There have been many kinds of artistry over the centuries that depended on pure technique, and moved people one way or another, but always existing side-by-side with the "folk" art and music that, perhaps, reaches more people through sheer simplicity and [i]heart[i/].

Plenty of room for both, and plenty to enjoy and be "moved" by. I never will understand the "my music can kick your music's ass" mentality.

BTW, there are actually hundreds of thousands of "Hippies" still alive and well, a whole new generation of them supporting a vast network of "Jam" bands, venues, and festivals. Having played extensively on that circuit, I can state with certantity that they are generally much more aware of Pedal steel than the average public- including "country music" fans- and frequently know about many steel players besides just Garcia and Randolph. Those two definitely lead the fans to the steel trough, though. It is really quite a joy to play one of the festivals and be literally thronged by youngsters wanting to know more, and watch a steel played up close.

I'd suggest that when a younger fan mentions Garcia as the top of the heap, rather than trying to steer them to Lloyd on a 70's Nashville date, you play them any of the fine live recordings of Buddy with Danny Gatton. Now there's a killer Jam band if I ever heard one...

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I'd suggest that when a younger fan mentions Garcia as the top of the heap, rather than trying to steer them to Lloyd on a 70's Nashville date, you play them any of the fine live recordings of Buddy with Danny Gatton. Now there's a killer Jam band if I ever heard one...

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Or perhaps the Dire Straits CDs with Paul Franklin.

One thing about this forum b0b, it's certainly COMPELLING!

[This message was edited by Jon Zimmerman on 09
October 2005 at 04:13 PM.]

Yep, and if you have the coroner on speed dial, Mr. Ed has truly succumbed to his injuries this time.

[This message was edited by Jon Zimmerman on 09 October 2005 at 04:32 PM.]

Steinar spoke of mis-quotes, and made one himself! He said...

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And while we're on the subject of misquotations,- I can't remember anybody in here stating that's all they value either...

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You see, Steinar, I can't remember anybody saying that, either.

I know I didn't.

Go back and read my words again.

Those two very important words "in here" are yours, Not mine. I didn't say "in here". Please, if you quote someone, try to get it right.

But I still like you!

Steinar

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www.gregertsen.com

[This message was edited by Steinar Gregertsen on 09 October 2005 at 06:10 PM.]

Funny thing, at the end of the last refrain of TYC (right after "and know they love you") Garcia played just ONE NOTE -- one simple, perfect, crystal clear and PERFECTLY IN TUNE note that speaks volumes more than just about any other note or combination of notes ever recorded anywhere. Regardless of whether this was beginner's luck or pure genius, he played it and it's recorded for all posterity to marvel at.

Now, if all the clever, wordy wannabe steel players out there who find their own personal worth enhanced by trashing a thoughtful and articulate dead guy -- who also happened to be a leader of the only band in history to carry a 200+ bed field hospital to EVERY SHOW for the exclusive benefit of their fans -- could figure out how to say half as much with one sweet word we would all have an infinitely better world to live in.

If those same "experts" all turned off their computers and concentrated on what the notes THEY were playing on the PSG meant we would have an infintely better sounding one as well.

If anbody needs me I'll be playing my guitar.

[This message was edited by Dave Grafe on 11 October 2005 at 09:47 AM.]

In the end, most people value art more than they value technique. Technique speaks to the brain, but not to the soul. Art speaks to the whole listener.

That really should be engraved somewhere on the forum for all to see. Very well said!

Art is communication of a creative idea or concept. Whether it's spoken, written, sculpted, painted, drawn, or in this case, played as music. Technique (in context to art) is a learned skill by which to execute the communication of an idea or concept. The success of art depends on how successful the intended idea or concept is communicated to an audience. This is a very subjective situation which has no real "measuring stick" accept in the artist's mind. The success of technique is based on the ability to execute predescribed parameters.

In the final analysis, great technique without art will still be great technique, but it won't be art. However, art without great technique will remain art. Together they can be sublime.

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn

[This message was edited by Glenn Suchan on 10 October 2005 at 12:21 PM.]

Of course technique is important, after all it is the skill/tool one use to express one's emotions and personality, and create this thing called "art".

But sometimes art just 'happens' - often purely accidental - and the lack of a superior technique shouldn't be allowed to take anything away from it, that would make this world a poorer place, IMHO......

Steinar

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www.gregertsen.com

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art without great technique will remain art

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sometimes art just 'happens'

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Two questions.

Assuming the works of Emmons, Franklin, Jernigan, Chalker, and Green are considered art, exactly how much of it does anyone on this thread think did not require superior technique?

Other than TYC, how many other great pedal steel works can you name in which the technique was not that great?

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Jeff's Jazz

[This message was edited by Jeff Lampert on 10 October 2005 at 02:47 PM.]

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Other than TYC, how many other great pedal steel works can you name in which the technique was not that great?

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Pretty much everything Marshall Tucker did would qualify too.

Rick

[This message was edited by Rick Garrett on 10 October 2005 at 03:22 PM.]

Back to Garcia. His path on the steel wasn't that long and his skills were not what most steel heads would call advanced, but what I've heard of his work was quite tasteful. Kind of sounds like someone who really dug Mooney and Brumley and JayDee Maness, but also played with a more trippy, ethereal, atmospheric edge. It was quite appropriate for the musical environment he played in.

This topic cracks me up every time it pops up. Took me 3 days to cave in. There are the many defenders of the greats who just can't accept that people enjoyed Garcia's steel playing. And then there are the many who do appreciate it and were maybe even turned on to steel because of Jerry's work with CSNY's TYC, the Dead, and maybe NRPS. What we can all agree on is that Jerry loved the instrument as much as many of us do.

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Sho~Bud Rules!!!!!!!!!!

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Oh yes, Jerry Garcia.... well to keep this on topic, let me just say that I agree with much of what's being said here.

There.

[This message was edited by Jim Phelps on 10 October 2005 at 06:02 PM.]

Average painters and players don't inspire controversy beyond their lifetimes.
To say that one is average is to put them in the mainstream. Neither Garcia nor Picasso were mainstream.

To say that an artist is average because there is somebody better is a quantitave assessment that casts aspersions on us all. I can think of three pedal steelers/forum members who are readily known by only their initials. Is everybody else average because these three are better? And what is average?
Quantitative and qualitative assessments do not mix.

I am enriched because there are so many here who are good. I gain appreciation of the steel guitar by exposure to the many that are different. I learn by the appreciation of small differences in style.
Better and best are terms only I can apply to myself.
Picasso and Michelangelo, Garcia and Emmons, they're apples, oranges, kiwis, and pears.

Jeff, re-read the second paragraph of my last post. Art is an idea or concept. The best an artist can hope for regarding his art is that his audience correctly translates the intent of the idea or concept. Incidently, art in this distilled description can communicate all emotions from joy to disdain. It just depends upon what the artist intended to convey.

And yes, the works of Emmons, Franklin, Jernigan, Chalker and Green are all highly artistic and are executed with a degree of technique the rest of us strive for. But the kernel of their art would be the same without their incredible technique. Because they combine great art with great technique their works are examples of the sublime.

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn

[This message was edited by Glenn Suchan on 11 October 2005 at 11:24 AM.]

Jerry wasn't perfect,
there are some who think he was.
That's their problem.

I like a lot of what he did, on
MOSTANY INSTRUMENT HE RECORDED WITH.
But not all of it, on any instrument he touched either.

Some of his recordings are classics in the cannon of
The musical form they were sprung from.

This is not the cannon of many steel guitarists... so what.
It doesn't diminish what he acomplished.

If those predomiately from other music playingfields,
don't care to take the time to listen to
ALL the directions he took at various times,
and solely form opinions based on one or two songs they have heard...
well THAT is THIER loss.

For me Workingmans Dead will ALWAYS be a classic country album. With some other inffluences thrown in.

Not staying locked into only one prevailing vision of what country music should be.

Lloyd and Jay Dee also played on albums of that period that pushed the envelope a bit.
Such as Sweetheart Of The Rodeo.
Which I love.

But find doesn't stand up quite as well these days,
as the CSNY Album with Teach Your Children.

If some vision obscured deadhead wants to say
JG was "The Greatest Steel Player Ever".

There also seems to be someone equaly blinded to JG's other steel cuts
and general musical cannon, to say he sucked.

I think they BOTH would be wrong.

All in all Heronimous Bosch had more to say,
But I prefer Demuth, and Elizabeth Vigie Le Brun.

[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 11 October 2005 at 07:24 AM.]

There was the time, in about '93 that some members of the Dead sang the National Anthem at the Giants opening day. Some of the great Giants of the past were there, and when someone wanted to introduce Jerry to Willie Mays, Willie blew him off-he needed to get in a golf car and off to the day's next event for the Giants alumni.

Jerry laughed about it, because in his latter years so many people were constantly tugging on his shirt from all directions-he thought it was actually kind of cool to get blown off by the great Mays.

I don't remember the exact quote, but when asked why he gave up the pedal steel, Garcia responded with something like "it would take a whole other lifetime to master it."

When the Dead were on, and thoroughly plugged into the groove-the moments from those concerts were some of the greatest musical moments of my life.

"There is nothing in the world like a Grateful Dead concert."

"They're not just the best at what they do-they're the only ones that do what they do."

The bumper sticker and the banner quoted above say it all for me. And if you were never there to catch some of that magic-then you will never know what you missed.

He will always be one of my favorites, pedal steel or not.

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Mark

[This message was edited by Mark Eaton on 11 October 2005 at 10:37 AM.]

Brad

Actually, I was gonna continue to blow it off but Perlowin called me today and talked about it so I somehow felt wierdly compelled to read it.

I remember a day in 1971 when I was gonna play at the Jack O' Diamonds Club in Palmdale CA with Garland Frady, my buddy who was as stone-cold a hardcore, greasy-haired, pack-of-Camels-rolled-up-in-short-sleeved-shirt, redneck from Alabama as could possibly be, and a great singer and songwriter.

I stopped at his house in the Valley to pick him up for the gig, and he said "I want you to listen to the greatest steel guitar solo I've ever heard." He then played me TYC. I told him I'd spent the last few years trying to learn how NOT to play like that.

Garland was a redneck genius (RIP, my friend), he saw what a lot of y'all see in that solo. In the retrospectroscope of 35 years, it seems like a pretty good solo, though I wouldn't expect "4 Wheel Drive" to be the follow up single.

Hey guys. Music isn't a zero-sum game, where for Garcia to *win,* Emmons/Green/Chalker/et al. have to *lose.* Only when we speak in terms of absolutes, like "greatest," "most influential," etc. do we get in trouble, it seems.

I agree with a lot of what was said by Donny, by Jeff, by Glenn, by b0b, and others... but not all. That's just MHO, anyway.

Incidentally and off-topically, this forum is one of the most polite, well-moderated forums in cyberspace. I visit (but refrain from posting on) one particular bass fishing forum... not moderated it seems... in which guys regularly call each other moron, idiot, imbecile, liar, traitor, bastard, "enemy of our country," "I fart on you and your opinions," "you better not ever meet me face to face," ad nauseum and it's really disturbing to see how animalistic and threatening forums can be.

This place is like kindergarten, dudes.

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Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association

[This message was edited by Herb Steiner on 11 October 2005 at 07:00 PM.]

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Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association

Overtuned 3rd strings @ 1 meter.
Ready your B pedals.
Aim,
FIRE!!

[This message was edited by David L. Donald on 11 October 2005 at 08:08 PM.]

You guys always seem to speak my mind

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Klaus Caprani

MCI RangeXpander S-10 3x4
www.klauscaprani.com

APPRECIATION. Why not appreciate the contributions we all make in this world? Heck, it puzzles me to this day how anyone can listen to hip-hop, or metal. BUT, it's OK. If they like it and it brings no harm, I hope they enjoy it and are inspired. I sit upstairs 3-4 nights a week listening to my sons band. They're loud, the style is not what I PREFER, but I do recognize the tallent and their enjoyment. Thank God for Freedom.

[This message was edited by Tim Bridges on 16 October 2005 at 12:44 PM.]