Ingrid Andress

[K Maul]

I heard this in a hardware store yesterday. Thought it was interesting. Pedal steel is in the mix
throughout but solos at the end. I guess some consider this new Country. Maybe Pop…not sure. I know that many old farts will think it’s no good but it is the current thing. I’m 74 and do like the subject matter and her voice. If steel guitar is to keep going this is what it will have to do sometimes. Yeah - it ain’t The Preacher or even Together Again. The keyboard guys in Country and Rock aren’t playing Bach, Chopin or McCoy Tyner either but they are contributing to a good sound and
getting steady work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWRPB5oGQzI

[Robert Miller]

Agree. Art grows at its own rate and in the directions dictated by the participants.

If you take your football and go home because of some (likely delusional) notion that Emmons wouldn't have played on it, or it's not "real" country, you're gonna be by yourself in your basement...with your shiney unused football.

If you want a say in which direction it goes, you gotta show up.

2 cents with a penny change.

[Mark Hepler]

I like the subject matter and her voice. If steel guitar is to keep going this is what it will have to do sometimes.

100% right on. No rules, play what we feel, have fun, flaunt it, fly in the face of any old-guard lick police (are they still around?).

[David Wren]

Seems like a strong performance.... production wise, hiding the steel guitar behind a "George" like EQ, and keeping it at a level below the rhythm guitar.. well, that what sells in Nashville today... tomorrow? Also, I've heard these new recordings, played at dance clubs, featuring an obnoxious DJ, and overwhelming subs, cranked up.... not my cup of tea.

Seems before videos, there were a "few" folks that could just sing, not sing and look good....
Just an observation from a longtime steel guitarist who never, ever wanted to tour, or go to Nashville....

... but as observed, time marches on... if you like hiding the country sounding instruments, or burying them under twin rock guitar riffs...

whatever, myself.... Tony Booth or even Dwight Yoakam..... at least mix the steel at a level equal to the other lead instruments.
Also just my $.02.

[John Hartley]

One question David, what is a "George" like EQ?
Thanks, J

[K Maul]

Seems like a strong performance....
..... at least mix the steel at a level equal to the other lead instruments.

That’s what I prefer as well. My preferences rarely match what’s commercially successful, but I tolerate a LOT. HAHA.

[Mark Hepler]

It's our collective selective-memory that makes us think the "Golden Age" was better. But there was a heck of a lot of junk being peddled back then too.

I'm lucky to play out regularly at 77: I like some new country and Americana. And you can play the hell out of modes and minor scales--nobody notices or cares.

[Mark Eaton]

First time I've heard the song and it sounded okay to me.

I would characterize it as being sort of "genreless" though in a still existing record store I imagine it could be found in the Country section. Sounds like a blend of Country, Rock, Pop and whatever else comes to me later.

The steel is played by Devin Malone, who also contributed six string and 12 string acoustic to the song. He's been a Nashville cat for quite a few years and is the personification of the "utility man" which apparently is a very good thing to be these days in Music City: guitarist, bass, steel guitarist, mandolin, banjo & dobro player.

One of those guys who can play about anything with strings except for maybe the fiddle.

I think the steel parts worked great in the song, which is probably a good thing since I characterized the piece earlier as being sort of "genreless."

[Bobby D. Jones]

I just had a Pithieum.
If steel players set around and wait for songs like, Apartment No. 9, Together Again or He Stopped Loving Her Today, With great steel parts. We may be waiting a long time.
If some steelers thinks out of the box, Especially with 12 string Universal or Extended E9th tunings. And adds something special, To some of the modern songs, And makes the songs sound even better.

If young engineers or producers, Hears what a steel can actually add to a song, And starts adding steel to their productions.
Us old players will have to grow beards, Dye it dark, Shave off what hair we have left, Get some wild tattoos, Have fun and make lots of money gigging. Till young musicians spend all the money we have, For steel guitars amps and seats, To catch up with us.

[K Maul]

Us old players will have to grow beards, Dye it dark, Shave off what hair we have left, Get some wild tattoos, Have fun and make lots of money gigging.

When I turned 60 I figured that my window for tattoos was closed so I currently have none. However, I’m reconsidering my skin art options. I know a couple of good tattoo artists. I’m playing in Florida with people in their 30s and trying for new sounds on my Steel using distortion, various modulation effects and echoes and it’s working pretty well.

[Mark Hepler]

I’m playing in Florida with people in their 30s and trying for new sounds on my Steel using distortion, various modulation effects and echoes and it’s working pretty well.

Same here in Northern Virginia. We've slipped the Emmons/Green/Drake harness. Our 30s guys don't even know who the pioneers are or what steel's "supposed" to sound like.

We still need to play clean in-tune musical ideas but otherwise . . . let's borrow from every genre. Who cares what the greats think (or would have thought)?

[K Maul]

I don’t know about the other guys, but Chuck Campbell from the Campbell Brothers once told me about when he was down in Nashville with his father and his uncles and they were playing all that sacred steel stuff around the old Shobud shop. Some of the old time fuddyduddies were turning their noses up, but Lloyd Green walked in and listened to them and said “this is great - keep it up. You guys are doing something really special“. And don’t forget that Sneaky Pete, who many a traditionalist put down - big time - was on the top 10 list of Big E’s‘s favorite steel players. There are open minds to be found.

[Mark Eaton]

Adding to what Kevin wrote regarding Chuck Campbell, it jogged my memory about a post I wrote here 20 years ago after purchasing an issue of a magazine no longer in existence, The Journal of Country Music.

Singer/songwriter/steel guitar fan Robbie Fulks wrote an excellent article on steel guitar centered around Lloyd Green. There is also a section involving Robert Randolph meeting Lloyd. I still have my copy of the magazine in a box somewhere in my garage.

The quote below is from one of the posts I wrote alluding to the piece:

One of the feature articles is "Lloyd Green: The Conscience of Steel" and I have to say that it may be the finest article I have ever read about a steel guitarist.

Of course if there were a Mt. Rushmore for steelers, it's a pretty safe bet that Lloyd would be one of the faces up there chiseled out of granite.

The article was written by country-Americana-rocker songwriter Robbie Fulks, and I must say he did an exemplary job. He produced the tribute to Johnny Paycheck album that came out awhile back, and Lloyd was a large presence on that project.

I have heard a different version of this story once before, and I'm sure some of you have-but I am going to quote the first paragraph of the article for everyone's benefit, and maybe Bobbe Seymour was in the shop that day if he would like to add to the story:

"Five years ago, in the first year of the new century, a thin white man in his early sixties stopped by the Steel Guitar Nashville store in Goodlettsville, Tennessee.

Inside, he found a younger black man sitting before an instrument whose family has wandered a crooked cultural course from Hawaii, to American bluesmen in the south, to hillbilly musicians in California and Nashville, and now to the black Pentecostal church. Robert Randolph, the soon-to-be superstar of the sacred steel movement, was the musician, and the sound he made was rooted in a tradition that was obscure or unknown to most white players. To the older man's ears, the bluesy, orgiastic, pulpit-rocking attack sounded like something all together new. After a while, Randolph stopped playing and looked up.

"Do you play?" he asked.

"A little."

"What's your name?"

"Lloyd Green."

Blank look. Seeing it, Green, a man given to pessimistic reflections about the future of his craft, was intrigued. 'He's broken the barrier' was what he was thinking. The kid played with such bypass-the-brain flair, you had to think back a long way for comparisons, back before steel was the province of buttoned-down math puzzle buffs, before it was a "craft" really, to the days when a few bold misfits were first beguiled by the instrument's novel noises and uncharted range.

"Ever heard of Buddy Emmons?" he asked.

"No"

"Thank God" Green smiled warmly. "You haven't been contaminated by any of us!"