steel guitar in country music ?

[musicalmartin]

How did the steel guitar sound end up in mainstream country music ?
Did it come in via slide blues or was it an electric phenomenon in the 30's .As you can gather I know little about country music despite playing blugrass in the 60's on a flat top .
thanks

 

[Leon Grizzard]

I think it came in more through Hawaian steel guitar, which was more a major sound than Blues slide playing. I guess you would have to say E9 shows the Blues influence more than C6.

 

[Mojohand40]

Definitely came through Hawaiian influence.
You can really hear the Hawaiian stuff in real early recording.
For instance, I've been listening to some very old "Hank Penny and His Radio Cowboys" lately. Though it's Western swing, there is a lot of Hawaiian in it.
Titles like "Off to Honolulu" and "Steel Guitar Hula" were played right along with "Tobacco State Swing" and "Why Did I cry".
Other early steel players, like Spade Cooley's Joaquin Murphey, learned the instrument from Hawaiian sources as well. From these early Western Swing bands, steel naturally flowed into Country. Probably the earliest true "Country" recordings to use steel (as opposed to Western acts) was Jimmy Rodgers, but don't quote me on that.

anyway here's some interesting reading
Excerpt from:
http://blog.mlive.com/kalamazoo_gazette_extra/2008/03/steel_guitar_player_gerald_ros.html
"The phenomenon really took root in 1915 during the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. Hawaii was a new U.S. territory, and people flocked to the island exhibit to hear this tropical music that played as people danced the hula in grass skirts.

"People went nuts for it because it was a brand new sound, it was kind of exotic; these people were half-naked dancing, so it was just hot and exciting," Ross said.
The Hawaiian steel became the exotic go-to sound of early recording artists. Jimmie Rogers, the first country music star, used the steel guitar on most of his records in the '20s and '30s. It then became one of the main instruments of Western swing, evolving into the electric pedal steel guitar that's still on country radio."

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[BuddyLee]

My pop says it came about through guys like Sol Hoopii with the Hawaiian Music.

I believe Bob Wills had a major role in bringing the Steel Guitar and the Blues into Country/Folk. iirc Wills may have also had the first drummer in Country music.

 

[garymaddox]

Cliff Carlisle was a yodelling cowboy that played lap slide on accoustic. I love his stuff!

 

[cowboytwang]

In 1927 Jimmie Rodgers started recording some songs with a Hawaiian Band. Hawaiian music, with steel guitar and ukulele, was the big craze at the time, so he wrote a few songs to sing about Hawaii.
Here is one of the first songs he did with the Hawaiian Band and steel guitar.


The next big step for steel guitar in Country Music was Bob Dunn. He started playing with Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies in the early '30s and was one of the first to amplify his steel guitar. He was influenced by blues players more than the Hawaiian steel players. The sad part is he had a very short career and died in '36 from complications of an auto accident.

However after that almost all the country fiddle bands and western swing bands started hiring steel players. Even Bob Wills after he left the Light Crust Doughboys (a band that also included Milton Brown) in '35 he had Leon McAuliffe (another Light Crust Doughboy alumni) playing steel guitar in the Texas Playboys.
Then other country artist like Ernest Tubb started adding electric steel guitars to their bands because the instruments could cut through the noise honky tonks they were playing in.
By the mid '40s almost all country stars were using steel guitar players.