The British Steelies Society

Hello! I spent a very happy couple of hours yesterday learning the solo from George Straits "Blue Clear Sky" (thanks to the very helpful johnnyupok YouTube channel). Until now I've just been focusing on finding my own way around the instrument, but would like to learn a few more solos now to broaden my ideas. I tried having a go at Ricky Skaggs "Nothing Can Hurt You" from the same channel, but that one is a bit beyond me at the moment - too many levers! So, can anyone recommend some good solos to look at for a relative beginner? Particularly if there's a good instructional video on YouTube. Thanks!

Hi Laura, I am more into older country but had a gig the other day that required a turn around for Lorretta's Honky Tonk gal (not saying that I'm playing it right but it did the job) and it works nice, here's how it went, let me know if it helps you or if I am wasting our time

Hi Laura,

It's good to see you tackling the pedal steel, though I find it messes with my dobro technique a bit, and vice versa I guess there is a good reason Jerry Douglas doesn't indulge, though Mike Auldridge did.

My recommendations for tunes to learn would be:

Hickory Wind - The Byrds and/or Gram Parsons
Teach Your Children - I know, I know, lots of steel players turn up their noses at Jerry Garcia's playing, but this is such a milestone in country rock it can't be ignored.
Together Again - there are may different lessons for this classic tune on YouTube.

I hope this helps.

Cheers, Chris

Thanks John, that's really lovely. I'll have a work through some of that today.

Chris- Together Again is absolutely on my list (the solo on the Paul Franklin/Vince Gill Bakersfield album is my favourite bit of pedal steel ever). Great list! I've actually found so fat it's opened up ideas on dobro in an interesting way, and not messed with technique (but then maybe my pedal steel technique is all wrong!).