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This page: Making Sense of Steel; Why You've Never Seen a Pedal Steel in Guitar Center
Making Sense of Steel
With its chrome legs and (as is often the case) Formica finish, all too many people confuse the pedal steel with a kitchen table and query "What is it?"
"It" is a direct descendent of Hawaiian guitar playing, among the first styles to use a steel bar over the frets. Hawaiian music became hugely popular in the 1920s. Usually a National, Dobro, or other type of resonator guitar tuned to an open C6 chord was responsible for that slinky sound synonymous with hula-skirted hip shakers. With the arrival of the magnetic pickup in the '30s, the Hawaiian guitar style -- now regularly played using an electric "lap-style" instrument, hence the lap steel guitar -- began to crop up in swing, big band, and especially, the Western swing style of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. Western swing relied heavily on the steel guitar, and its uptempo confabulation of jazz and hillbilly brought the instrument to a national audience; as did early country pioneers like Hank Williams and the Bakersfield, California country scene which spawned such legends as Merle Haggard and Buck Owens.
Early steel guitarists found themselves hindered by the instrument's harmonic limitations due to the steel bar's inflexibility, which limits the number of available chord voicings. Electric guitar pioneers like Leo Fender and Paul Bigsby addressed this issue by offering multi-neck "console" guitars (so-called because they rested on chrome legs rather than one's lap) that deployed a variety of tunings. But the pedal steel guitar -- which has existed in some form as early as the 1930s, and which both the aforementioned gentlemen were pivotal in developing -- is the most ingenious solution. Using a combination of floor pedals and knee levers to raise and lower the pitches of individual strings, it yields a wonderful universe of tonalities.
"When it came to pedals," comments Bobby Seymour, "It only made sense since the lead guitar player used fingers to get minor and major chords, and the guy who put the bar across the strings couldn't. He needed to stretch and release those strings somehow." Indeed, the pedal steel is a complicated machine using an intricate assemblage of rods, cam shafts, and kitchen sink-like parts resembling something out of Popular Mechanics -- which undoubtedly contributes to its hefty price.
Early pedal steel guitars could only alter the instrument's basic tuning -- changing it from a C6 chord to an E13 or something else. In 1953, pedal steel pioneer/Country Music Hall of Famer Bud Isaacs ushered in the modern pedal steel guitar sound on the Webb Pierce track "Slowly," by manipulating the instrument's strings individually. Issacs was also the first on record to use the signature pedal steel technique: moving its pedals while the bar is in motion and the strings are ringing. "It wasn't by accident that I found that sound," Isaacs recalls nearly 50 years later. "It took years of work to try to create [what] I was looking for. I listened to the sounds of Bob Wills' band, with three fiddles, and I wanted to be able to move the notes on other strings while sustaining one note."
Isaacs forever changed the pedal steel guitar, coaxing from it previously unheard emotion, a glissando evocative of the human voice that has become arguably the predominate facet to its legacy. Since his feat, the pedal steel guitar has become a mainstay voice in country music; in the late '60s working its way into rock and appearing on records by Dylan, the Stones, even Led Zeppelin, and further popularized with the "cosmic cowboy" country rock of the Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, Neil Young, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
For many, it was CS&N's megahit "Teach Your Children," with unforgettable pedal steel work from Jerry Garcia (yeah, that Jerry Garcia), that served as their first introduction to the pedal steel. For others, it was Young's "Heart of Gold." And whether mainstream America knew it or not, they heard pedal steel guitar in the soft rock of the Carpenters (on "Top of the World") and in hits by Poco. Later, in the '70s, the pedal steel collided with the electronic spires of British sonic avatar Brian Eno. In the '80s, it transcended Western music to prove its awesome versatility in the Afro pop of King Sunny Ade.
From its humble lap steel beginning, the pedal steel guitar has mutated into a variety of types. The de facto standard among professional pedal steelers is the double-neck (10 strings per neck) instrument using a C6 tuning for one neck and an E9, or Nashville tuning, on the other. It's perfectly analogous to a bumper sticker mentality that touts: "There's only two kinds of music: Country and Western." Consider, then, that the C6 neck represents Western (and the Hawaiian-flavored Western swing style) and the E9 neck does modern country and everything else. The 12-string "universal" pedal steel combines both tunings on a single-neck instrument, while the 12-string "extended" type merely extends the sonic range of a guitar tuned to either E9 or C6.
Why You've Never Seen a Pedal Steel in Guitar Center
In the '40s and '50s, door-to-door salesmen would sell lap steel guitars with a matching amplifier, an instructional book, and a series of one-on-one lessons. The pedal steel guitar has never been so available: Its sky-high price tag (more than $1,000 in the 1960s) relegated it to a very select, determined few. It sold mainly in country music territory -- stereotyped as "hayseed" everywhere else, it never flew out the music stores north of the Mason-Dixon line.
Because of its obscurity, the pedal steel and its players were somewhat isolated. "We got most of our information through the mail and at steel guitar shows," testifies steeler Bobby Lee Quasar. "And information was sketchy at best. Rumors would last for years or even decades as they passed by word of mouth." Consequently, prospective pedal steel players, especially in areas where country music wasn't the language of choice, had a difficult time finding a teacher and an instrument.
The Carter-Starter is an entry-level pedal steel guitar. |
Quasar broke the invisible wall with his Web page, The Pedal Steel Pages and the online Steel Guitar Forum. There, pedal steel legends like Buddy Emmons and Bud Isaacs interact with fellow professionals and offer advice to neophytes. "People tell me that Forum has taken the place of the morning paper in their lives," says Quasar. "And it's probably the best resource in the world today for a beginner. There are lots of used pedal steels for sale there at good prices, and lots of players who are willing to share their experiences." Bob Hoffnar offers his take: "Probably the best thing anyone interested in the pedal steel guitar can do would be to make contact with a local player using the Forum. Go hear him play, and talk to him. Most pedal steel guitar players are really happy that anyone's interested in what they're doing." [laughs]
Next Page: Buying a Pedal Steel Guitar; It's Very Hard to Learn, or Not....
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