Pedal Steel # 1-An Ongoing Love Affair
Let me count the strings!
Awhile ago I wrote a little piece about my Americana music roots. The genre did not even exist when I discovered roots music. Between my rock and roll and jam bands and the like I was deep into country AND western and swing and bluegrass and a whole bunch of twang.
My friends used to call it “Paul Busch Music” because no one else they knew was as deep into this stuff in the early 70’s. Of course back then, there was not really many places to hear this music.
Things changed by the mid-70’s as disco ruled, the premier country venue in NYC opened it’s doors with a banner that read “Too Much Ain’t Enough”. We can thank that old five and dimer Bily Joe Shaver for that welcome mat to the bar that became a home away from home for me.
The Lone Star Cafe was a strange and seductive den of debauchery and excess, a place where the wild spirits of the mid 70s and early 80s converged to revel in the chaos and decadence of the era. It was a kind of carnival sideshow, a hazy and frenzied scene that pulsed with a raw and primal energy.
Asleep At The Wheel, Delbert McClinton, Jerry Jeff Walker and Doug Sahm were amongst the acts I can recall seeing there. From the outside, the Lone Star Cafe looked like a rundown roadhouse, a dingy and dilapidated facade that belied the seething and seamy world that lurked within. But as soon as you stepped inside, you were transported into a different realm, a place where the rules of society and civility had been cast aside, and where anything was possible.
The air was thick with smoke and the scent of fried food and stale beer, and the music was loud and raucous, a wild blend of blues, country, rock, and funk that spilled out of the stage and engulfed the crowd. The walls were adorned with neon signs and kitschy memorabilia, and the ceiling was a kaleidoscope of spinning disco balls and flickering lights.
The patrons were a motley crew of misfits and freaks, a cast of characters straight out of a Hunter S. Thompson novel. There were bikers and cowboys, punks and hippies, celebrities and nobodies, all mingling together in a sweaty and frenetic dance of desire and abandon.
The Lone Star Cafe was a place of excess and indulgence, where drugs flowed freely and the booze never stopped flowing. It was a place where you could lose yourself in the moment, forget your troubles, and live like there was no tomorrow.
The club closed its doors in 1989, but for those who were lucky enough to experience it, the memory of the Lone Star Cafe lives on as a testament to the wild and untamed spirit of New York City.
Back to my initial love of the pedal steel that was ignited by Freddie Tavares on the Looney Tunes theme. Freddie was the man on steel who played with Bing Crosby, Dean Martin and Elvis Presley to name but a few. He also helped designed the Fender Stratocaster.
He was a laid back dude of Hawaian heritage and the few stories I can find about him make him out to be a pretty solid character and a key figure in the Fender comapny.
So today, in honour of Freddie, who would have been 110 years old on February 18th is the first installment of pedal steel stuff that I dig.
Hope you dig it too and Hold That Tiger!
Red Rhodes, Buddy Cage, Lucky Oceans, Speedy West, Jimmy Day,Jerry Garcia, Herb Remington, Thomas Bryan Eaton, Alvino Ray, Nathan Fleming, Lloyd Green, Jay Dee Maness, and Spencer Cullum work the ‘sewing machine’ on this playlist.
PS-So glad I met my brother from another mother, Nello, down here in Australia because he travelled this same musical highway over in Chicago. One of the few people I can discuss Commander Cody with as we both hold doctorates from the Lost Planet School of Too Much Fun.