He was 11 when his father, a machinist, bought him a lap steel guitar and purchased lessons for him in South Bend.
I had the only guitar in town with an ashtray on it.’’īuddie Gene Emmons was born in Mishawaka, Ind. I had a neck without a fret board that was to keep other people from playing it. ‘‘I’d take a metal neck off and replace it with wood to see if that would help the tone. ‘‘Just about every week I’d come up with some kind of change,’’ he told the magazine Country Music in 1978. Emmons created new designs for the instrument, including his signature model, the Emmons Guitar in 1963, which he sold through his company. (Stay-In-Tune) Strings was founded on a belief that a guitar string is more that just an accessory, but rather an integral part of a musician’s sound and voice. Emmons mastered this teary quality, executing dazzling runs and complex jazz chord changes. We believe that great tone starts with great strings. The devices create the crying steel sound most associated with country music. However, the pedal steel is also equipped with knee levers and foot pedals that loosen and tighten the strings to further alter the pitch. With both, the guitarist plays the melody by sliding a bar over the strings while picking with his other hand. The pedal steel guitar had evolved from the Hawaiian lap steel guitar.
Emmons continued his excursions into jazzier terrain in the 1970s and 1980s with the band Redneck Jazz, a collaboration with Washington, D.C., guitarist Danny Gatton, and big-band recordings with vocalist Ray Pennington and the Swing Shift Band. It apparently started much earlier - in Hawaii in the 19th century (though the pedals came along much later), so it's interesting to speculate whether the original blues masters had already been turned onto it from Hawaiian music. It’s an odd case of the ironic outsider clashing with earnest New Yorkers. Pedal Steel is a far more mechanical contraption (it really is a contraption) that uses a metal bar held flat on the strings instead of a slide around the finger. ‘‘When Buddy Emmons plays something like a hip modern jazz lick, he can lean on it like a joke - as if it’s hard to take seriously. ‘‘Country musicians loved jazz’s easy swing, but their concept of harmony often needed an update,’’ NPR jazz critic Kevin Whitehead said in a 2012 review of the reissued album. Emmons interpreted standards by jazzmen such as Horace Silver and Sonny Rollins. With ‘‘Steel Guitar Jazz’’ (1963), recorded in New York with pianist Bobby Scott and reed player Jerome Richardson, Mr. He also graced recordings by Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie, Linda Ronstadt, and the Henry Mancini Orchestra. buddy emmons music is now closed Buddy thanks you for your support over the years SO YOU KNOW: I will still offer the Black Shirts and will likely be adding another product or two as time goes by.
He backed Faron Young on ‘‘Sweet Dreams’’ (1955), Ray Price on the bluesy ‘‘Night Life’’ (1963), and folk singer Judy Collins on ‘‘Someday Soon’’ (1969). However, it was the lyricism that he brought to slow songs that made him a popular accompanist.