via The 9513 by Miss Leslie
A recent debate with a friend has me wondering: Has the steel guitar gone underground, or is the steel guitar dead and gone from country music altogether, buried "under the ground?"
Since Webb Pierce came out with "Slowly" in 1954, the pedal steel guitar has been the signature instrument of country music. Virtually non-existent in all other musical genres, its prominence in country music until the last decade (and arguably, the last two decades) has made it an audible watermark of country music. Lloyd Green, aka "Mr. Nashville" (and the steel guitar player for hundreds of country recordings), has been quoted as saying that "the steel guitar is the other voice in country music."
But where is that "other voice" today? I don't hear it in mainstream country music. Recently, I forced myself to sit down and listen to the top 10 singles on the Billboard chart; from Taylor Swift's "You Belong With Me" to Blake Shelton's "I'll Just Hold On," what struck me was that while a hint of steel is audible on most of the recordings, none of them featured the melodic intros, solos and fills that have long been a staple of the genre.
Subtle steel tones are there (as is the banjo) seemingly to "countrify" the songs.
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