Who's The Steeler: Can't Bite

Dave Van Allen · Post by **Dave Van Allen** » 15 Mar 2003 7:50 pm

60's Tommy Collins album- If you Can't Bite Don't Growl has some very cool steel on it

who might it be?

Carl West · Post by **Carl West** » 16 Mar 2003 8:38 am

Might be Fuzzy Owens or Ralph Mooney

Carl West

Dave Van Allen · Post by **Dave Van Allen** » 16 Mar 2003 2:14 pm

it's not at all Mooney-ish- more Nashvillian Chicken Picken- LLoyd Green or Wldon Myrick ish

Jim Palenscar · Post by **Jim Palenscar** » 16 Mar 2003 4:36 pm

Does that the album have the song "Opal- You Asked Me" on it? (great song)

Chris Forbes · Post by **Chris Forbes** » 17 Mar 2003 3:44 am

I thought Norm Hamlett did the steel on the rare songs that Tommy actually had steel on. But ya gotta love Buck on the six string!!!

Tommy Minniear · Post by **Tommy Minniear** » 17 Mar 2003 5:29 am

I recall reading that Tommy wrote this song the night before his first major session in Nashville. If that is correct, then it stands to reason that it would have been one of the Nashville session steelers of that era. I would think that it would be listed in the book that accompanies the Bear Family collection.

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Tommy Minniear
www.ntsga.com

Jerry Hayes R.I.P. · Post by **Jerry Hayes R.I.P.** » 18 Mar 2003 5:09 am

I think that this song along with most of Tommy's hits were cut before any major session in Nashville. TC was a west coast artist and probably cut that stuff at the Capitol Tower in Hollywood or something like that. I agree with Carl, it's probably Fuzzy O. or Ralph Mooney......JH

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Livin' in the Past and the Future with a 12 string Mooney Universal tuning.

Mike Weirauch · Post by **Mike Weirauch** » 18 Mar 2003 6:12 am

Lloyd Green asked me to pass along this information:
Some of you guys sure have creative imaginations. "If You Can't Bite, Don't Growl" was recorded in Nashville at Columbia studio "B" in 1966, as part of Tommy Collin's first album for Columbia Records and I played steel guitar on it; Grady Martin was session leader. Prior to this project he was recording in California for Capitol.
Tommy, indeed, wrote this tune the night before it was recorded. He told me this himself on the morning we cut it. All the musicians thought it was a pretty clever little song. It eventually rose to #7 on the Billboard charts. We recorded this first Nashville album with Tommy in the "normal"- for that era- 3 session time frame.
Tommy Collins was a gentle, friendly and enormously talented songwriter and singer, one I truly respected and recorded with.
No one should confuse the steel and other musical sounds on this record with what was being played in California at the time. This had "Nashville Sound" written all over it. Mooney was setting the pre-eminent steel sounds in California but this was quintessential "Nashville" stuff, at a time when we had a "SOUND".
Regards,
Lloyd Green

Dave Van Allen · Post by **Dave Van Allen** » 18 Mar 2003 6:18 am

Thanks Mike W and Thank you Maestro Green. I was right in my statement above about it being quintessentially Nashvillian... if I'd just left Weldon out of it I would've nailed it

Great playing, and Grady's echoplexed guitar stuff is fantastic too!