my playing, now I guess I need to let it back in.

Gene Jones · Post by **Gene Jones** » 15 Jun 2013 8:05 am

Me too Mike. In 1946 I began with a Sears single/6 that was the first of a series of non-pedal steels that I owned. To shorten a long story, I was one of the last holdouts of the pedal revolution, but eventually and reluctantly surrendered to the then current trends and changed to pedals to "keep up with the Jones's".

Throwing out 20 years of style experience was not an easy transition but I eventually became proficient enough that I continued to work. But now, the trend is to regress 70 years back to the beginning?

Go figure!

I'm glad that I'm finally out of it.

Mark Eaton · Post by **Mark Eaton** » 15 Jun 2013 9:28 am

After one has gotten over that really tall hump to becoming a proficient pedal steel player, I can understand why you might think "why go backwards - there are so many possibilities with the pedal steel for me to contribute to the song?"

Well, just like there is a lot of music in a six string "standard" guitar, there is a lot of music in a non-pedal or lap steel, and it's all about serving the song. The song is everything. If a song truly sucks, be it a crummy melody or really bad lyrics, all the hot licks and complex picking and extended chords and moving tones isn't going to save it.

b0b is a fine pedal steel player, but in that reggae-sounding tune he posted, the non-pedal steel serves the song.

I wrote about Cindy Cashdollar earlier, and here is a link to a Dave Alvin & the Guilty Women live performance from a few years ago at the Santa Monica Pier only for this gig Cindy apparently wasn't available so we have to "settle" for Greg Leisz.

The song is Downey Girl which Alvin wrote several years ago about a girl who grew up, like Dave and his brother Phil, in the working class Los Angeles suburb of Downey. The girl was Karen Carpenter.

Greg Leisz could have played the pedals on this one and no doubt made it beautiful, but to me his take on the lap steel is nothing short of perfection. It really serves the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YAR7oRTFg0

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 3 Jul 2013 1:10 pm

I don't really consider pedal steel a "step up" from non pedal, it's more like a separate instrument, to me anyway. I could easily envision 6 string lap steel being way more popular if a lot of players could play like Jerry Douglas. Trouble is...almost nobody can.

Post by **Dave Mudgett** » 3 Jul 2013 4:05 pm

I normally play a pedal steel for steel, but I have a few nice lap and console steels, they're cool and I like 'em. They definitely have their own sound and vibe, and sometimes working within specific limitations gives new ideas.

But to me, most of these distinctions are made up, it's about making music. An instrument is strictly a tool, and can be used in whatever way it serves a song. I sometimes laugh when people say you have to play, let's say, a pedal steel a certain way and that you can't do certain things on it, such as do sustained stuff like Greg was doing with Dave Alvin on that very nice clip - I especially like the interplay between the fiddle and the lap steel. You can do whatever the hell you want with it, it is a steel guitar, you play the top of the guitar as well as the bottom.

I've seen people take a beat up plank of wood with strings and make magic, and then others take a super-fancy and expensive cool instrument and don't know what the hell to do with it. Go to a typical big vintage guitar show, and some guy will be there just torturing a beautiful flametop '59 Les Paul into an old Fender or Marshall, unable to coax anything useful from it, while at the same time, someone who can really play will just wow you with a $300 Chinese-made Epi Les Paul into cheap solid-state amp. Any instrument, for that matter, so as usual, I agree with Donny.

None of this says the instrument doesn't matter, but the music will move whatever way people move it, regardless. There are no limits, you can do whatever the hell you take the time and effort to figure out how to do.

Right now, I can't pick up anything more than 10 pounds (recovering from surgery), so with my pedal steels in their cases, that little Ricky Model 59 I got from Paul Warnik when I was in Chicago in May is coming in mighty handy. Thanks Paul - it's a hoss.

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 3 Jul 2013 7:19 pm

dave's right, and i've said it alot. it what you play musicwise, not what you play it on.

Doug Rolfe · Post by **Doug Rolfe** » 5 Jul 2013 9:35 am

Would it be possible to put the subject in the posting so we could know "What If"?