A day in the life of a Nashville studio steel player.

[elparkirio]

Wow, that's all, Wow

[Ted Nesbitt]

Ken, you have certainly packed a lot into your trip this time. As you are probably aware, I have sold my Carter LE, with great reluctance may I add, so my working guitar will now be my new "Infinity" SD10. I now feel privilaged to own such a guitar after hearing Buck Reid,s comments on it. Make sure your Carter is under 50lbs when you get to DFW airport, or they will hit you hard for overweight.

United charged me a fortune, I had no option but to pay up. Give me a call when you get back home.

Safe Trip

Ted

[Ken Byng]

Hi Ted
Thanks for the tip mate. AA charged me $50 excess on my Show Pro last year, so I was quite happy with that. I will be selling the Carter on when I get it home. It served a purpose and did me proud at the Dallas Show. She is in very good nick, and has hardly been played in her life.

Buck said that it was the way that the Infinity deals with histeresis that sold him on it and made him pull the trigger on the deal. That and the fact that Frank Carter stands by every guitar that he makes in terms of customer support. Buck's JCH is nearly 20 years old now, and still looks brand new. He looks after it, and it is some machine. He is going to put it up for sale when he gets his new guitar.

Your Infinity should last you a lifetime Ted, and with the way that it maintains its tuning, should be all that you ever need. She looks the part too.

I have to acknowledge that it was following a discussion with you that I have put a few posts on here. I had no inclination to do so until we spoke together at Dallas, and I laid out the reasons why I stopped posting here. Some folks will be disappointed to see me back here and others not so. I believe that every forum like this needs diversity of views, information and opinions, and I am trying to provide info that I think is worth sharing with others. I will retreat back into my hole when I get home and get stuck into my recording work.

I will give you a buzz when I get back. Please give my best to Ivor when you speak to him next, and tell him to keep polishing those MSA endplates

Regards
Ken

[Dave Nutt]

Great stuff Ken, keep it coming.

[Ken Byng]

OK here is a dark pic of Paul F that I took when I was a week or so into my stay in Nashville. The stage was darkly lit, and I was sitting well away from the stage with a little point & shoot camera. I will be seeing Paul again this evening, and hopefully will get a better shot of him. Here he is playing his own composition - the frantic 'All Aboard'.

[JohnDavisStringsHere]

Ken we are enjoying your posts (with a little envey:) ) please keep then coming,,,,,, I bought Bucks CD "work in progress" soon as it came out... Awesome!!

JD

[Ken Byng]

John
Buck played me some unreleased material that he is working up at the moment to go on a new album. One is a piece played on the bottom 4 strings on C6 with loads of hammer-ons, pull-offs and open strings. It blew my mind. 'A Work In Progress' was awesome I agree (and I posted about it on here where I first heard it), but I believe the new one will be double awesome when it is completed.

I am very proud to have Buck as a friend, and to be invited to his lovely home miles from anywhere was very special believe me. We are both grandads, and with that and talking steel guitar and steel guitarists which he just loves doing, we just talked and played and played and talked. Even when we went out to lunch we didn't stop.

Mike Johnson too is a lovely sweet man, and for him to offer to let me attend a recording session with him was such a kind gesture. He is a sweetheart of a guy as Malcolm will attest to, and despite playing on some monster hits, Mike is very grounded and not conceited in any way whatsoever. Just a very easy guy to talk to. He doesn't let you into his private world until he gets to know you, but once he does he is very relaxed and easy going. Mike made me feel 10 feet tall when he introduced me to his fellow musicians and described me as being 'a great player'. I had to say - "No Mike, you are a great player, and I am just a competent one. There is a big difference". I have shared some recorded material with Buck and Mike that I have done that I have shared with no-one else. This was with a view to get their technical opinion on the recording quality. They have been happy to do this.

Good luck to everyone back home.

[Ken Byng]

I spent an hour or two today (Monday) with very good friend Jeff Surratt. Jeff Built my Show Pro, without doubt the best sounding and best playing guitar I have ever tried.

In Pic 1 he is working on a gorgeous burgundy Show Pro, which was destined for Bobbe Seymour before he so tragically passed on just over a week ago.

Pic 2 shows Jeff working on a Sho~Bud LDG. He is using a precision piece of engineering tool - an Irish screwdriver - in his right hand. Always fixes everything when used with the appropriate force. The stifled grin shows that he couldn't keep a straight face, and that indeed the photo was a bit of humour set up on April Fools Day. I have to make it clear that Jeff treats all guitars with reverence, and doesn't let a hammer anywhere near his servicing work (unless it's Ivor Greenwood's endplates!!) He is a brilliant steel tech.

[Malcolm]

Ken think that should read just read Ivor Greenwood, not Ivor Greenwood's end plates.Never mind Ivor, all us MSA guys love you for personally keeping the company in business, just ignore old Byng, he is not one of us "chosen people"

[Ken Byng]

You never know Malcolm, one day I might be. Never say never!

Well last night at the Time jumpers gig was a little disappointing. Vince Gill had a chronically sore throat, and poor Paul Franklin had a terrible cough - they both looked like !!! Paul did spot me in the front row and said hello and shook my hand, and then retreated to the dressing room as he got an avalanche of folks wanting to speak to him. Normally Paul will find time for everyone, but he was just feeling so rough I think he just wanted to get home to bed.

Tonight is my last night in Nashville and it has been an incredible stay. I have heard a lot of steel playing since I came to the States, especially in Dallas obviously. The best performance playing wise and tone wise has to belong to Mike Johnson at the Station Inn with his band and his red Emmons push pull. Just about perfect for my taste. The low point was the passing of my friend and everyone's friend, Bobbe Seymour.

Another Seymourism. I was in Bobbe's store a few years back, chatting with him. He said "Do you know Bay-zill? I said " Bay-zill? - do you mean Basil.......Henriques"? He said "Yep, that's the one. The guy who has a lot to say on the steel guitar forum". I said "Well I don't know him all that well, Basil helped me out a few months back with a problem that I had when I stripped a leg thread on my Sho~Bud and I was in deep doo doo. Basil went out of his way to help me in my hour of need. It's what steel guitar brothers do". Bobbe then said quietly "Yeah, but can he play"? When I told Seymour of the volume of album sales that Basil had accounted for he was absolutely gobsmacked. I swear I heard his jaw hit the ground. He sat there for about 5 minutes without saying anything and then said - "Maybe that's the answer - perhaps ah should record a Hawaiian album"!! I told Bobbe he had missed the boat by some 2 or 3 decades. An album with an exotic photo on the front containing easy listening music was very appealing in the 1960's. Especially if it was recorded with a major record label that had the resources to promote their albums. Bay-zill went right up in Bobbe's estimation after that day, unlike poor old Richard Burton.

Bobbe said "Do you know Richard Burton"? I told him that I didn't but that I liked his playing. He said "Have you seen the pictures of the work that he does under a pedal steel. Man, he should work in an abattoir"!! I said that he could do a lot worse than having someone of Richard's calibre working in his store, but he wasn't convinced. He said "Who are the good players in the UK"? I told him that I don't know all of them, but mentioned Gerry Hogan, BJ Cole, Pete Hayward, Derek Thurlby, Dave Nash and one or two others including Sarah Jory. He turned his nose up when I mentioned her name. He said "Yup, she can play, but boy does she ever like herself". That surprised me, but as with everything, Bobbe was always very self opinionated and liked to come out with controversial statements. His opinion is not shared by the majority of Americans, who think Sarah is wonderful. Bobbe was very interested when I told him about Pete Hayward, saying that he would love to hear Pete play live on a steel guitar show. I said that we Brits would too, and that Pete is a legend in the UK. Bobbe did concede that BJ is a very fine player, and that he admired some of BJ's recordings.

Tomorrow morning I head off towards Little Rock, Arkansas, spending the night there before driving on to Irving, near Dallas and Friday's flight home. It would have been nice to personally share the trip with someone else, but reporting back on this forum has been the next best thing. The weather in Tennessee is warm and sunny today. I could actually live here for a few months of the year with my family, but I don't think wifey could. I'd like somewhere like Buck Reid's place, out in the sticks with no neighbours and next to nature. Buck feeds the deer, and they come into his garden most mornings and don't run off when he goes outside now, as they are used to him. Just wonderful - who would need TV when you have all of that on your doorstep and a rocking chair and good book on the porch. Heaven!

This is your USA correspondent signing off for another day.

Look after yourself folks - I will tell you how my battle with the TSA/customs and the airline goes at the airport later this week. Hopefully I will fare better than poor old Ted did when they hammered him.