Emmons pedal steel
My Emmons here was my main pedal steel through my Southern Pacific years (note the Southern Pacific railroad logo) and I used it on this project for the song Stealin’.
Fender 400 pedal steel
Very special, the Fender 400. This is the ultimate “Bakersfield Sound” steel guitar - the Fenders were favored by Ralph Mooney and Tom Brumley on so many classic recordings by Buck Owens in particular, I used this instrument, manufactured before 1959 (hard to pinpoint exactly as the serial numbers were inconsistent to begin with and records were lost as well) on Monopoly, and the sound on the recording was taken direct out of the instrument, no EQ, no amplifier, just a little bit of delay added post recording. The pickups were basically Jazzmaster pickups made for more strings to accommodate the configuration of the pedal steel.
Franklin pedal steel
This has become my main recording pedal steel. I bought this after Paul Franklin Jr. let me use his pedal steel on a session we were working on together in Nashville. I had been hired to play guitar, and we got to a song where the producer wanted Paul to play Dobro and then he asked me to play steel on the same song - I didn’t have a pedal steel there, so Paul told me to just use his. I liked it so much that Paul hooked me up with his dad, who was the maker of the instruments, and that’s how I ended up with this pedal steel. Wonderful steel… I used this on a number of songs on this project - Fourty Niner, Mitch’s Tune, etc.
Gibson Elektraharp
This is the pedal steel I used on the first Clover recordings, and which you can see me using as a teenager in the old photo of me playing pedal steel in the Homestead Redemption packaging. I had gifted this instrument to Mitch’s brother, Chris Howie, almost fifty years ago, and the process of making this project prompted Chris to very generously offer to return it to me - I am now reunited with my first pedal steel. The Gibsons were manufactured in the 1950s and were the first mass produced pedal steel guitars - this one features the much sought after and valuable PAF (patent applied for) Gibson pickup, one of the best sounding pickups ever made.