Episode 4: Steel Guitar Blues

The lonesome swoop of the steel guitar is one of the most immediately identifiable sounds in American music, a distinguishing mark of honky tonk authenticity. But steel guitar playing in America precedes the honky tonk genre by almost 50 years and American steel guitar styles are myriad--from virtuoso redneck jazz played on the notoriously difficult pedal steel to bluegrass Dobro playing to the black gospel style known as sacred steel.

Episode 4 of Down in the Flood looks at how a Hawaiian adaptation of a European instrument became a defining sound in American music.

Download and listen to Down in the Flood 4 (35:19; 40 MB)

Comments

[Tony Alva]

I am in total awe of your mad podcasting skillz!!! Great show! I was lucky enough to catch Danny Gatton down in one of his favorite Georgetown haunts during my breif tenure at the University of Maryland years ago. His story is a very sad one. Tremendous talent. Look forward to your next show...

[Jason Chervokas]

Thanks. I knew a guy back in the early 1980s, a guitarist from DC who knew I like the pedal steel guitar, so one night he pulled out this album from a local DC label, Redneck Jazz, with this feature duet btwn Gatton and Buddy Emmons. Sweet Jesus! I went looking for the ablum for years, finally grabbing a copy when it was out briefly on CD a few years ago after Gatton broke into the big time. Amazing stuff.

[Tony Alva]

Gatton was one of those Jeff Beck kinda guys who just prefered to work on old cars in his barn vs. going out in pursuit of the big time from the little bit I was able to find published about him back then. The next thing I saw written about him was his obit in Rolling Stone. He was already a legend on the Georgetown scene by the time I got down there. You could be cruising the strip looking for trouble on any given night and chance a look in some bar front window and see Gatton wailing away on his Tele wearing a pair of overalls. I recall he played quite loud.

My hall mates at UM were never up for checking it out perfering to hit the fishmarkets vs. a jazz club, but I broke ranks and never regretted it (I think Jackson was there with me one night).