Belly dancing... with steel guitar???

[Bob Carlucci]

Well, surely not anything I ever expected in my steel playing career, but here it is...I did this session probably 22-23 years ago here in Ithaca with a talented singer/writer named Patti Witten, and someone somewhere decided it would be a good song to blend with this form of dancing. I suppose you might call it "interpretive dance?
Anyway, the guitar is an MSA, the playing is adequate, and the dancer is nicer to watch than I am at this point.. I must say, I never expected to accompany this form of dance with an E9 pedal steel, but someone else thought it was a good idea..... I suppose....... bob

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdikSILwRf8

[Dave Mudgett]

Hey Bob, I like it. One of my neighbors, and a fine guitar player himself, has a wife that practices and teaches belly dancing. She and his band do shows together sometimes. I think this type of fairly atmospheric music and the belly dancing go together well.

[Erv Niehaus]

I played for a luau at a nursing home.
You should have seen those old gals up there doing the hula in grass skirts!
They really liked "Tiny Bubbles".
Erv

[Jerry Horch]

Scotty shoulda been doing something like that at the convention all along....

[Jon Zimmerman]

Very well put together, Bob...I mean the mix of talent. I like it too, the MSA blending dreamily, with Patti’s vocals and tempo. Hope it was rewarding.

[Bob Carlucci]

Thanks for the kind words jon... yes it was a nice session, and Patti was extremely talented.. Its funny.. I am an old school E9 palm blocker... started with buddy cage/rusty young as mentors, but very shortly after discovered Brumley, Moon, Lloyd, etc, and headed in that direction.. however, on vinyl/tape/digital whatever, all my session work was atmospheric, spacy stuff, backing progressive singer songwriter types. I can point to dozens of such recordings.. i always wanted to record the stuff i was strongest at, just plain old e9 "chicken picken", but thats just not what was going on around me... Over the years I got a rep for being a guy that could put a spacy "pad" under and around a vocalist, which is fine, but it wasn't really what i was about as a steel player...I am thankful for what I got to do, even if it wasn't my first choice in musical styles.. it was simply the type of music that was being recorded using steel in my neck of the woods...

[Frank Freniere]

Scotty shoulda been doing something like that at the convention all along....

Back in the early'80's, Jerry Byrd did bring a couple of hula dancers to his set at the St. Louis Convention.