Keeping the pedal steel guitar alive | 5 players on the instrument’s influence and evolution
Country music is changing. So is the instrument that plays a key role in solidifying its entire sound—the pedal steel guitar. Their marriage is still intact; however, it’s now an open one. An increasingly diverse group of musicians have taken interest in the oblong, floor-mounted electrified guitar fretted with a steel bar, putting the instrument in the ears of many indie, ambient, and experimental fans for the first time. Pioneered by Buddy Emmons and Jimmy Day, the quintessential honky-tonk sound of the ’60s
Sacred Steel: Traditional Sacred African-American Steel Guitar Music in Florida
Originally developed for playing Hawaiian music, the steel guitar was integrated into the sacred music of two branches of the House of God, an African-American Holiness Pentecostal church in the late 1930s. This collection is drawn from sacred music recorded between 1993 and 1997 and is divided into instrumentals/concerts and live religious services. The liner notes provide a brief history of the steel guitar and its sacred music traditions. Source: https://folkways.si.edu/sacred-steel/gospel/music/album/smithsonian