Now that's some steel guitar done right. When I was a missionary kid living in South America (1970s, far from Nashville and with no TV or Wikipedia) I kept trying for the life of me to figure out how country guitarists got this sound, or even how they made notes seem to slide up and down with a regular guitar. Drove me nuts until I got back to the USA and managed to see some country music on TV and found out what a pedal steel was. I also finally realized that guitarists literally bend the string when they bend notes. Up until then I had been fruitlessly trying to slide my finger gradually over the fret, figuring there was some way to get those in-between sounds.
Ah youth, when everything fun is such a mystery. When you get older, the mysteries tend to be made of sterner stuff, and you have to accept some very sobering lessons if you want to approach them at all.
Not in the 70s. Plus, most of what I listened to was 50s-60s country. Remember, I didn't have access to US radio. I had my Dad's old Chet Atkins LPs, some cassette tapes of various country gospel I got from various missionaries and well-meaning souls. It's actually surprising how much I did figure out just from listening. I got the old alternating thumb bass fingerpicking thing, as well as some of the complicated thumb/fingernail strumming, but for some reason that note-bending thing just didn't click until later.
My favorite guitarists as a kid were Chet Atkins and Carlos Montoya. They actually had a lot in common. Chet even toyed around with Spanish classical stuff (amazing rendition of Adelita on electric guitar).
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Now that's some steel guitar done right. When I was a missionary kid living in South America (1970s, far from Nashville and with no TV or Wikipedia) I kept trying for the life of me to figure out how country guitarists got this sound, or even how they made notes seem to slide up and down with a regular guitar. Drove me nuts until I got back to the USA and managed to see some country music on TV and found out what a pedal steel was. I also finally realized that guitarists literally bend the string when they bend notes. Up until then I had been fruitlessly trying to slide my finger gradually over the fret, figuring there was some way to get those in-between sounds.
Ah youth, when everything fun is such a mystery. When you get older, the mysteries tend to be made of sterner stuff, and you have to accept some very sobering lessons if you want to approach them at all.
I'm suprised you didn't pick up on the string bending just from the lyrics. They sing about bending strings all the time.
Not in the 70s. Plus, most of what I listened to was 50s-60s country. Remember, I didn't have access to US radio. I had my Dad's old Chet Atkins LPs, some cassette tapes of various country gospel I got from various missionaries and well-meaning souls. It's actually surprising how much I did figure out just from listening. I got the old alternating thumb bass fingerpicking thing, as well as some of the complicated thumb/fingernail strumming, but for some reason that note-bending thing just didn't click until later.
My favorite guitarists as a kid were Chet Atkins and Carlos Montoya. They actually had a lot in common. Chet even toyed around with Spanish classical stuff (amazing rendition of Adelita on electric guitar).
I would say this is also a good nominee for the ATF theme song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDvBmWOf8m0
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