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From: Buddy McPeters
Date: October 17, 2003
Henry, I agree Gene Crownover was a great steel player and like the Wills guitarists who followed the innovators of the 30's, 40's and early 50's, Gene was a great carrier of the torch passed by these influential luminaries. Gene was a literal clearing house of steel guitar styles, plus he melded it all into his own bag so to speak. Certainly he brought a new 'slant to the bar' in terms of modern steel guitar playing.
I also omitted mentioning steel guitarist Bobby White who later worked with Hank Thompson and other great Western Swing bands who was a very forward thinking musician that recorded with Bob Wills in the early 50's. Maurice Anderson should also be mentioned. His pedal steel techniques were nothing short of breathtaking as was his single string approach.
By the 60's steel guitar changed with the advent of the pedal steel guitar popularized by Webb Pierce's recording of 'Slowly' featuring Bud Issacs on the new fangled incarnation of the instrument. It had certainly come a long way. The distance between Leon McAuliffe's metal resonator Hawaiian guitar held up horizontally close to the one microphone in the makeshift studio where Wills early sides were cut in Dallas, and the later electrically amplified Rickenbacker 'Fry-Pan' solid body steel guitars with the big single coil pick-up (which would later be called the Charlie Christian pick up because of Christian's affluence in Goodman's band) that Bob Dunn and later Leon would employ was equivalent to the moon shot. The advent of the pedal steel took the steel light years into the future in a single bound with a 2 and a half minute record spun at 45 RPM!
As great as those innovations are, what goes un-noticed and uncredited is the great advances in steel guitar techniques that occurred just prior to the advent of the pedal steel. By the way, Gibson manufactured a very primitive 'pedal' steel in the late 30's and 40's which never went into production and was never really considered feasible. It's design was a shadow of things to come but it was unrealized. Someone at Gibson was very forward thinking and had vision- much like Leonardo Da Vinci's design for the helicopter, the times just weren't right for it. The steel players of the 1950's took the instrument into orbit.
A chain of progression began with Noel Boggs who improved on McAuliffe's techniques with a unique approach in the 40's. In turn Leon's own playing advanced as well as other imitators and emulators appeared. A self depreciating Les Anderson admitted that he copied Leon and Noel (Leon spelled backwards is Noel!) as did Tiffany Transcriptions steel player in 1946 who took Boggs place, Roy Honeycutt. Les and Roy both had brilliant moments, and they both had mundane outings as well, but Les had something different in a peculiar tuning he employed which allowed him better access to both Leon's voicings and Noel's as well since they both used separate tunings on their single-neck steels. When Leo Fender presented the idea to have the best of all worlds on a multiple neck instrument history indeed was in the making. With the help and advice from Leon, Noel, Joaquin Murphey and later others like Herb Remington the possibilities became only limited to a particular players abilities and in fact the availability of so many choices lead to the probability that the player would improve in the execution of his techniques. First a double neck, then the triple neck arrived until finally Fender produced the 4 neck 40 string Stringmaster which weighs about 80 lbs in the case complete with the 4 chrome plated telescopic adjustable screw-on legs. (I hefted McAuliffe's steel for him once in 1977. He said to me, "Buddy this is my widow maker. Here see for yourself!)
Remington took the steel way beyond what Leon and Noel and their imitators conceived. He launched into spasmodic fugues his predecessors never dreamed of. Other steel players in the country began to blossom from the 4 corners of the music world. Speedy West flew in like a stealth fighter pilot with his steel prowess that just astonished everyone. In fact the dust has yet to settle!
When Herbie left for the Army, Billy Bowman took his place. Bowman just blew everyone out of the water! Bowman brought a fire and a fury to the Texas Playboys that incorporated an energy that fueled the fire and an approach to steel guitar that is legendary. No matter the steel advanced into the pedal steel era, the players of that genre are still trying to figure out what the heck he was doing!
Likewise for Bobby Koefer, who came along taking Bowman's place in the Texas Playboys who had been drafted into the Army. (Seems that Playboys steel players were always going into the Service!) Koefer brought even a more refreshing and more adventurous approach to the steel. Having no formal training or mentors to copy techniques from, Bobby grew up in rural Kansas and Oregon and launched out on his own in terms of discovering the instrument and developing his highly unique techniques which are legendary in themselves! His use of a thumbpick only without any finger picks have boggled the minds of steel players to no end since he joined Bob Wills in 1950. His use of a non standard steel bar, which is in effect a polished piece of angle iron has further flabbergasted players in steel guitar circles across the globe and still does to this day. In short Koefer re-wrote the text book known as Steel Guitar 101 to suit himself because he had no idea that the rules had existed. His theories became "Robert's Rules of Order of Steel Guitar According To Bobby Koefer"! He liked the sounds that Hawaiian steel players got on the records he was able to hear on the radio and of course Leon McAuliffe with Bob Wills. He wanted to play like them but could find no teachers in his locale who could tutor him, so on his own he crafted his own approach. By the time he joined Bob he was already approaching legendary status at least in the areas he had played in. He gained the attention of a longtime friend of Bob's who called him when he heard that Bowman was indeed leaving and suggested Koefer as a replacement. Bobby was advised by this friend that he should endeavor to call Bob and see if an audition could in fact be arranged. Finally a meeting was arranged and the rest is history. Koefer came in a week or so before Bowman left and Billy showed him his parts on 3-way guitar arrangements. Bobby's steel roared whenever he took a solo. His notes leaped like a gazelle and strode like an impala. Of all the steel players Bob had, Bobby Koefer is perhaps the most talked about, the most revered and respected. Legend upon legend sprang up about him when he disappeared from the music scene in the early 60's when he transplanted to Alaska and dropped out of music altogether working in canneries and construction for over 20 years. Rumors were he had went to the 49th state on a lark and had panned for gold and struck it rich one day finding a nugget twice the size of his fist and had ceremonially conducted a funeral for his 1953 three neck Fender Stringmaster steel guitar, burying the instrument in the ice, complete with pallbearers, flowers and mourners. Nothing could be further from the truth. Koefer worked hard by day and played by night in his home which many have relegated to an igloo, (It wasn't- it was more like a conventional Klondike cabin) and he bided his time until Western Swing came full circle which coincided with his impending retirement before he emerged to begin gracing us with his amazing steel guitar music once more. He came 'back to the States' so to speak, moving to Oregon where he still resides. The mystique that surrounded Bobby for years fell off in a matter of moments. All the rumors, all the BS that had been said about him proved false. He pulled out his steel which had survived the great Alaskan earthquake in the 60's that produced a Tsunami tidalwave which carried the steel, his amplifier and most of his possessions over 2 miles away and showed the world he had lost nothing in terms of excitement, technique nor brilliance and he is still wowing the crowds and other musicians alike to this day! Bob Wills used to exclaim, "Ahhhh! Mr. Koefer, let's gopher!!!" And for good reason; Bobby Koefer dug a little deeper into the instrument than perhaps any other steel player, pedal or otherwise. He uprooted chords, licks and runs that were intricate and harmonically advanced. He produced the fire in his playing approach that graced the electric Blues guitar style of Junior Barnard. He even developed a style of Rhythm Steel Guitar!!! Imagine that! Who ever heard of rhythm steel guitar? In lieu of guitarists who cannot duplicate Eldon Shamblin's harmonically progressive style of chords and single string runs that link them, Koefer can execute an unbelievable impersonation of Shamblin that is mind boggling! I personally first heard him do this in my living room in the Winter of 1985 when I lived in southern California. I was completely amazed at this and I still am!
Shorty Messer is somewhat of a mystery, but he played a style of steel guitar that is talked about in steel guitar quarters in which he is elevated to legendary status by virtue of a handful of sides he cut with Bob Wills in Dallas on MGM. His solos are in the same class as Bowman and Koefer- both breathtaking and daring. All of these guys took the steel to a much higher plane than thought possible. Then, the advent of the pedal steel revolutionized how the instrument was approached entirely and the great strides these daring young adventurers were almost forgotten in the wake of the advances brought on by Bud Issacs and others who came along with a new voice with a new fangled version of an old instrument. One thing is clear; The men who played the non pedal steels in the 50's who worked for Bob Wills particularly played techniques and innovated styles that have never been duplicated since by anyone whether they play a pedal steel or not. They were in a class all by themselves and they remain as such!
Buddy