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  ©¿©  It don't mean a thang,   
  mm   if it ain't got that twang.
       www.ntsga.com

Alvino Rey

Michael Carlson
Friday May 7, 2004
The Guardian

The innovative sounds of the father of the pedal steel guitar, Alvino Rey, who has died aged 95, influenced guitarists as disparate as Duane Eddy and Jimi Hendrix, and bands like the Ventures and the Shadows. In the late 1930s, working with the Gibson company, he had helped to develop the Electroharp pedal steel guitar, which he called his console, using six pedals to bend the steel strings.

Educated in the Cleveland, Ohio, suburb of Lakewood, Rey played the banjo locally, toured, and, in New York, played in the Porgy And Bess pit orchestra while studying guitar with Ray Smeck, who pioneered the electric guitar.

In 1934, Rey joined Harold Heidt's Musical Knights, becoming one of America's highest-paid sidemen. Heidt featured the singing King Sisters, and, in 1937, Rey married Luise King. In 1939, Heidt fired lead vocalist Alyce King, and Rey and the other sisters quit, and started their own orchestra. They broke all records at the Paramount Theatre in Los Angeles and became the Mutual radio network's house orchestra. He had a massive hit with Deep In The Heart Of Texas.

From 1944 to 1945, Rey served with the US navy, but after the war returned to the charts with Cement Mixer, his guitar providing appropriate sounds. His signature tune, Blue Rey, featured Luise's vocals fed through his guitar amplifier, a trick well ahead of its time. When big bands declined at the end of the 1940s, he played in small combos with his brother-in-law, organist Buddy Cole. He had one more hit, Ping Pong, capitalising on the crazes for table tennis and stereo: his steel guitar notes "bounced" between the two speakers.

He returned to the limelight as Alvino Rey And His Talking Guitar on The King Family ABC-TV variety show (1965-71). In the 1980s he led an orchestra at Disneyland. He had converted to his wife's Mormon faith, and formed a quintet that played around Salt Lake City. In 1996, he made his final appearance, with Luise singing, at the Utah centenary celebrations.

His wife died in 1997. Two sons and a daughter survive him.

· Alvino Rey (Alvin McBurney), musician, born July 1 1908; died February 24 2004

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A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars

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....Rey joined Harold Heidt's....

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  ©¿©  It don't mean a thang,   
  mm   if it ain't got that twang.
       www.ntsga.com

He always used an E6 tuning on the Electra-Harp. from the top E-C#-B-G#-E-C#-B-G#-E, then he had what is now known as the 5-6-7 pedals on C6.He had 9 strings on his to get that low E. I always wished I had that low E. I had 8 strings on my used Electra-Harp.

He and Gibson ,besides the pedal guitar,worked on a lot of electronic things, including the pickup on the Les Paul guitar.

His band had a radio wire out of the Rustic Cabin in New Jersay, every night.in around 1939 -40. I listened to him every night.
Gibson and Mult-Kord did have a Patent differnce, but Gibson MARKETED nationally their Electra-Harp years before Multi-Kord. It was also on a Birdseye maple cabinet with matched walnut inserts all the way to the floor on three sides, only open from the back. It was stable and had a great sound and that Big Tone control right by my pinky could be used to doowah and make it talk "Mama Blues', "St. Louis Blues"
etc. That novelty stuff got the public's attention too......"Nighty nite" as Alvin would say....al

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My Website..... www.cmedic.net/~almarcus/

He played a lot like Alvino, and I also thought a little smoother. Maybe he used picks.

I saw Alvino play right in front of me , I stood on the dance floor right next to the stage and watched his every move. He noticed it too. and he used a guitar flat pick and strummed. As he always switched from the steel to the guitar very quickly at times, and back.

I learned a lot from Alvino and went on from there.......al

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My Website..... www.cmedic.net/~almarcus/