Steel guitar
![]() Three types of steel guitars: resonator, lap steel, pedal steel | |
String instrument | |
---|---|
Other names | Hawaiian guitar, lap steel, pedal steel, console steel, kīkākila, Dobro |
Classification | String instrument, flat picked or finger picked |
Hornbostel–Sachs classification | (Composite chordophone) |
Inventor(s) | Popularized by Joseph Kekuku |
Developed | 1890 |
Playing range | |
Variable |
A steel guitar (Hawaiian: kīkākila[1]) is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conventional guitar in that it is played without using frets; conceptually, it is somewhat akin to playing a guitar with one finger (the bar). Known for its portamento capabilities, gliding smoothly over every pitch between notes, the instrument can produce a sinuous crying sound and deep vibrato emulating the human singing voice. Typically, the strings are plucked (not strummed) by the fingers of the dominant hand, while the steel tone bar is pressed lightly against the strings and moved by the opposite hand.
The idea of creating music with a slide of some type has been traced back to early African instruments, but the modern steel guitar was conceived and popularized in the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaiians began playing a conventional guitar in a horizontal position across the knees instead of flat against the body, using the bar instead of fingers. Joseph Kekuku developed this manner of playing a guitar, known as "Hawaiian style", about 1890 and the technique spread internationally.
The sound of Hawaiian music featuring steel guitar became an enduring musical fad in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century and in 1916, recordings of indigenous Hawaiian music outsold all other U.S. musical genres. This popularity spawned the manufacture of guitars designed specifically to be played horizontally. The archetypal instrument is the Hawaiian guitar, also called a lap steel. These early acoustic instruments were not loud enough relative to other instruments, but that changed in 1934 when a steel guitarist named George Beauchamp invented the electric guitar pickup. Electrification allowed these instruments to be heard, and it also meant their resonant chambers were no longer essential. This meant steel guitars could be manufactured in any design, even a rectangular block bearing little or no resemblance to the traditional guitar shape. This led to table-like instruments in a metal frame on legs called "console steels", which were technologically improved about 1950 to become the more versatile pedal steel guitar.
In the United States, the steel guitar influenced popular music in the early twentieth century, combining with jazz, swing and country music to be prominently heard in Western swing, honky-tonk, gospel and bluegrass. The instrument influenced Blues artists in the Mississippi Delta who embraced the steel guitar sound but continued holding their guitar in the traditional way; they used a tubular object (the neck of a bottle) called a "slide" around a finger. This technique, historically called "bottleneck" guitar, is now known as "slide guitar" and is commonly associated with blues and rock music. Bluegrass artists adapted the Hawaiian style of playing in a resonator guitar known as a "Dobro", a type of steel guitar with either a round or square neck, sometimes played with the musician standing and the guitar facing upward held horizontally by a shoulder strap.
History
[edit]In the late 19th century, European sailors and Portuguese vaqueros, hired by Hawaii's king to work cattle ranches, introduced Spanish guitars in the Hawaiian Islands.[2][3] For whatever reason, Hawaiians did not embrace standard guitar tuning that had been in use for centuries.[4] They re-tuned their guitars to make them sound a major chord when all six strings were strummed, now known as an "open tuning".[5] The term for this is "slack-key" because certain strings were "slackened" to achieve it.[2] Steel guitar strings, then a novelty, offered new possibilities to the islanders.[6] To change chords, they used some smooth object, usually a piece of pipe or metal, sliding it over the strings to the fourth or fifth position, easily playing a three-chord song.[a] It is physically difficult to hold a steel bar against the strings while holding the guitar against the body (hand supinated) so the Hawaiians placed the guitar across the lap and played it with the hand pronated. Playing this way became popular throughout Hawai'i and spread internationally.[2]
Oahu-born Joseph Kekuku became proficient in this style of playing around the end of the 19th century and popularized it—some sources say he invented the steel guitar.[8] He moved to the U.S. and became a vaudeville performer and also toured Europe performing Hawaiian music. The Hawaiian style of playing spread to America and became popular during the first half of the 20th century; noted players of the era were Frank Ferera, Sam Ku West, "King" Bennie Nawahi and Sol Hoʻopiʻi. Hoʻopiʻi (/ˌhoʊoʊˈpiːi/ hoh-oh-PEE-ee)[9] was perhaps the most famous of the Hawaiians who spread the sound of instrumental lap steel worldwide.[2] This music became popular to the degree that it was called the "Hawaiian craze"[10] and was ignited by a number of events.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c4/Bird_of_Paradise_Ad.jpg/220px-Bird_of_Paradise_Ad.jpg)
The annexation of Hawai'i as a U.S. territory in 1900 stimulated Americans' interest in Hawaiian music and customs.[11] In 1912, a Broadway musical show called Bird of Paradise premiered; it featured Hawaiian music and elaborate costumes.[12] The show became quite successful and, to ride this wave of success, it toured the U.S. and Europe, eventually spawning the 1932 film Bird of Paradise.[10] Joseph Kekuku was a member of the show's original cast[13] and toured with the show for eight years.[14] In 1918, The Washington Herald stated, "So great is the popularity of Hawaiian music in this country that 'The Bird of Paradise' will go on record as having created the greatest musical fad this country has ever known".[15]
In 1915, a world's fair called the Panama–Pacific International Exposition was held in San Francisco to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal and over a nine-month period introduced the Hawaiian style of guitar playing to millions of visitors.[9] In 1916, recordings of indigenous Hawaiian instruments outsold every other genre of music in the U.S.[16]
Radio broadcasts played a role in fueling the popularity of Hawaiian music.[17] Hawaii Calls was a program originating in Hawai'i and broadcast to the U.S. mainland west coast. It featured the steel guitar, ukulele, and Hawaiian songs sung in English. Subsequently, the program was heard worldwide on over 750 stations.[18] Sol Hoʻopiʻi began broadcasting live from KHJ radio in Los Angeles in 1923.[11] By the 1920s, Hawaiian music instruction for children was becoming common in the U.S.[11] One of the steel guitar's foremost virtuosos, Buddy Emmons, studied at the Hawaiian Conservatory of Music in South Bend, Indiana, at age 11 in 1948.[19]
The acceptance of the sound of the steel guitar, then referred to as "Hawaiian guitars" or "lap steels", spurred instrument makers to produce them in quantity and create innovations in the design to accommodate this style of playing.[20][21]
![Electric lap steel guitar](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b1/Fender_Champion_lap_steel_%40_2010_TSGA_Jamboree.jpg/220px-Fender_Champion_lap_steel_%40_2010_TSGA_Jamboree.jpg)
In the early twentieth century, steel guitar playing branched off into two streams: lap-style, performed on an instrument specifically designed or modified to be played on the performer's lap; and bottleneck-style, performed on a traditional Spanish guitar held flat against the body.[22] The bottleneck-style became associated with blues and rock music, and the horizontal style became associated with several musical genres, including Hawaiian music, country music, Western swing, honky-tonk, bluegrass and gospel.[22]: 9
Use in musical genres
[edit]Blues music
[edit]![A musician playing a slide guitar with a slide on their little finger](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c7/Slide_guitar_1.jpg/220px-Slide_guitar_1.jpg)
Solo African-American blues artists popularized the bottleneck-style (slide guitar) near the beginning of the twentieth century.[22] One of the first southern blues musicians to adapt the Hawaiian sound to the blues was Tampa Red, whose playing, says historian Gérard Herzhaft, "created a style that has unquestionably influenced all modern blues".[23] The Mississippi Delta was the home of Robert Johnson, Son House, Charlie Patton and other blues pioneers, who used a prominent tubular slide on a finger.[24][25] The first known recording of the bottleneck style was in 1923 by Sylvester Weaver, who recorded two instrumentals, "Guitar Blues" and "Guitar Rag".[26][27] Western swing pioneers Bob Wills and Leon McAuliffe adapted his song, "Guitar Rag", in 1935 for the influential instrumental "Steel Guitar Rag".[28] Blues musicians played a conventional Spanish guitar as a hybrid between the two types of guitars, using one finger inserted into a tubular slide or a bottleneck with one finger while using frets with the remaining fingers (usually for rhythm accompaniment).[2] This technique allows the player to finger the frets on some strings and use the slide on others. Slide players may use open tunings or traditional tunings as a matter of personal preference.[24] Lap slide guitar is not a specific instrument but a style of playing a lap steel guitar usually referring to blues or rock music.[23][29]
Country music
[edit]![A resonator (acoustic) guitar played in lap steel fashion. The bar is held on a slant.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/Lapstyle.jpg/220px-Lapstyle.jpg)
The earliest record of a Hawaiian guitar used in country music is believed to be in the early 1920s when cowboy movie star Hoot Gibson brought Sol Hoʻopiʻi to Los Angeles to perform in his band.[2] In 1927, the acoustic duo of Darby and Tarleton expanded the audience for acoustic steel guitar with their Columbia recording of "Birmingham Jail" and "Columbus Stockade Blues".[9] Jimmie Rodgers featured an acoustic steel guitar on his song "Tuck Away My Lonesome Blues" released on January 3, 1930.[30] In the early 1930s, acoustic lap steel guitars were not loud enough to compete with other instruments, a problem that many inventors were trying to remedy.
Resonator guitars
[edit]In 1927, the Dopyera brothers patented the resonator guitar, a non-electric device resembling a large inverted loudspeaker cone attached under the bridge of a guitar to make it louder.[31] The name "Dobro", a portmanteau of DOpyera and BROthers, became a generic term for this type of guitar, popularized by Pete Kirby ("Bashful Brother Oswald") on Nashville's Grand Ole Opry for 30 years with Roy Acuff's band. He played the instrument while standing with the guitar facing upward held horizontally by a shoulder strap. Oswald's Dobro attracted interest and fascination; he said, "People couldn't understand how I played it and what it was, and they'd always want to come around and look at it."[32] Josh Graves (Uncle Josh) further popularized the resonator steel guitar into Bluegrass music with Flatt and Scruggs to the extent that this type of lap steel became an established and familiar fixture in this genre.[31] The dobro fell out of favor in mainstream country music until a bluegrass revival in the 1970s brought it back with younger virtuoso players like Jerry Douglas whose Dobro skills became widely known and emulated.[31]
Electrification
[edit]In 1934, a steel guitarist named George Beauchamp invented the electric guitar pickup. He found that a vibrating metal string in a magnetic field generates a small current that can be amplified and sent to a loudspeaker; his steel guitar was the world's first electric guitar.[33] According to music writer Michael Ross, the first electrified stringed instrument on a commercial recording was a steel guitar played by Bob Dunn on a Western swing tune in 1935.[34] Dunn recorded with Milton Brown and his Musical Brownies.[35]
Western swing
[edit]In the early 1930s, the newly-electrified lap steel guitar was adopted by musicians type of dance music known as "Western swing", a sub-genre of country music combined with jazz swing.[36] The design of this instrument and the way it was played underwent continual change as the music of the genre evolved.[36] In the 1930s, Leon McAuliffe advanced steel guitar technique while playing in the western swing band Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys.[37] In October, 1936, McAuliffe recorded "Steel Guitar Rag" with Wills' band on a Rickenbacker B–6 lap steel with phenomenal record sales.[37] Steel guitarists felt a need to change tunings for different voicings, so leading players added additional necks with different tunings on the same instrument.[38] The added bulk meant that the instrument could no longer be managed on the player's lap and required placement in a frame with legs and marketed as a "console" steel guitar. Prominent layers of that era, including Herb Remington and Noel Boggs, added more necks and eventually played instruments with up to four different necks.[38]
Honky-tonk
[edit]By the late 1940s, the steel guitar featured prominently in "honky-tonk" style of country music. Honky-tonk singers who used a lap steel guitar in their musical arrangements included Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell and Webb Pierce.
![A Rickenbacker triple neck steel guitar](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Rickenbacker_Console_758_tripleneck_steel_-_2011_TSGA_Jamboree.jpg/220px-Rickenbacker_Console_758_tripleneck_steel_-_2011_TSGA_Jamboree.jpg)
Most recordings of that era were made on a C6 neck (guitar tuned in a C6 chord), sometimes called a "Texas tuning".[39] Using tunings with sixths and ninths became common and identifiable with the steel guitar sound.[40]
Modern country music and pedal steel
[edit]The original idea for adding pedals to a console guitar was simply to push a pedal and change the tuning of all the strings into a different tuning[40] and thus obviate the need for an additional neck, but these early efforts were unsuccessful. Around 1948, Paul Bigsby, a motorcycle shop foreman, designed a pedal system.[41] He put pedals on a rack between the two front legs of a console steel guitar to create the pedal steel guitar.[42] The pedals operated a mechanical linkage to apply tension to raise the pitch of certain strings.[42] In 1953, musician Bud Isaacs used Bigsby's invention to change the pitch of only two of the strings, and was the first to push the pedal while notes were still sounding.[10] When Isaacs first used the setup on the 1954 recording of Webb Pierce's song called "Slowly", he pushed the pedal while playing a chord, so certain notes could be heard bending up from below into the existing chord to harmonize with the other strings, creating a stunning effect which had not been possible with on a lap steel.[10] It was the birth of a new sound that was particularly embraced by fans of country and western music, and it caused a virtual revolution among steel players who wanted to duplicate it.[43][41] Almost simultaneously, an entire musical subculture took a radical stylistic tack.[36] Even though pedal steel guitars had been available for over a decade before this recording, the instrument emerged as a crucial element in country music after the success of this song.[10] When the lap steel was thus superseded by the pedal steel, the inherent Hawaiian influence was brought into the new sound of country music emerging in Nashville in the 1950s.[36] This sound became associated with American country music for the ensuing several decades.
Gospel music
[edit]In the United States in the 1930s, the steel guitar was introduced into religious music, a tradition called "Sacred Steel". The congregation of the House of God, a branch of an African-American Pentecostal denomination, based primarily in Nashville and Indianapolis, embraced the lap steel guitar. The steel guitar often took the place of an organ and its sound bore no resemblance to typical American country music.[44]
Darick Campbell (1966–2020) was a lap steel player for the gospel band, the Campbell Brothers, who took the musical tradition from the church to international fame.[45] Campbell played an electric Hawaiian lap steel:[45] a Fender Stringmaster 8-string (Fender Deluxe-8).[22] Campbell was skilled at mimicking the human singing voice with his guitar. The idea of Campbell's recordings with the Allman Brothers and other Blues and Rock artists was not well-received by church leaders.[46]
In the 1980s, a minister's son named Robert Randolph took up the pedal steel as a teenager, popularized it in this genre and received critical acclaim as a musician.[47] Neil Strauss, writing in The New York Times, called Randolph "one of the most original and talented pedal steel guitarists of his generation".[48]
Other world music
[edit]Indian music
[edit]The steel guitar's popularity in India began with a Hawaiian immigrant who settled in Calcutta in the 1940s named Tau Moe (pronounced mo-ay).[12] Moe taught Hawaiian guitar style and made steel guitars, and helped popularize the instrument in India.[49] By the 1960s, the steel had become a common instrument in Indian popular music—later included in film soundtracks. Indian musicians typically play the lap steel while sitting on the floor and have modified the instrument by using, for example, three melody strings (played with steel bar and finger picks), four plucked drone strings, and 12 sympathetic strings to buzz like a sitar.[50] Performing in this manner, the Indian musician Brij Bhushan Kabra adapted the steel guitar to play ragas, traditional Indian compositions and is called the father of the genre of Hindustani Slide Guitar.[49]
Māori music
[edit]The Māori in the 1920s readily adopted the instrument following their fascination with musicians like Ernest Kaʻai and David Luela Kaili travelling across New Zealand, fascinated of their informed similar ancestry while also recieving very positively of their performances.[51] Eruera Hita (or stagename "Mati Hita") was the pioneer of the instrument among New Zealanders.[52]
Lap steel guitars
[edit]Early lap steel guitars were traditional guitars tuned to a chord and modified by raising the strings away from the frets. After the electric pickup was invented, lap steels no longer needed any resonant chamber, thus newer designs began to resemble the traditional guitar shape less and less. These instruments were played resting across musicians' knees. George Beauchamp's invention, which he nicknamed the "Frying Pan", was officially called the "Rickenbacker Electro A–22", an electric lap steel guitar produced from 1931 to 1939. It was the first electric stringed instrument of any kind and was the first electric stringed instrument to be heard on a commercial recording.[2] Steel players, including Noel Boggs and Alvino Rey, immediately embraced the new instrument.[11]
The Dobro is a type of acoustic lap steel with a resonator; the word is commonly used as a generic term to describe bluegrass resonator lap steels of any brand. Bluegrass dobro players often use a "Stevens bar" which has a deep groove in it to allow the steel to be grasped more firmly so it can be lifted and angled vertically downward slightly for playing single notes.[53] The technique also allows for hammer-on or pull-off notes when there is an adjacent open string.[54] Dobro players often slant the bar horizontally when playing to change an interval between two or more notes played simultaneously on different strings.[53]
Console steel guitars
[edit]The console steel is any type electric steel guitar that rests on legs in a frame and is designed to be played in a seated position. The console steel usually has multiple necks—up to a maximum of four—each tuned differently. In the evolution of the steel guitar, the console steel is intermediate between the lap steel and the pedal steel.
Pedal steel guitars
[edit]![A console pedal steel guitar with two necks](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3a/Zumsteel.jpg/220px-Zumsteel.jpg)
The pedal steel guitar is an electric console instrument with one or two necks, each typically with ten strings. The neck tuned to C6 (Texas tuning) is closer to the player and the E9 (Nashville tuning) neck is further from the player.[39] It may have up to ten pedals and a separate volume pedal, and up to eight knee levers are used to alter the tuning of various strings, allowing more varied and complex music than any other steel guitar. As an example, use of the pedals and knee levers in various combinations allows the player to play a major scale without moving the bar.[55] The invention of the instrument was set in motion by the need to play more interesting and varied music that was not possible on previous steel guitars and to obviate the need for additional necks on console steels.
Steels and slides
[edit]![A steel bar called the tonebar](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d9/Steel_bar_%28tonebar%29_used_in_playing_steel_guitar.jpg/170px-Steel_bar_%28tonebar%29_used_in_playing_steel_guitar.jpg)
A "steel" is a hard, smooth object pressed against guitar strings and is the reason for the name "steel guitar". It may go by many names, including "steel", "tone bar", "slide", "bottleneck" and others. A cylindrical-shaped steel with a bullet-shape on one end is typical in console steel and pedal steel playing. Lap steel and Dobro players often use a steel bar with squared-off ends and a deep groove for firmer grip. It has a cross section that resembles a railroad track. Another type of steel is a tubular object around a finger then referred to as a "slide"; that style of playing is called "slide guitar".
See also
[edit]Notes
[edit]- ^ The Hawaiians also learned to play this re-tuned guitar without a steel, fretting it and holding it against the body like a traditional guitar. This led to its own genre known as slack-key guitar.[3][7]
References
[edit]- ^ Poli`ahu, Leilani (June 13, 2019). "Hawaiian Word of the Day". Hawaiian Public Radio.
- ^ a b c d e f g Ross, Michael (February 17, 2015). "Pedal to the Metal: A Short History of the Pedal Steel Guitar". Premier Guitar Magazine. Retrieved September 1, 2017.
- ^ a b Fox, Margalit (March 5, 2008). "Ray Kane, Master of Slack-Key Guitar, Dies at 82". The New York Times. Retrieved December 11, 2017.
- ^ Owen, Jeff. "Standard Tuning: How EADGBE Came to Be". fender.com. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
- ^ Chapell, Jon. "Tuning for Slide Guitar: Standard or Open?". dummies.com. John Wiley & Sons. Retrieved October 18, 2017.
- ^ Troutman, John William (2016). Kīkā kila : How the Hawaiian Steel Guitar Changed the Sound of Modern Music (ebook ed.). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9781469627939.
- ^ Peterson, Jeff. "Jeff Peterson Demonstrates Slack Key Guitar". jeffpetersonguitar.com. YouTube. Archived from the original on November 13, 2021. Retrieved May 10, 2020.
- ^ "History of the Hawaiian Steel Guitar". Hawaiian Steel Guitar Association. Archived from the original on July 29, 2010. Retrieved May 21, 2010.
- ^ a b c Volk, Andy (2003). Lap Steel Guitar. Anaheim, California: Centerstream. ISBN 978-1-57424-134-1.
- ^ a b c d e Duchossoir, A.R. (2009). Gibson electric steel guitars : 1935–1967. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Books. p. 8. ISBN 978-1-4234-5702-2.
- ^ a b c d Wright, Michael (November 28, 2018). "Island Style: How Hawaiian Music Helped Make the Guitar America's Instrument". acousticguitar.com. Acoustic Guitar (magazine). Retrieved July 11, 2020.
- ^ a b Ruymar, Lorene (1996). The Hawaiian Steel Guitar and Its Great Hawaiian Musicians. Centerstream Publications. p. 31. ISBN 9781574240214.
- ^ "Hawaiian Music to be Feature of Big Chautauqua Program". The Colville Examiner. No. 456. Colville, WA. July 22, 1916. p. 6. Retrieved December 10, 2017.
- ^ "Polynesian Cultural Center Unveils Statue of Joseph Keku, Inventor of the Hawaiian Steel Guitar". polynesia.com. Polynesian Cultural Center. 2015. Retrieved December 9, 2017.
- ^ "Bird of Paradise Brought Hawaiian Music Fad East". The Washington Herald. No. 4188. April 14, 1918. p. 1. Retrieved December 9, 2017.
- ^ Shah, Haleema (April 25, 2019). "How the Hawaiian Steel Guitar Changed American Music". smithsonianmag.com. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved October 22, 2020.
- ^ Soboleski, Hank (October 13, 2013). "'Hawaii Calls' radio program broadcasts from Kauai". thegardenisland.com. The Garden Island. Retrieved November 26, 2020.
- ^ Ruymar, Lorene (1996). The Hawaiian Steel Guitar and Its Great Hawaiian Musicians/Hawaii Calls. Centerstream. p. 46. ISBN 978-1-57424-021-4.
- ^ Betts, Stephen L. (July 30, 2015). "Steel Guitar Great Buddy Emmons Dies". Rolling Stone. Wenner Media. ISSN 0035-791X. OCLC 693532152. Retrieved January 20, 2017.
- ^ "Early History of the Steel Guitar". steelguitaracademy.com. Steel Guitar Academy. Retrieved September 1, 2017.
- ^ Tom Noe. "Herman Weissenborn". Weissenborn → History. Retrieved September 1, 2017.
- ^ a b c d Volk, Andy (2003). Lap Steel Guitar. Anaheim, California: Centerstream Publications. p. 9. ISBN 1-57424-134-6.
- ^ a b Herzhaft, Gérard (1996). Encyclopedia of the Blues (5. Dr. ed.). Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press. pp. 334–335. ISBN 978-1-55728-252-1.
- ^ a b Sokolow, Fred (2011). Slide Guitar for the Rock Guitarist. Pacific, Missouri: Mel Bay. p. 3. ISBN 978-1-61065-563-7. Retrieved June 21, 2020.
- ^ Erlewine, Michael (1996). All Music Guide to the Blues (Encyclopedia Articles). San Francisco: Miller Freeman, Inc. p. 372. ISBN 0-87930-424-3. Retrieved June 21, 2020.
- ^ Russell, Tony (1997). The Blues: From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray. Dubai: Carlton Books. p. 12. ISBN 1-85868-255-X.
- ^ Fetherhoff, Bob (2014). The Guitar Story: From Ancient to Modern Times. BookBaby. p. ebook. ISBN 978-1-4835-1683-7. Retrieved June 21, 2020.
- ^ Mann, Woody (1979). Bottleneck Blues Guitar. London: Oak Publications. p. ebook. ISBN 978-1783235261.
- ^ Tipaldi, Art (2002). Children of the Blues: 49 Musicians Shaping a New Blues Tradition. Hal Leonard. ISBN 9781617749933.
- ^ "Jimmie Rogers Discography". jimmierogers.com. Jimmie Rogers Museum. Retrieved July 11, 2020.
- ^ a b c Carlin, Richard (2003). Country music : a biographical dictionary. New York: Routledge. p. 109. ISBN 9780415938020. Retrieved January 2, 2021.
- ^ "Brad's Page of Steel". people.well.com. Retrieved January 3, 2021.
- ^ "First-ever electric guitar patent awarded to the Electro String Corporation". history.com. A&E Television Networks. Retrieved September 20, 2017.
- ^ Foley, Hugh W. Jr. "Dunn, Robert Lee (1908–1971)". Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture. Oklahoma Historical Society. Archived from the original on September 5, 2008. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
- ^ Ginell, Cary (1994). Milton Brown and the Founding of Western Swing. Urbana, IL: Univ. of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-02041-3.
- ^ a b c d Cundell, R. Guy S. (July 1, 2019). "Across the South: The origins and development of the steel guitar in western swing" (PDF). b0b.com. Adelaide, Australia: University of Adelaide. Retrieved November 29, 2020.
- ^ a b Kienzle, Rich (March 1, 2006). "Bob's Playboy Pickers". vintageguitar.com. Vintage Guitar Magazine. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
- ^ a b Meeker, Ward (November 1, 2014). "Boggs' Quad". Vintage Guitar Magazine. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
- ^ a b Borisoff, Jason. "How Pedal Steel Guitar Works". makingmusicmag.com. Making Music Magazine. Retrieved August 30, 2020.
- ^ a b Anderson, Maurice (2000). "Pedal Steel Guitar, Back and To the Future!". The Pedal Steel Pages. Retrieved September 16, 2017.
- ^ a b Winston, Winnie; Keith, Bill (1975). Pedal steel guitar. New York: Oak Publications. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-8256-0169-9.
- ^ a b Ross, Michael (November 17, 2011). "Forgotten Heroes: Paul Bigsby". Premier Guitar Magazine. Retrieved September 11, 2017.
- ^ Brenner, Patrick. "Early History of the Steel Guitar". steelguitaramerica.com. Patrick Brenner. Retrieved June 29, 2017.
- ^ Stone, Robert L. (2010). Sacred steel : inside an African American steel guitar tradition. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. p. 2. ISBN 978-0252-03554-8.
- ^ a b McArdle, Terence (June 16, 2020). "Darick Campbell, gospel musician who upheld sacred steel tradition, dies at 53". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 10, 2021.
- ^ Spevak, Jeff (September 14, 2014). "20 Shows to put on your list". Vol. 182, no. 257. Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. p. 8–C. Retrieved January 10, 2021.
- ^ Hansen, Liane; Wharton, Ned (August 5, 2001). "Heavenly 'Sacred Steel'". npr.org. NPR. Retrieved July 1, 2020.
- ^ Strauss, Neil (April 30, 2001). "Making Spirits Rock From Church to Clubland; A Gospel Pedal Steel Guitarist Dives Into Pop". The New York Times. Retrieved July 1, 2020.
- ^ a b Ellis, Andy (June 8, 2012). "The Secret World of Hindustani Slide". Premier Guitar Magazine. Retrieved September 17, 2017.
- ^ Bhatt, Vishwa Mohan (August 28, 2011). ""Raag Kirwani"(song)". youtube.com. YouTube. Archived from the original on November 13, 2021. Retrieved September 15, 2017.
- ^ Troutman, John W. (August 2017). "The Steel Heard 'Round the World: Exposing the Global Reach of Indigenous Musical Journeys with the Hawaiian Steel Guitar". Itinerario. 41 (2): 258–61. doi:10.1017/s0165115317000365.
- ^ Bourke, Chris (November 2, 2017). "Book of the Week: A brief history of the power and glory of Māori popular music". The Spinoff. Retrieved September 5, 2024.
- ^ a b Phillips, Stacy (1996). Mel Bay's Complete Dobro Player. Pacific, Missouri: Mel Bay. p. 16. ISBN 9781610658768. Retrieved July 20, 2020.
- ^ Witcher, Mike. "Beginning Dobro". pegheadnation.com. Peghead Nation, Fairfax, California. Retrieved July 19, 2020.
- ^ Lee, Bobby (1996). "Basic Theory of the Standard E9th Tuning". The Pedal Steel Pages. Retrieved December 9, 2017.
External links
[edit]- Steel Guitar Forum A forum where steel players and enthusiasts get together and discuss steel guitar.
- Hawaiian Steel Guitar Association An organization which promotes the development of steel guitar with worldwide membership.