She stood by the TV holding a cup of coffee from the vending machine in the hallway. I was just packing up my toothbrush and she asked me, half-joking, if I’d be coming by this way again. Damn that woman could wear one hell of a Canadian tuxedo. I didn’t know what to say. Sure, I’d been through Tulsa a dozen times or more, but I was on the wrong side of 35, trying to make a living playing an instrument that was completely irrelevant for 99% of music in the world. I might as well of been a fucking kazoo player. I mean, all those goddamn pedals and levers; what do they even DO? Big Billy was a peach for bringin me out on the road again for this tour, but even backwoods Bill was talkin’ about goin disco for his next record. Shit man, ain’t gonna have pedal steel on a disco track. So, Cindy, answer is, I don’t know. You seen my comb?
3 replies on “1977: this is a really, really strange way to advertise a pedal steel guitar”
Chris, you gotta run with this. There’s clearly a country song in this — drinkin’ here in Reno / ’cause there ain’t no steel guitar in disco.
— Tom Fine
Most people do not realize that as late as 1955 steel guitar was fifty-plus percent of the business volume at Fender, and quite a bit at Rickenbacker too. When nonpedal steel died out and the only steelers left were serious pedal guys, almost all the business went to specialized steel vendors and Fender, Rick and Gibson basically quit selling steel guitars entirely.
ROTFL