Hawaiian music
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wileypickett
Enlightened Member
Jerry Byrd is an amazing player, highly innovative, and unmatched for touch and tone. I have a dozen or more of his albums. He played on classic recordings by Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, and hundreds of others in country music's golden age. He got disgusted when C & W went uptown ("countrypolitan") and left Nashville (and a lucrative job as a sideman), moving to Hawaii where he taught lap steel guitar to Hawaiians. Respect.
His Decca and Mercury recordings are well worth hearing, IMO.
His Decca and Mercury recordings are well worth hearing, IMO.
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Guildedagain
Enlightened Member
The gold is out there, on paper, these old courses, I wish I'd kept the ones I found over the years.
I'm kind of a sucker for old sheet music, songbooks etc.
I'm kind of a sucker for old sheet music, songbooks etc.
wileypickett
Enlightened Member
I know this won't be to everyone's taste, but for a sample of Byrd at his best, check this out:
His swells, his single note runs, his wah-wah effects (played with the volume knob, not a pedal), his harmonization, the way he dampens the strings with his right hand to get those perfectly defined staccato passages, the chimes effects at the end, his clean execution, his sheer tastefulness -- Byrd was among the hottest players of his time. File next to your Speedy West records!
His swells, his single note runs, his wah-wah effects (played with the volume knob, not a pedal), his harmonization, the way he dampens the strings with his right hand to get those perfectly defined staccato passages, the chimes effects at the end, his clean execution, his sheer tastefulness -- Byrd was among the hottest players of his time. File next to your Speedy West records!
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wileypickett
Enlightened Member
Here's a fun, silly song (I don't know who's singing -- not Byrd), but man, check out the wah-wah effects! Byrd wraps his right hand pinkie around the volume knob which he turns, while still fingerpicking with the same hand, to get those wah-wahs.
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DougH
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Minnesota Flats
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Megan Lovell of Larkin-Poe seems to agree:
As far as Hawaiian music goes, I could always listen to it in small doses. Then one day, while driving a rental car up the windward side of Kauai, with a rental surfboard lashed on top, a slack-key sampler cassette blaring from the dashboard and one foot out the window catching the wind...I suddenly "got it". It's one of those musical genres that makes a lot more sense when heard in the environment in which it was written.
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kitniyatran
Senior Member
It's the legendary Rex Allen one of the great western singers
wileypickett
Enlightened Member
Thanks Kit! I always wondered. It's the only song on the record with vocals, but no vocalist is credited on the album. Maybe Allen was under contract to another label at the time?
wileypickett
Enlightened Member
And I notice in the photo that Byrd's is a seven string model. Were they all?
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spoox
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No. Usually six, I have seen eight strings. I have 2 seven string aluminum Electric Dobro steels. I actually prefer them to play as they are long scale
and are more similar to playing an acoustic Dobro guitar. They have the giant horseshoe magnet PU that Tutmarc and Stimson developed and although they sound great, the Rickenbacher PU is really unworldly. Speaking of Tutmarc I also have one of his really early walnut 7 string steels. He of course
made the Audiovox instruments out of Seattle, and actually was the inventor of the first solid body electric bass guitar in the early '30s.
and are more similar to playing an acoustic Dobro guitar. They have the giant horseshoe magnet PU that Tutmarc and Stimson developed and although they sound great, the Rickenbacher PU is really unworldly. Speaking of Tutmarc I also have one of his really early walnut 7 string steels. He of course
made the Audiovox instruments out of Seattle, and actually was the inventor of the first solid body electric bass guitar in the early '30s.
wileypickett
Enlightened Member
Interesting! I only knew Tutmarc for his steel guitar playing — I have a few of his albums too.
There was a story going around some years ago that Ry Cooder hunted down old lap steels so he could plunder the pickups and install them on his electrics.
I never heard what model steel guitar he cannibalized — I wonder if it was the Richenbacher?
There was a story going around some years ago that Ry Cooder hunted down old lap steels so he could plunder the pickups and install them on his electrics.
I never heard what model steel guitar he cannibalized — I wonder if it was the Richenbacher?
SFIV1967
Venerated Member
One of the Hawaiian tunes I always liked is this one:
And the funny thing, they were not even from Hawaii!
en.wikipedia.org
Ralf
And the funny thing, they were not even from Hawaii!
The Waikikis - Wikipedia
Ralf
spoox
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I know he used one of the Supro string through PUs on his Coodercaster. I have a National New Yorker from '41 that has the earliest version
of this which is supposed to be higher quality than the later ones. Because the strings go through the magnetic field I suppose it has some of the characteristics of the Ric. I also have a triple neck Fender Custom similar to this:
Which also has the string though design. Those Supro Pickups were also used on some of the economy Valco regular electric guitars like
some of the Ozark models:
Which is supposed to be the model Jimi Hendrix first played! Part of the sound of those early Ric steels has to do with the dense Bakelite bodies.
The drawback aside from the brittle nature of Bakelite is changes in temperature can cause tuning issues. My cast aluminum Dobros are actually less prone to that problem.