NESGF (North of England Steel Guitar Festival)

[Will C]

Another excellent get-together at Thornton Watlass, big thanks to Tony Russell Davies for organising it and to everyone for coming along. I got the chance to meet Davie Holland and Keith Glendinning, and of course many old friends. Some lovely polished stuff from Davie and so many others, but for me the best part was listening to Mick Hearn wringing some super stuff out of his old National console guitar. Pedals? who needs 'em? (Well, me for starters....)

Roll on next year...

[derek evans 15]

HAD A GREAT TWO DAYS AT THE NESGF THIS YEAR AGAIN. SOME GREAT PLAYING FROM ALL THAT TOOK PART.
THANK.S TO TONY FOR HIS ORGANISING THE MEETING.IT WAS ESPECIALLY GOOD TO SEE DONNY ONCE MORE ,AND MEET DAVE HOLLAND
FOR THE FIRST TIME (HE IS CLASS).WHAT A KNOWLEDGE OF MUSIC BASIL HAS ( WOW ).I STOPPED OVER NIGHT THIS YEAR ,AND A BIG THANKYOU MUST GO TO VICTORIA AND TONY ,ALSO THE STAFF OF THE BUCK INN.I HAVE TO SAY HOWEVER IF YOU WANT TO BE AMONG
SOME OF THE NICEST PEOPLE YOU WILL EVER MEET COME TO THE NESGF AT THORNTON WATLASS..REGARDS DEREK.

[Ken Byng]

Well done Tony and everyone else who attended the festival. Sounds as though it was a roaring success.

[Tony Russell Davis]

Phew! Another one over, year 6, and it's great to see so many lovely friends coming back time after time. Over the weekend, as ever, there were new friends to welcome and I think we all got a lot out of the time together; I know I did. Each and every person contributed so much to the weekend and we couldn't have done without anyone. There were photos and videos taken and I hope some can be posted for the benefit of anybody that didn't manage to attend, and to jog the memories of the great time had by those of us who were there.
Lots of playing, talking and - oh yes, I bought a car!
There were even a couple of guys who stumbled in on us. One, a local steel guitar fan but not yet a player, came to see what was happening and another, a guitar player with an interest in steel, just happened to call at the pub to use the facilities and stayed for hours! Both are now on the emailing list.
Davie Holland and Mick Hearn were new to us and both outstanding in very different ways, we will certainly look forward to seeing them again.
Thank you, one and all, for coming; we'll see what became of the pictures and videos taken when, hopefully, they get posted here.
Very happy, Tony.

[nevada150]

I have to agree with all of the previous posts. It was a great Festival and although I was only there for the Saturday I heard some great players. The atmosphere was very friendly and thanks to Tony for organising the event. As an aspiring Lap Steel player I was blown away by Mick Hearn and also Rod King who played his set accompanied by wife Rosemary and Pat Hendriques along with Basil on Uke. The new attendees can see why we love the venue, excellent staff and a very nice room to play in. Thanks to all of the folks who had a long drive and roll on next August.
Keith.

[Basil Henriques]

Maybe for the next time the "Round Robin" should be CCH, because it's so well known by all of us... or is it ?
In Hanks version it's an 17 bar sequence, on the Don Helms video on YouTube, Don plays it as 17 bars, so I made it an even 16 and completely missed out the extra bar of 4 halfway through, and the extra bar of 1 at the end of each cycle.

Alan Brookes from Oakaland CA. was visiting the UK and called 'round to bring a guitar to me (More about that later) and to jam a little.
Well, I was just playing around with CCH and he said I should post the noodling on the forum, so, here is my noodling at it, warts and all.
(I'll probably take a serious stab at it next week)

Firstly I tried to disguise the melody by adding extra notes, but not subtracting any of the original melody ones, then I played the melody as chords, then from the hula vamp onwards, the melody in open and close harmony with the occasional chord.
The first and second part is the Fender 1000 and THEN the resurrected long scale Fender Stringmaster Mk1 Twin, twice through, Then the 1000 again..

The Semi Hawaiian Way


Also for good measure a version in Hank's key and tempo on my Emmons..
1970 Emmons-D10

The equipment in use for this :-
1953 Fender Stringmaster Mk1 D-8
1963 Fender 1000 (9 pedals)
1970 Emmons D-10 (was 9X4) now 4X3
Hilton Vol Pedal
Peavey Nashville 112 via its own "DI" to logic Pro 8 on a G5 twin 2.5Ghz
Tribotone Bar (The 10 string BH one)

Rounded off with a complete lack of attention to the details of playing !! I was experimenting with ToonTrack's EZ Drummer and all the new plugins from Universal Audio..

[derek evans 15]

I REALY LIKED YOUR RECORDING OF CHEATING HEART BASIL ,WHAT AGREAT SOUND .

[Basil Henriques]

Thank you Derek, which version The Fender guitars one or the Emmons PP ?

[derek evans 15]

HI BASIL, AT FIRST I CLICKED ON TO THE SEMI HAWAIIAN,AND LISTENED TO THAT. AND JUST A MINUTE AGO ON THE EMMONS.
BOTH OF THEM WERE TOP CLASS .GREAT BACKING TRACKS I MIGHT ADD. YOU CERTAINLY HAVE AMAZING TOUCH AND TONE.
REGARDS DEREK.

[Nick Bidmade]

Sounds remarkably like Cold Cold Heart Derek!