Anyway, fast forward to 3 months ago- got a phone call to audition for a Stevie Nicks tribute band. Tribute bands pay better and are usually more fun than cover bands
All irony aside, this is one possible future for steel guitar.
Tribute acts for legacy pop, country, and country rock artists are a way to recognize the steel’s role in the popularity of the songs that made an artist famous. Obviously, the younger a tribute performer is, the more believable they would be portraying an artist in their prime. I’m not sure the Old Man version of a Neil Young tribute would sell as well as the 20- or 30-something version. But, older band members can cosplay themselves up to whatever degree is necessary. Steel players, hell…we just sit around most of the time anyway And to their credit, younger musicians don’t seem to have the primal-scream-level resistance to joining tribute acts that I had when I was their age - to which I say bravo little brothers and sisters! You are more sensible!
Anyway, fast forward to 3 months ago- got a phone call to audition for a Stevie Nicks tribute band. Tribute bands pay better and are usually more fun than cover bands
And to their credit, younger musicians don’t seem to have the primal-scream-level resistance to joining tribute acts that I had when I was their age - to which I say bravo little brothers and sisters! You are more sensible!
Well, next month I'll be 67 so younger musician I am not-
One thing I've been thinking about a lot since I read that Sierra was shutting shop next month - to ensure the future of the pedal steel guitar, why not draw up a set of blueprints (in DWG and JPG and PNG formats) for a range of pedal steels from six-string to eight-string to ten-string to twelve-string to fourteen-string, with several of the changer options, from pull-release to Sho-Bud all-pull finger changer to Emmons push-pull to Carter all pull, including the dimensions of all parts, from the cabinet to the changer section to the pedals, etc, put it all together in an electronic book (PDF and EPUB and MOBI formats), and distribute it under a Creative commons license to secondary and tertiary schools worldwide? I expect it would interest any number of mech eng students in both secondary and tertiary level, as well as fascinating any number of music students; and releasing it under Creative Commons licensing would mean amongst other things, not having to sit over each school that expresses an interest to make sure they keep to the straight and narrow. It also means sidestepping nasty things like tariffs which would suck the blood from any attempt to use such a book to get any ROI.
It's also based on the way IBM unexpectedly became the standard for Personal Computers in the early 80s - release the product with completely open specifications, so anyone who wants to can build additional parts for it, then suddenly find that every man and his dog are building clones and where you thought you had a market for number X of the machines, you now find you have a marketplace of X to the power of X machines ...
Wesley-
You might want to contact Forum member Michael Yahl at PSG Parts regarding your idea. He manufactures replacement parts for many of the major steel guitar builders. I’m sure he is licensed and probably could shed some light on the concept of Copyright vs Creative Commons licensing regarding steel guitar design and building.
It might be great for the proliferation of the instrument, and I realize there are licenses that prevent the commercialization of copyrighted product. But I imagine you would still find some reticence among PSG builders, most of whom are running small independent enterprises on a tight budget, to release their blueprints to the world on a platform like CC.
I might have a contrary opinion to most posts in this thread, but I think the future of steel guitar is only just beginning right now in the moment. I'm a pro steel player in LA, and the small community of us here have been very busy lending our steels to many different records and live shows. The music industry may be in dire straits right now, but from what I've been seeing, creativity is at an all-time high. And you might be surprised to know how many producers and artists have never even seen a pedal steel in the flesh before. They have come to know and appreciate the sound, they hear how it can be used, and they want it on their songs and albums.
Through its history as an instrument he pedal steel has had a reputation of belonging solely to country music. I did not grow up listening to country music, nor do I listen to much now to be honest. But I started playing the pedal steel because I was so interested in the sound and I wanted try something new as a guitar player. What I've concluded through the years is that the pedal steel doesn't belong to one style. It's an instrument just like drums and piano and guitar. It can be played in any style and made to sound so many different ways.
I recently had a fun conversation with a very prominent country artist and he was asking me questions about who my favorite steel player was, which steel legend I thought was better (A or B), if I had heard of so and so steel player, and even jokingly asked why I didn't have an Emmons (I had brought the new Sierra that Ross has graciously lent to me to this particular engagement and he had never seen anything like it). And honestly, I couldn't really answer his questions. I admittedly did not have much knowledge of the steel players he was asking me about other than their names and some vague familiarity. And then by the end of our chat he asked "Then why did you learn pedal steel?", to which I answered, "Because I wanted to learn how to play songs with it". He accepted my answer with a smile.
The future is bright for this instrument for sure. More and more young people are becoming interested and wanting to learn, and more and more artists want it in their music, regardless of genre.
One of my new pedal steel students just returned from a week in Nashville.
He saw & heard 10 different country cover bands that were very good but none of them had a Steel Player !
At end he finally went up and talked with one of the band members and asked if they ever used a Steel Player and the lady said it is very difficult to find a Steel Player who is available.
Its an acquired taste. But like mom jeans, every generation must differentiate from the former. Pedal Steel and all the various ways to play a banjo are very distinctive, so Im sure they will stick around, and probably experience a revival after a necessary absence. Pedal steel is pretty rare thanks to cost, difficulty and maintenance. But banjos are [unfortunately] prolific like kudzu, and respectfully, often played very badly, out of tune, at the wrong time, wrong tune, etc, creating a pretty bad perception upon seeing one.
I think the entry price these days is going to make it hard for folks to get into pedal steel. I was lucky to get a Fender 800 steel when I started back in 1973. It was only a few hundred dollars back then and Heart of Texas Music let me pay it out in installments.
I'm not trying to start a debate on the price of pedal steels - it is what it is. I just think it's going to be tough for a 15 year old kid to pony up three or four grand for a pedal steel.
plenty of great younger players these days, and the number keeps growing!
a few hundred dollars in 1973 is equal to a few thousand dollars in 2025, so nothing much has changed.
most pedal steels were built to last, so there's quite a few out there that just need a loving home!
fear not, our instrument is in good hands (and feet and knees)
The key is to play a variety of music and not just country.
You should only play 2 kinds of music - the kind that you like and the kind you get paid for playing. Sometimes you get lucky and they’re one and the same.
Kerry Johnson wrote: 19 Jul 2025 3:05 pm
One of my new pedal steel students just returned from a week in Nashville.
He saw & heard 10 different country cover bands that were very good but none of them had a Steel Player !
At end he finally went up and talked with one of the band members and asked if they ever used a Steel Player and the lady said it is very difficult to find a Steel Player who is available.
Maybe I should move to Nashville.
Lol. The band member your friend talked to is wrong. There are a lot of great steel players in Nashville, i doubt anyone would have to try very hard to find one. You should move to Nashville if you want, but because there aren't many steel players there shouldn't be one of the reasons haha.
I started playing in about 1978 with a birds eye maple Sho Bud Maverick, 3/1. I'd been playing bluegrass banjo and guitar for over ten years at that time so for me the learning curve wasn't too steep. By copying the steel parts on records, I was playing bar gigs within about four months. From there, over the next twenty-five years or so I went from a BMI S10 3/4, to a Sho Bud Pro II 8/4, a Zum D10 8/5 and to the '67 PP S10 and '70 PP D10 that I play now. I was lucky to catch the Urban Cowboy craze where everybody and their cousin bought cowboy hats and boots and hit the dance clubs. And every band HAD to have a pedal steel to get work. But alas, like fads do, the craze died out by the '90s and with it the need for as many steel players. (There's nothing quite so empty as a 10,000 sq. foot dance hall that's empty on a Saturday night.)
But after about a 15 year hiatus I started back playing a few shows and have now been playing regularly with a six-piece cover band in Northwest Arkansas called Old Dime Box. Mostly restaurant patio gigs and an occasional Elks lodge. All this to say, at 79, I'm loving playing more than ever and at almost every show, people come up and say how much they LOVE hearing the pedal steel. So while PSG is not the mainstay it once was, it still gets a fair amount of airplay in current country music and is virtually a requirement in any live country and country/rock cover band and I don't expect that will go away any time soon. After all, country music without a pedal steel is like bluegrass without a banjo or hoe down without a fiddle.
And to their credit, younger musicians don’t seem to have the primal-scream-level resistance to joining tribute acts that I had when I was their age - to which I say bravo little brothers and sisters! You are more sensible!
