Your words were so very poignant. Little Roy Wiggin's playing behind Eddy Arnold MADE Eddy Arnold. I will go to my death saying that. Just like Ray Price was MADE by Jimmy Day and Buddy Emmons. NO way would either of these singers EVER achieved their trmendous stature had it not been for these steel players in my opinion.

Roy's playing was often criticized by steel players as being too simple. Well, it was simple all-right but it fit Eddy's voice like a glove. NO other player ever, could have been a more perfect match for Eddy than Little Roy IMHO. And as such, I can not go along at all with criticizing him.

Ya see Roy came along at a time when MOST steel players did NOT play melody. Most ad-libbed. With a myriad of tunings they used a mixture of western swing and/or big band chord type tunings. Many used the steel as just another chording type instrument like regular guitar players did.

Little Roy tuned his 6 string guitars to a simple E tuning or C#minor. Two of the 3 most popular tunings ever for lap steel. The other one being A major with low bass. And he played strictly melody 99% of the time.

Roy played several lap steels often using a stand up SG stand. One was a Gibson 6 string. He also played this guitar using a string around his neck. There are pictures depicting this floating around. In fact, if my memory serves me right that is what he was using when Eddy hired him at the Opry one night in the late 40's.

Eddy told Little Roy to change the Oswald type ting-a-ling Dobro sound, to a more mellow type without the twang sound. Roy of course did it beautifully.

Later Roy purchased a Rickenbacker bakelite with white plates. I once saw a large picture of Little Roy holding this Rick in his home when Wayne Tanner and I had breakfast at Roy's house.

But the guitar he played most on through most of his career with Eddy was his new Gibson console grand D-8. I believe it was a D-8. It may have been a D-6. But my memory is fading fast with those stats. Forgive please.

During the ealier years with Eddy, Roy only tuned to a straight E tuning or the C# minor. Later however he added a 7th to his E tuning and changed the C# minor tuning to E13th with a high G#. It was at Eddy's suggestion he do this.

Here is the story as I recall it. One night Eddy got up tight about his fans applauding louder when hearing Little Roy's ting-a-ling than they did for Eddy. So he told Little Roy to change his style so it would not take away from the "business" of Eddy Arnold.

Let me go into this a little more, and it was NOT totally unjustified. There were two distinct Eddy Arnolds. Eddy the man and Eddy the very popular singer of that era. Eddy always wanted the latter to be unscathed. And I must say he achieved that to a very large degree. So I do not fault him, IF it was perceived that the fans were more concerned with the ting-a-ling than the "business" Eddy Arnold. Most could see what this might do in a higly competitive field like singing.

It was about this time when one of Eddy's greatest hits came about. "Just a Little Lovin". you will notice that Roy's playing on this tune was NOT at all like most of what Eddy had done. It was a more "uptown" steel sound.

From that day on, while he continued to "ting-a-ling" it was never really the same sound. If you will listen to it closely on such tunes as "I'll Hold You In My Heart" and "Bouquet of Roses", you can clearly hear the difference as compared with later recordings.

But that withstanding I still feel that Eddy's tremendous and unprecedented rise to fame in not only the country field BUT the POP field was due to Eddy's incredible voice AND Little Roy's perfectly matched "simple" steel guitar backup.

My opinions of course. Others will surely dissagree,

I know Wiggins also owned at least one double-neck Bigsby. It's now owned by Jimmy Roy, with the name plate still intact.

You are a fountain of history and insight of steel guitar. You are a great asset to this forum.

As Carl dixon says about little Roy Wiggins..."it was simple all-right but it fit Eddy's voice like a glove" Amen Carl.

Someone say Simple? ... maybe but it has true feeling and it works.I'm tired of hear today a lot of overplaying .That's my opinion of course.

Yes friends....That was real steel guitar.