Bud Isaacs on Buddy's passing

Billy Easton · Post by **Billy Easton** » 4 Aug 2015 3:42 pm

I just got off the phone with Bud and Gerri Isaacs who wanted me to post their sincere condolences to Buddy's family as well as the entire steel guitar community.
Bud fondly remembers Buddy's early days in Nashville when Buddy and Jimmy Day would follow him around and ask a million questions about how he was getting the sound of the pedals. According to Bud, the only pedal steel in Nashville at the time was his Bigsby. He tells a story about going with Red Foley to pick it up at the railway station, and how Red Foley paid the freight.
Bud and Gerri expressed a deep sadness in Buddy's passing, and wanted me to send out their love to all.

Billy Easton

Mitch Drumm · Post by **Mitch Drumm** » 4 Aug 2015 4:33 pm

Thanks for passing that on, Billy.

Re his Bigsby and pedals----didn't he use a Gibson Electraharp before the Bigsby, circa 1950? I think those things had pedals and always wondered if his experience with that guitar gave him a leg up on the guys who were strictly on non-pedal guitars in the very early 50s.

Billy Easton · Post by **Billy Easton** » 4 Aug 2015 7:27 pm

Mitch..
I don't know about a Gibson Electoharp, but Bud was originally from Indiana and had a Harlin Brothers pedal steel (Multi Kord) at one time. The Harlin Brothers guitar was made, I believe in Indianapolis.

Billy

Ernie Renn · Post by **Ernie Renn** » 5 Aug 2015 10:11 pm

Curious... When Buddy moved to Nashville to play with Dickens he already had his Bigsby with pedals.

Billy Easton · Post by **Billy Easton** » 6 Aug 2015 9:35 am

Ernie...
I am thinking that you are right...Bud is in his late 80s and his memory is not as good as we wish...(aren't we all like that?). Anyway, I was just saying what Bud told me on the phone yesterday.

Billy

DG Whitley · Post by **DG Whitley** » 6 Aug 2015 4:54 pm

I'm lucky if I remember what I had for breakfast yesterday...that doesn't bode well for the future I guess...and I'm nowhere near Bud's age.

Ernie Renn · Post by **Ernie Renn** » 6 Aug 2015 10:21 pm

It's not a big deal, but Buddy liked the facts to be straight...

Bobby Boggs · Post by **Bobby Boggs** » 7 Aug 2015 7:10 am

It wouldn't be a big deal except this stuff will be here till the end of time. For all to read. Not just Forum members. Anyone that does a search. And hey if it's printed on the net. Most assume it to be factual.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 7 Aug 2015 10:20 am

Bobby Boggs wrote:It wouldn't be a big deal except this stuff will be here till the end of time. For all to read...

That's a fact. I hear that they back up the entire internet periodically and archive it away so that people in hundreds of years time will be able to see what we were discussing.

Ernie Renn · Post by **Ernie Renn** » 7 Aug 2015 5:45 pm

I had asked Buddy if he ever used coat hangers? He said he never did. He said his first experience with pedals was the Bigsby, which he got in 1954 when he was living in Detroit,,,

Jack Strayhorn · Post by **Jack Strayhorn** » 7 Aug 2015 6:26 pm

Walter Haynes told me many stories about drilling holes through the body at the keyhead and pulling strings with coat hangers and pedal made with barn door hinge. Walter was already a steady session player at the time Issacs cut Slowly. He immediately had a guitar rigged with a pedal and started using it on sessions. He soon became the most in demand session player because Issacs didn't want the constant schedule. I assume all this was going on prior to Buddy coming to town.

Barry Blackwood · Post by **Barry Blackwood** » 8 Aug 2015 9:07 am

By the looks of it, Moon went the coat hanger route early on as well.

Bill Ferguson · Post by **Bill Ferguson** » 12 Aug 2015 4:24 am

Seeing the note about coat hangers reminds me of 1979 in Atlanta.

Tommy Dodd and I hired Buddy to come down and do a show for us.

I picked Buddy up at the airport around 8am and he had not been to sleep all night. He said he picked almost all night and helped keep the bar open.

Anyway, when we got to baggage claim to pick up "The Blade", the case was all wrapped up in airline duct tape, marked "Fragile".

When we got to the venue, Buddy asked if i would set up the blade while he got a sip of something to calm him down.

I opened the case and lo and behold, there were NO pedal rods in his case. Uh Oh.

It did not even phase Buddy. He said he must have laid them down and left them in Nashville. So we found 8 coathangers and made pedal rods on the spot. They worked just fine and surely did not affect Buddy's picking.

Now you ask, why did we not just borrow a set of rods? Well no one else on the show was playing an Emmons, so nothing would fit.

Buddy was very cool about it. (Yes he found his pedal rods at the club where he played on Saturday night).

Just one of my memories of my friend, the GREAT BIG E

Bobby Boggs · Post by **Bobby Boggs** » 12 Aug 2015 1:20 pm

Now that's a great story. And sounds so much like the Buddy we knew and love.

First time I've ever smiled reading this section. Bill, you might want to add this to the Buddy stories thread. Thanks for sharing.

b.

Bill Cunningham · Post by **Bill Cunningham** » 12 Aug 2015 5:22 pm

Bill Ferguson wrote:Seeing the note about coat hangers reminds me of 1979 in Atlanta.

Tommy Dodd and I hired Buddy to come down and do a show for us.

I picked Buddy up at the airport around 8am and he had not been to sleep all night. He said he picked almost all night and helped keep the bar open.

Anyway, when we got to baggage claim to pick up "The Blade", the case was all wrapped up in airline duct tape, marked "Fragile".

When we got to the venue, Buddy asked if i would set up the blade while he got a sip of something to calm him down.

I opened the case and lo and behold, there were NO pedal rods in his case. Uh Oh.

It did not even phase Buddy. He said he must have laid them down and left them in Nashville. So we found 8 coathangers and made pedal rods on the spot. They worked just fine and surely did not affect Buddy's picking.

Now you ask, why did we not just borrow a set of rods? Well no one else on the show was playing an Emmons, so nothing would fit.

Buddy was very cool about it. (Yes he found his pedal rods at the club where he played on Saturday night).

Just one of my memories of my friend, the GREAT BIG E

Was that the show at Country Green on Memorial Drive? I moved to Atlanta in late 1980 and it was after then, if so. Didn't he give Bobby Boggs his picks that day? If that is the show, the coathangers surely didn't affect his playing. I still have the cassette tape somewhere.

Bobby Boggs · Post by **Bobby Boggs** » 12 Aug 2015 7:02 pm

Different show Bill. I'd have taken the coat hangers to.

Buddy gave me his picks after completing the 1980 show. Played LeGrande 002 I think is the serial #.

This is the first I've heard of the 79 show.

Maybe it was private?

b.