Emmons v Day v both

[STEDDIE EDDIE]

John, if you are going to quote my posts, then i would thank you for not doing selective half quotes, you missed out the part where i was explaining 'players are getting confused particulary newbies', it takes on a very different slant when you quote the whole sentence, im merely pointing out that the thread is actually called 'EMMONS V DAY V BOTH' and it was YOU that wrote 'HUNTLEY' instead of 'DAY', check back on your own post, i agree with you about not being railroaded by others re virtually anything steel, so dont go railroading others into YOUR chosen terminology, and as for your final snipe at me saying 'what have i done?' i guess i dont see myself on a mission of just helping others, i only want to play, i do try and contribute to the forum re music and my bit of knowledge on gear etc, but im not interested in running 'meetings' or 'selling gear' for profit or not, just because someone doesnt agree 100% with you, doesnt make them confrontational, and no i wont be posting any negative comments about you, and your videos, I wouldnt dream of doing so, anyway, enough said between you and me, lets not detract from a good thread 'emmons v day v both'

[Basil Henriques]

A date of the supposed paradigm pedal placement by Gordon Huntley would be of some help. The 'phone conversation betwixt Buddy Emmons and Jimmy Day has been confirmed by them both, they discussed splitting the Dud Isaacs change (Used on the Web Pierce record "Slowly") and never mentioned which pedal was to be where. That's how the two copedents came about, deny that and you're also denying that Buddy Emmons was the developer of the current E9th copedent.
Rod King was attempting to emulate the sounds coming out of the USA in the late 50's early 60's and he achieved the same results by STARTING with an "A" tuning and dropping the A's to G#, so there REALLY is a Rod King copedent..
Search and study these posts to glean more accurate information about the "Day" copedent:-
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=149442

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=149093

Around 1953, a console steel player named Bud Isaacs attached a pedal to one of the necks of his guitar. The function of the pedal was to change the pitch of two of the strings, whereby Isaacs would have two of the most common steel guitar tunings available on one neck. When he used this pedal to change his tuning while sustaining a chord during the recording of Webb Pierce's hit "Slowly," he touched off a revolution among steel guitarists.

The steel guitar seems to have an unusually high number of mechanically inclined players, and a period of extensive tinkering followed Isaac's initial idea. Two of these tinkering musicians were Buddy Emmons and Jimmy Day, and their playing and mechanical innovations alike have done more for the development of the pedal steel guitar than any other contributors.

Emmons and Day split the function of Isaac's pedal into two separate pedals and added two strings to fill in the gaps in the E9 tuning, bringing the number of strings to ten. Although Emmons' and Day's setups do the same thing, Emmons and Day used the opposite of each other's pedals to raise the strings. To this day, when one buys a pedal steel, the manufacturer will ask whether the player wants an Emmons Setup or a Day Setup. Emmons incorporated a third pedal to his setup, based on a change Ralph Mooney had used on his instrument.

Emmons joined forces in 1957 with another steel-playing machinist named Harold "Shot" Jackson and formed the Sho-Bud company, the first pedal steel guitar manufacturer. Sho-Bud guitars incorporated all the innovations that had taken place during the 1950s, including Emmons's third pedal, Beck's knee levers, and ten strings. The single-neck pedal steel guitar was now standardized with three pedals and (up to) five knee levers.

Carl Dixon wrote a book on the development of the Pedal Steel Guitar. GET IT..

Read Buddy Emmons' comments here :-
http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum5/HTML/006283.html

And Paul Franklin, Winnie Winston and Buddy Emmons' here:-
http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum5/HTML/007716.html

[Basil Henriques]

John, with all due respect, their is no such thing as the "Huntley" copedent, it's the Day" copedent.. Gordon wasn't even playing pedals when Emmons and Day split the Isaacs change..that was in the late 50's... See the history of Gordon Huntley on the European Steel Guitar Hall of Fame, a history that YOU helped compile..
CLICKHERE

The salient points:-

One of England’s top steel players, Gerry Hogan, recalls first having met Gordon in 1959. Gerry was 15 at the time and his schoolmate Roger Gregory was bassist in J.D. (John Derek) Roberts’ band ‘The Black Stetson Boys’. Gerry auditioned for the guitar spot, but not owning a guitar himself, borrowed Derek’s Hofner ‘President’ electric guitar. Gerry got the job, and the first gig was that very next Saturday at Lambourn village hall. Also on the bill that night were ‘The Hawaiian Serenaders’ who featured Gordon Huntley on steel guitar. This was before pedals were standard, at least, in the U.K., and Gordon was playing a triple-neck Fender non-pedal guitar. Gerry discovered that Gordon lived just down the road in Newbury, and from then on spent every spare moment round at Gordon’s picking up tips. Gordon was already becoming interested in country, and was doing some ‘Speedy West’, ‘Don Helms’ and ‘Jerry Byrd’ type licks.

In the early sixties they met some American servicemen who had a band based at Greenham Common, and Gerry remembers learning a lot from a guitar player by the name of Tommy Gardner, who was a finger-style advocate. The band later became ‘The Rambling Cowboys’ then ‘Johnny and the Hayriders’. Gerry, by 1966, was playing steel himself and, in 1968 the band became ‘Country Fever’ when Albert Lee and Pat Donaldson (bass) joined. The BBC was a constant source of work for these bands; there were live radio shows, such as ‘Country Meets Folk’, with MC, the late, Wally Whyton and later, after the advent of Radio 2, there were many others, such as those hosted by, among others, DJ’s Jimmy Young and Tony Brandon. If only these shows had been recorded…..

In 1963, Jeff Newman, steel player with ‘The Westernaires’, a band mainly made up of U.S. Servicemen, as he himself was, went back to the States, and was replaced by Gordon, who had by this time already built one pedal onto his steel, made from a tractor accelerator pedal and a length of bicycle brake cable.

Soon Gordon teamed up with Newbury solicitor (attorney) Nigel Dennis, to manufacture Denley steel guitars – (DENnis-huntLEY).

[STEDDIE EDDIE]

well well Mr H, you never cease to amaze me with your in depth responses, and i would not DARE to take issue or confront you, cos you just flippin' know about things, and this [latest] little spat between John and myself, in no way demeans the tremendous contribution that the late, great Gordon Huntley has made re psg, he was my first influence for psg when i saw him on top of the pops making these awesome sounds with Matthews Southern Comfort around 1970, he is certainly the reason why i am on the bss site and playing psg, we should, and are very proud this side of the pond to have produced such a great steel player, thanks for the history lesson Basil, very very interesting,
ps. what were Mr and Mrs Jackson thinking when they decided to call their son ' Shot'

[JohnDavisStringsHere]

Baz there is no way I would try to compete with your knowledge of all things steel, It would be like beating myself with a stick!
All I can say is you are quoting from the USA forum that has only been here since 1997? as B0b says...
For many years, most of the world's steel guitarists were isolated from each other. Information about the instrument was hard to find. The Internet has changed all that. Today non-pedal and pedal steel guitarists of all skill levels share their knowledge with many other players every day.
All I am saying is, the coversation I had with Gordon did take place and knowing how much of an Emmons fan he was I am sure if he had of had visual on Emmons pedal set up, he would have copied it.
I have the greatest respect for Rod King, yourself and all the other class players we have had in the UK but to my thinking Gordon did more to make the steel guitar popular our side of the pond than anyone else has.

Eddie I am not trying to "Railroad" anyone, I call it the Huntley/Day set up....you can all call it what you like....
I think as time passes and Emmons gets forgotten the "newbies" will call it "The Franklin set up" or maybe "The Buck Reid set up" To quote someone else "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" Sorry Bill if I got that wrong....

[Ken Byng]

For me it will always be the Day set up. I discussed this very topic with Gordon on the phone once, and he admitted that Jimmy preceded him in setting up the E9 pedal arrangement by quite a while. He also said that he wasn't aware of Jimmy's set up when he chose to implement the CBA system. There is no doubt that many of us UK players who play CBA do so because Gordon set up Eric's imports that way in the early 70's.

Gordon Huntley did more than any other player in Europe to promote pedal steel guitar and steel guitar in general. He was a very fine player (especially on C6) , and certainly was extremely capable when it came to working out pieces played by our USA counterparts. I for one am very grateful that the ZB's that Eric imported came set up as CBA via Gordon.

However, both pedal setups will get you where you want, so it is not that relevant to argue whether CBA should be called Huntley or Day. I prefer calling it ABC or CBA. I find the downside of playing Day pedals is that I do not intuitively find it easy to play a guitar that is set up in Emmons mode, but certainly the Day system is so much more comfortable on knees and ankles for my money.

Sorry JD -

[JohnDavisStringsHere]

No apology needed there Ken, I mostley refer to my set up as Huntley/Day thus giving both gentlemen the respect I think they deserve (coming at it from my angle ) If I just call it Huntley twood be wrong as Mr.Day had it first...... but the main point I was trying to make was that Gordon was not trying to copy anyone....its just the way he put it together from hearing it played as oposed to being able to see it...

[Will C]

I started with the Emmons/Nashville setup: pedal left to right = A,B,C. Knee levers counter-intuitive: left+ raise E's, right = lower. Day/Huntley is the opposite: pedals C,B,A, LKL=E to Eb, LKR=E to F. Much more intuitive, and easier to play in terms of ankle joint rotation in my view.

After talking to JD I changed over (not without some convincing I might add), and really like the Day/Huntley setup. It just makes more sense. I like it that we have a bit of discussion on now, Ray has a good point there.

Will

[Ken Byng]

No apology needed there Ken, I mostly refer to my set up as Huntley/Day thus giving both gentlemen the respect I think they deserve (coming at it from my angle ) If I just call it Huntley twood be wrong as Mr.Day had it first...... but the main point I was trying to make was that Gordon was not trying to copy anyone....its just the way he put it together from hearing it played as opposed to being able to see it...

John
It's funny how some things just permeate down. After getting my first pedal steel - one of Gordon's guitars (an Ormston D8 tuned to E7 and A6) moving on to a ZB D10 in 1972 with correct tuning and Gordon's preferred pedal arrangement, it all started to fit together for me.

Years later, I passed on the benefits of the CBA pedals on E9 to my pupils, including Miss Jory who has retained her allegiance to CBA. From the comments of one of the previous posters, it would appear that you are doing the same thing. In the USA, only about 10% play CBA. Over here, it is about 60-40 in favour of CBA. So Gordon's legacy is his influence on the British scene. The pioneers of pedal steel guitar in the UK include Gordon, BJ, Pete Wilsher, Gerry, Basil and Rod King. However, Gordon is the Godfather of British pedal steel guitar.

[Donny Johnston]

I love a good stooshie.