Can such a legend be replaced???

[Drew Pierce]

bOb hit the nail on the head with the term "innovator". It was Buddy's capacity for creative, original thinking, both musically and mechanically, that sets him apart and will leave a tremendous and lasting influence on the instrument, its sound and its players.

[Jack Stoner]

There are some Outstanding pickers, both that have passed on and living. Not to take away from any of these but Buddy was and is still #1. Along with his artistic ability is his steel guitar innovations, many of which we all use.

There are those that have contributed to the steel, Lloyd's "F" Lever, Ralph Mooney adding the high G# string, Paul Franklin's "Franklin Pedal", etc. But none has had a greater impact than Buddy has.

I've stated this before and I'll do it again. At the ISGC, whoever is on stage - a "big name" or not - people are all milling about inside and outside of the main room. But when Buddy is on stage all eyes and ears were on Buddy, even the "big name steelers".

Dedication is another of Buddy's traits. At his Country Music Hall of Fame honor gathering it was mentioned about him practicing in the dark all night one time when he was with Ray Price. Buddy said his reasoning was if I ever became blind I could still pick (in words to that effect).

[Joachim Kettner]

Chris Templeton wrote:

Many of us on the forum have known a time when there were lots of clubs and bands to play with and good music that suited the steel guitar.

I fact I can't remember it, but I can imagine that it was so for you American steelers.
Back in the early seventies, when most of my peers were listening to Deep Purple, I got the Paul Siebel "Jack Knife Gypsy" and GP's "Grievious Angel" album with Buddy. I was in heaven. But who said this and it's true: The past a foreign country?

[b0b]

Back in the early seventies, when most of my peers were listening to Deep Purple, I got the Paul Siebel "Jack Knife Gypsy" and GP's "Grievous Angel" album with Buddy. I was in heaven.

Al Perkins was the steel player on Grievous Angel.

[Joachim Kettner]

Then it was "GP"

[Mike Neer]

For me, there are several icons who transcend steel guitar:

Sol Hoopii, Buddy Emmons, Jerry Byrd and Speedy West.

But Sol and Buddy are still talked about by non-musicians and non-steel players, and will always be.

[Michael Johnstone]

Yep nobody is gonna "fill his shoes". This is one of those cases where we're just gonna have to bury his shoes with him I'm afraid. His licks and tunings are going to be played by everyone else from now on though so he'll always be around in a big way.

[Ron Whitworth]

My thoughts on this subject are:

There have been many great steel players in the past.

There are many great steel players still alive & playing today.

There will NEVER ( IMHO ) again be another Buddy Emmons.

He just did so very much for steel guitar I just do not see anyone ever doing ALL he did again.
We all know what that was so I am not going to list everything.

I fully believe there was a reason the hall at St. Louis would get so very quiet when Buddy was playing
it's called respect & reverence - he deserved it & got it even without asking for it.

I have either read and or heard about where most all the top steel guitarists consider Buddy to be the one they looked up to.
There was a reason for that I believe.

He is ( IMHO ) just on another plateau from all the rest & always will be !
Ron

[Jana Lockaby]

This is, mostly, for Charles T., but thought I would just share with all:
Growing up in N. Tx., I've spent all my life hearing great steel players. I took them all for granted, not realizing at such a young age just what, or who, for that matter, I was witnessing. Buddy Emmons was a familiar name. I had heard his name all my life. I had listened to him on records, and, though I don't remember, had probably seen him play live.
I knew he was a "great" player, but never understood his significance. To me, growing up around such great players, he was just another guy that sat behind the steel. I thought that, until:
I remember the last time he was at the TSGA Jamboree. The ballroom was packed, Buddy began to play. I understood. I was completely mezmorized. I was, and, am, still in awe.

[Len Ryder]

It's like trying to replace Picasso, Rembrandt, Segovia or any other Legend! ! ! !

[Drew Pierce]

I had a similar experience to Jana Lockaby, only slightly different. I had been listening to (and playing songs by) a lot of artists who used Sonny Garrish, Weldon Myrick, Hal Rugg and other popular session players, so I was into those guys quite a bit. When I went to the 1983 ISGA, I was ready to be underwhelmed by Buddy Emmons. I was thinking, OK, Mr. Buddy "Big E" Emmons, let's hear what you've got that everybody's so hyped up about.

When he played the intro to his first song, it was like a religious experience. I don't remember moving a muscle during his entire set. I was moved by his playing in ways that words can't describe. When it was over, my sense of what truly great pedal steel playing sounds like was changed forever. It is a memory I will cherish always.

[David Mason]

Charlie Parker, Jimi Hendrix, Andre Segovia, John Coltrane

I was idly generating my own list of people too. There's a common definition of "genius" that resides in the notion of combining and recombining different elements or genres of music to come up with something new; unfortunately this idea has become so widespread that people now stick a "rap" into a country song, a folk singery-type warbling with shakuhachis and sitars toodling around in the background, ummm - no. You're not. A Genius....
I had to start with Ravi Shankar. Besides inventing the system of notation that made it possible to record groups of Indians to make film scores, which then (with his pushing) led to all sorts of group efforts - "jugalbandi" meaning a duet of two soloists on equal footing didn't exist until he made it up - he also materially affected the construction of the sitar and I'd guess that numerically he probably made a bigger bang on more people than anyone else.
Chet Atkins - besides being perhaps the first bona fide "Guitar Hero", he de-hicked country music - I am no great fan of countrypolitan, but still - a fairly large percentage of people on this very forum probably owe a percentage of their careers to the doors kicked open when Chet helped country go mainstream. Interestingly, both these men were... moral? ethical?... enough to feel they had overreached with some negative impact and retreated themselves back to the woodshed to dismantle their own personal camels-through-the-eyes-of-needles problems. And came out playing.

Les Paul - what can you say....
Miles Davis invented four-to-five genres of music, because he needed them in order to address the sounds in his head.
John McLaughlin, ditto, he may have invented only three-to-four depending how you slice them.
Paco DeLucia - how many flamenco bass players and flamenco trap drummers even existed prior to his head-noises requiring them? Zero.

There's a commonality here in the impact of these guys on other musicians; even if you're not hearing the source, they opened the door. Working in restaurants in Austin in the 1980's, on the rock stations there was a huge Led Zeppelin influence, moreso than even Hendrix (SRV rebalanced that a bit). But how many times can you rewrite "Stairway to Heaven" without becoming a ludicrous embarrassment? (don't answer.) On the 80's country stations, every other song had squeaky-cleansed Allman Brothers instrumentation and arrangements. Considering that Duane Allman's national career lasted less than two years, actually you can reduce it to the spring and summer of 1971... well. Nine months? Seven months? Wow. Likewise I'm tempted to add the (collective) Grateful Dead, not so much for their steel guitarist but for the huge impact they had on sound reproduction - there's two dozen audio & instrument companies that wouldn't exist today if it hadn't been for that band's gleeful willingness to squander huge amounts of money for the tiniest improvement. Timed and phase-corrected speaker arrays, "hum-bucking" microphones, and power, power, power - PA systems just would not be as good as they are, were it not for the efforts of potheads who sometimes had trouble playing the same song at the same time.

The reason for all this detail and yammering is in response to the original question - I get kind of an Uh-Oh feeling - what more could be done, or should be done by any "hero?" I believe that there is more great music being played right now than ever, but you do have to dig. What are the people you listen to listening to? None of my guitar students use the radio or television to preview or search for music, but the net effect of the "computer revolution" has been to somehow suck all of the money out of the hands of the people who make the music! A main playing partner of mine complains all the time about how ridiculous his "paydays" from CD Baby and Reverb Nation are - and his "radio" is... Reverb Nation, of course. I can't imagine a situation in which steel guitarists would rally around the "New Buddy" or something - why would or even should we? Time won't go backwards or ever make for one-to-one comparisons. How many steel guitarists were there in, say, 1970? Like, in 1776, there were roughly 2,500,000 people in America, less than 1/10 of today - making heroism and influence a good bit more noticeable.

For me, every person who can serve as a signpost still has the characteristic of style and tone that they can immediately be identified. I do find it curious that among the steel guitarists offered up above, the one guy who pretty much terrifies every other steel player alive is not mentioned - I guess he plays wrong?

The Night has a Thousand Eyes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw2b73Yk7Hk
Spain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzyGPe3Gr-M
organ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiSmDdKenc4
A Visit to the Zoo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI19M5cZ4rk
Blue Sky
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh8R94H5Y1g

(If Dave had a mean bone in his body, at least enough to go in for headcutting contests, there'd be a long trail of bloody fingerpicks, dented bars and steel guitars for sale in his wake.)

[chris ivey]

it's interesting that no matter how incredibly good some people are, their music just doesn't grab you.
buddy's thing always grabbed me!

[Charles Curtis]

I would be remiss if I didn't mention, Jay Dee Maness, IMO, none better. I was always thrilled to see how fast Jay Dee could learn a new song with his great touch and a terrific "ear". IMO, there is none better than Jay Dee and he is a great friend. I don't know if I'll ever get to see him again as I'm past 80 and I'm fighting pancreatic cancer; so we'll see. I love this forum too. Anyway I've had a great life and I've become friends with a ton of people and I love 'em all.

[Frank Freniere]

I had a similar experience to Jana Lockaby, only slightly different.

I had a similar experience to Drew Pierce, only slightly different.

It was 1981, I had taken up the pedal steel two years earlier. I had just moved to Chicago and it was Labor Day week. It dawned on me that it was only an hour or so to St. Louis by plane, so I said "what the heck..."

I had been listening to steel music, checking out various players, as there was a fair amount of vinyl recordings out at the time. I knew Buddy was great, of course, but not sure why everyone was so in awe of him. When I met Jeff Newman, I could hear the reverence in his voice when he talked about Buddy - and if you knew Jeff Newman, you knew he was a proud man and not one to take a back seat to anyone.

So Friday night as I'm waiting for Buddy to take the stage, I'm apprehensive: what if he's not all that, what if he doesn't live up to advance billing? I'll be crushed because everybody says he's the best by far.

And then he came on and blew away my wildest hopes and expectations. He really WAS that good - and more. Like Drew - and probably everyone else who ever saw him - I was transfixed by his performance and charisma.

[Henry Matthews]

Not only was Buddy set a part by his playing and his innovation of the steel guitar by always making it better, I think his personality, especially while performing sit him apart from everyone. He was a showman, a cut up and you knew that he was having fun.
I wise man once told me that when performers look and act they are having fun, then the audience will have fun.
A lot of the pro players we have now make it look too easy with no expressions or anything, they just play and great I might add. Buddy made it look easy at times and hard at times and at the same time entertained you while he was doing it.

[Henry Matthews]

it's interesting that no matter how incredibly good some people are, their music just doesn't grab you.
buddy's thing always grabbed me!

And said very well Chris, Buddy's grabbed me too

[Ron Sodos]

My first cousin Rich has been a recording engineer in Nashville for many years. In Buddy's hey day he had recorded Buddy a number of times and what Rich said was that Buddy would always add something to each recording that nobody else had thought of. He was not only an absolute monster in his delivery and technique on the steel guitar but he was a genius musician in general. He would have been as creative and talented in whatever instrument had chose to play.

[Tony Prior]

Can such a legend be replaced ? No, and he shouldn't be and nobody should try...

Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle,Joe Pass,Dale Earnhardt, Shoeless Joe Jackson, John Lennon, Nolan Ryan ...

Buddy Emmons