Smokey's Steel Stuff
Hi! My name is Smokey and here is a little bit about myself.
By day I am a mild mannered Network Analyst but by night I become the Man of Steel. I play steel guitar and banjo and have been playing professionally for 22 years. I started playing in Visalia, California in the early '70s. I moved to San Luis Obispo in 1976 and started playing music for a living. My first full time work was house band in a local restaurant called "1865". That lasted for about six months then I got an offer to play with a band working up and down the California coast called The Brava Band.
A couple of years later I moved to LA (Beautiful Downtown Burbank) and did a bit of roadwork for various artists. In 1980 I toured in the NW states and Canada with a group called Wild Horse Theatre. When that ground to a halt I headed back to sunny California and played around San Luis Obispo with various groups. In 1983 on a tour of the Great White North Country I was asked to join a Canadian group called The Lonestar Cattle Company. We had several records with good airplay and toured back and forth across the Canada with some success. (Very little of it financial)
I finally got tired of bars, hotel rooms and bad food. I settled down in Edmonton, Alberta with a good woman, two kids and a mortgage. I use the station wagon to get my equipment to the weekend gigs that I still play.
Equipment
My first steel was a single neck Blanton. It had 10 strings, 4 pedals and no knee levers. I bought it for $300 dollars in a music shop in LA. I didn't know anything about steel but the salesman wrote me out a chart for the tuning and away I went. I eventually made a knee lever out of a wooden table leg and a hinge. (Sounds like a Red Green project.) I used the fourth pedal hardware for this. I was using a Fender Twin amp at this time.
My next steel was a single neck Sho-Bud. It was Blond wood and a really nice steel. This one was three and two. I was really moving up in the world. I purchased a Randal Amp that I used for a while but eventually went back to the Twin.
I sold the Sho-Bud to buy a "like new" D-10 Emmons. This was 1977 and it cost me $1200. That was a lot for a musician making $100 dollars a week playing full time. I'm still playing that guitar to this day. I started using a Roland Jazz Chorus for an amp. I used this amp for several years then traded it for a Peavey Vegas 400. I was much happier with the Vegas 400.
For the last four years my main axe has been a Carter D-10. I really like the sound and playability of the Carter. I also like the low weight when packing up at the end of the night. I like being able to play the Emmons for the traditional stuff and the Carter for the newer steel guitar sound.
For amplification these days I have two rigs that I use regularly. I have a rackmount stereo system using a Peavey TransTubeFex, a Peavey DPC-750 amp and a BBE Sonic Maximizer. These run into a pair of Peavey Blackwidow speaker cabinets. I love the way that stereo opens up the sound, especially with a little chorus or delay happening.
My second system is the TTFex into a Peavey Nashville 112 amp. This little amp is amazing in the sound that it puts out. I am starting to sound like a Peavey ad but I like the equipment that they put out. No one else has as much for steel players at these prices. The final touch is the Hilton volume pedal. These are a tremendous advancement in volume pedals. No pots to worry about and they do amazing things to the tone.
Click here to hear my solo on a tune that I wrote called "This Song". This was recorded live in club with the band Borderline.
Here is a list of my equipment:
Steel - 1975 Emmons D-10 push-pull. It is all wood and has a brown finish with light wood inlay trim.
Carter D-10 8+5 Red wood-grain Formica.
Amp - Peavey DPC-750
Speakers - Peavey 112E Two of them 'cause I like that stereo sound
Effects - Peavey TransTubeFex with the patches from
BBE Sonic Maximizer
Peavey Nashville 112 amp
Hilton volume pedal
Here are some Steel Links you might enjoy.
Jeff Bradshaw's Steel Guitar Shop