Faron Young had a lot of fans, and inspired a lot of singers. Hell, I’m still a fan. Kenny Brent is one fine singer and guitar player who was heavily influenced by Faron and who’s been knocking around the country music world for a long time and who was inducted into The Colorado Country Music Hall of Fame in 2008. In 1994 he yanked Faron out of retirement to do “Wine Me Up” with him, and it turned out pretty well.

Tommy’s the staff steel guitarist on the Grand Ol’ Opry, and he’s something else. Here he is playing a great solo piece.

I started playing steel guitar in my home town, South Bend, IN, in the early 70’s. I’d just graduated from Indiana University with a big ol’ BA degree in Visual Communication (now known as graphic design), so the first thing I did was drive down to Nashville and get me a brand new Sho~Bud Professional. Because I wanted to play steel guitar.

I practiced like a friggin’ maniac for a few months and then went out to the South Bend honky-tonks and started making friends and sitting in, and pretty soon I had some gigs.

The pickers I met in the bars were some great guys. A lot of them had worked with Buddy Emmons when he was still just a local picker, and they were pretty helpful to a long-haired hippie-type guy who just wanted to play shuffles and ballads on his new steel guitar.

The first few gigs I landed were in some dives in Mishawaka and South Bend with a bunch of drunks who could barely count to 4/4, and who made more money selling speed on the breaks than they did picking, but pretty soon I was playing at the Silver Dollar Saloon in South Bend, which was the the best gig in town.

Elmer Hobor was the first steel guitar player I met, at the Silver Dollar. He let me sit in on his Sho~Bud, and that’s the first time anybody heard me play.

Jesse Smith had a band called the Roadrunners, and he hired me to pick with him. They worked pretty regular on the weekends, and they did a lot of Texas stuff, so that was cool with me.

Then I got hooked up with Gene Robertson, who had a band called the Echos. They had a weekend gig at the El Rancho in New Buffalo, MI, just across the state line. Buddy Williams was the guitar player. He was left-handed, and played a regular guitar upside down. D’ho! He was a Lloyd Green freak, and I tried to transpose his licks to my steel guitar. Gene and Buddy told me all about Emmons – hell, I didn’t even know that he was the steel player on so many Ray Price records. That’s how green I was. They took me to Cal City one night, where Emmons used to spend so much time, and we hung out at Mary’s Place all night ‘til they closed, which was about 5AM. Gene had another guitar player later, Ron Dailey, who was a fine player.

Chuck Drew played steel guitar at some of the joints around town. He was Buddy’s cousin, and he had a 60’s P/P without any knee levers, and I went with him to Buddy’s house in Nashville to get Buddy to update his guitar. We stayed a couple days with Buddy, and Peggy was a sweetheart, the perfect hostess, and and an angel.

Ray Barrier had a a band for years at the Silver Dollar, and I worked with them once in a a while. His brother Joe played bass and Sonny Barrier was the drummer. They had bluegrass roots, but they could do some kick-ass country, especially when Houston Trivett was singing.

Junior Ward was a singer/bass player around South Bend who did some great Price stuff. Emmons played on one of his early records. Junior took up steel guitar, after he just couldn’t stand it any more, and he’s still picking.

Jim Reisner played steel guitar with Gene Robertson before I did. He was a state cop, and he pulled Johnny Paycheck’s bus over one time just so he could talk to the steel player, who was Jim Vest.

Y’know, you just can’t get anywhere as a musician unless you have some other musicians to pick with, and I’ll always be grateful to those guys around South Bend so many years ago, many of whom are dead now, for their encouragement and helpfulness.

Charlie Collins, longtime guitarist in Roy Acuff’s Smoky Mountain Boys, died Thursday (Jan. 12) at age 78. As someone said on the Opry tonight, he beat us going home to Jesus. I was his seat-mate on a flight to London to do the Wembley Show in 1980, and I know some of his family. He was a good ol’ boy and a great picker and will be missed by everyone who knew him or ever heard him play.

My first Nashville artist gig was with Stonewall Jackson. Lynn Owsley, who knew Stonewall, recommended me for it. I knew Lynn because I’d gone out to a club to see Ernest Tubb at a club when I lived in Houston, and I went back to the hotel with the Troubadours after the gig and we jammed a little in the room. Lynn’s a good ol’ boy; he lugged his steel guitar from the bus up to the room just so I could play it, and we stayed up most of the night drinking beer, picking and talking about country music. I saw him again on Broadway a few months later when I was hanging out down there looking for fame and fortune, and when I told him I needed a gig he fixed me up, and I was a Minitman. There’s more about that here.

My 2nd artist gig was with Little Jimmy Dickens, whom I knew from working the Opry with Stonewall. We talked backstage and had a drink or two on his bus, and he seemed like a fun guy – Stonewall really had no sense of humor – so I signed up as a Country Boy when he needed a steel guitar player.

My 3rd big gig in Nashville was with Red Sovine, and I found that down on Broadway just by hanging out, drinking a few beers and sitting in. Roy Melton was Red’s guitar player and we got to talking about jazz and Charlie Parker and the next thing I knew I had taken Chuck Bartlett’s place as a Teddy Bear.

Number 4 was with Faron Young. As you can tell, I was working my way up the Nashville ladder of success. Richard Bass was playing guitar for Faron, and we got to drinking a few beers and talking baseball at Deemen’s Den on Broadway. Al Lewis was vacating the steel guitar chair in the Deputies, and since the new steel player was going to be Richard’s roommate, he wanted somebody compatible, and it turned out to be me. So we traveled all over the USA with Faron for the next 10 years, drinking beer and talking baseball. And playing “Hello Walls” 2,000 times.

So, apparently, the way to find steel guitar work is just to drink beer and talk.

Today is Jan. 3:

In 1917, Leon McAuliffe, one of the first country musicians to use an electric steel guitar, was born in Houston. He joined “The Light Crust Doughboys” at 16, and two years later began his long association with Bob Wills, the King of Western Swing. After the Second World War, McAuliffe formed his own band, “The Cimarron Boys,” and had hits with “Blacksmith Blues” and “Cozy Inn.” He also was the composer of “Steel Guitar Rag,” made famous by Wills’ “Texas Playboys.” McAuliffe died on Aug. 20, 1988.