I can’t think of an instrument that makes me smile more than the pedal steel guitar. Every time it makes an appearance in a song I instantly like that song. It makes ordinary country songs totally likable…and makes country wannabe songs totally like\able too. The tone, the vibe…oh yeah, baby. Everyone from the Beatles, Stones, Byrds, Zepp, Neil Young — even the Monkees — have benefited from this ace-in-the-hole add-on.
I never have the same feeling about any other instrument. I never get that head-bobbing smile say, when a sax comes in…or when vibes come in. Even my beloved Farfisa can’t top it. For this reason I vote the pedal steel as The Greatest Add-On Instrument in Rock.
Can I get an Amen…a list of fave pedal steel songs…or I challenge you to top this greatest of instruments!
I like pedal steel guitar a lot, but also get quite excited by the Theremin: Good Vibrations, Beefheart’s Electricity, Holes by Mercury Rev, the theme to The Day The Earth Stood Still, and Echoes by the Floyd.
I’m blanking out on which Beatles cut used pedal-steel.
The french horn on that Lucifer’s Friend track totally makes that song!
While some artists used the pedal steel imaginatively, too often it has been used just to corn up things. It became something of a cliche for country rock and you end up with rote dreck like New Riders of the Purple Sage’s “Panama Red”. Might as well go all the way and throw in banjos and a jew’s harp for good measure. Yee-haw!
I think the greatest add-on is the mellotron (I don’t count piano as an add-on instrument). Though the ‘tron was intended to simulate “real” instruments, it brings its own strange, otherworldly quality into the music. Nothing is quite like the ghostly and ethereal string sound, while the sax sound is wonderfully harsh and grating. The mellotron counts as the first real sampler, yet everything goes full circle as vintage ‘tron samples are popular sounds in modern samplers and softsynths.A great example is King Crimson’s 1970 ‘tron-fest Holst ripoff “The Devil’s Triangle”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FneEa7F1UA
As for organs, the Farfisa (also Vox) gives a nice Nuggety feel to a song, but it just doesn’t have the room-filling power and presence of a tonewheel Hammond with a Leslie.
I think the hit vs miss ratio for songs that feature the sitar is pretty good. As for the pedal steel, which I love, there have been a lot of mediocre songs that stayed mediocre after the addition of a pedal steel. I continue to believe that the greatest add-on instrument is the maraca. “Brown Sugar,” “Problem Child” — the list goes on and on. Better even than the cowbell, and that’s saying something.
I may be with you. Only Genesis fails to make that thing work.
All good suggestions so far but if maracas count then so does the tambourine.
And hand claps blow them all away. Good hand clapping can easily make a song.
What about the synth hand clap? Prince & a whole lotta other people used that in the ’80’s.
If hand claps can count as a instrument, then I vote for the sound effect you get from kicking a spring reverb unit. Never fails to a surf instrumental even cooler.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=818Pp-YJw6A
We’re seeking the best, not the worst!
I was just about to write that maracas and tambourines shouldn’t count because they’re as standard percussion instruments as the previously declared off-topic piano is a standard rhythm instrument (historically, at least). Handclaps can count, though, in my opinion. I don’t, however, think they quite bring the add-on thunder of the mellotron.
I’m kind of torn between the glockenspiel and the vibraslap for add-on instruments.
My fave use of the pedal-steel is on One Hundred Years From Now by The Byrds. Certainly of the first rock songs to use the pedal steel as the lead instrument. Lloyd Green played on that one. I always thought that Sneaky Pete Kleinow (Flying Burrito Brothers and many other) is rather underrated as far as his place in the whole “country rock” thang.
Yes It Is sounds like it features a pedal steel, but it’s Harrison is fiddling about with his volume pedal. Same thing with I Need You.
Gary Louris of The Jayhawks is another that achieves a pedal steel like sound using his tremolo bar, a slide and volume pedal.
In the 1960s, the late Pete Drake had the gimmick of hooking a talk box to a pedal steel guitar. He used this setup on a number of recordings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnvlDDMXpXA&feature=related
The opening of “Watcher of the Skies” is regarded in prog circles as one of the great mellotron moments. Keyboardist Tony Banks would take two mellotrons when he toured with Genesis because the fearsomely complex units were frequently breaking down and required near-constant attention and service.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57HicYcY4Ow
I’ve never,ever, ever, ever liked that whole talking guitar thing. But, I’ll give the guy props for thinking outside the box.
The same is true of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”.
What about that ridged thingy you drag a little stick across and hit (usually twice). Oye Como Va comes to mind but there are lots of examples. It kills.
Amen on the Hammond. A Guitar through a leslie is cool too. I think Joe Perry uses one.
That’s called a guiro, and traditionally it was made from a dried and hollowed-out gourd.
But no one has used that since, I hope!
The B Bender is a cool add on but since it’s meant to replicate the pedal steel, I’d stick with the steel.
Funny, gregg: that song is the same song I just referred to when a kid picked up our “fish” in the studio on Saturday and asked me what it’s used for!
Entwhistle!
Sans “h,” as I believe HVB would Pince Nez you – unless you were referring to the add-on instrument popularized in the most thunderous of Celtic musics.
True. Lennon played the lap steel on a few songs. My bad.
Just saw The Jayhawks this Friday. They had the pedal steel player from Tift Meritt on stage for 5 songs, the best 5 songs of the night.
The show was well played, but the sound was a mess. Their harmonies sounded strange (some vocalists were too loud, others too quiet) and the guitar and Gary’s vocal were both way too quiet. I had two friends of mine at the show go back to the bar 1/2 way through so they could hear the concert through the closed circuit, which had a slightly better mix)
Beck uses the synth clap I think on Midnight Vultures CD
When I go to a guitar shop, the first thing I do is find a guitar with a B-string bender and spend 20 minutes noodling. I need to get one put on my mexi-tele one of these days.
for some reason, most pedals steel players can just sit in and noodle along with the band and sound great, even if they don’t know the song structure or chord changes
Yeah, they can be ragged once in a while. The best I ever saw Louris live was with Golden Smog.
Pince nez: Good Vibrations doesn’t use a theremin. It uses an electro-theremin, which has a different method of controlling the sound. I myself was pince nezzed on this by someone who actually plays the theremin…
And the entire Bo Diddley oeuvre. What would Jerome have done otherwise?
Okay, I had no idea that’s how that sound is made. Very cool.
Thanx Tonyola. I’ve got one but never knew what to call it. I think “21st Century Schizoid Man” could have used one.
E-bow
aloha
LD
I’d go with French Horn for the Stones, the Who, Bragg’s “Saturday Boy” and probably more. A mellow sound that cuts right across a rock band.
A ribbon controller was used for “Good Vibrations”. You slide your finger along a ribbon to control the pitch.
Conincidentally, since we’ve been discussing Juicy Lucy elsewhere, the best use of pedal steel in rock and roll is by Glenn Campbell during his days in the Misunderstood. He transformed it into something completly new and unique. Nothing has even come close since (though I suspect you like it for its more “traditional” uses.)
P.S. The greatest add-on instrument in rock and roll is the tambourine.
One of my favorite pedal steel songs — one of my favorite songs — is American Music Club’s Firefly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fos92j5o_os
AMC had a pedal steel player (Bruce Kaphan) during most of their lifespan, and his playing was often unconventional.
Hey, while we’re on the subject of the pedal steel guitar, I feel obliged to ask a really dumb question I’ve repressed for 30 years: What do the pedals do on a pedal steel? I’ve never tried to play one of those things. Your answer also may help me understand what that B-string bender thing is I always read about. Why only stretch the B string?
Some of the pedals bend strings, but there’s also a volume pedal, which accounts for the swelling sound that’s characteristic of the instrument.
I stand corrected, as indeed I expected to be. Immediately after posting I thought it would be nice to see if it would be practical to set our firstborn on building one for me as a science experiment, and found lots of websites explaining that GV uses a different sort of thingy. Would it be terribly wrong of me to argue the case for either, or a ribbon controller, as my ears can’t actually tell the difference?
Failing that, I’ll be happy to substitute the Beach Boys for this, one and a half minutes of complete stupidity featuring a theremin http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnmPkJvLhWs
Happiness Stan, I’ll see you that and raise you another minute and a half of my son messing with a theremin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZigT7QmG3Zg
BigSteve, you and I have both been banished to the Celtic hinterlands.
Daniel Lanois is a mighty fine pedal steel player.
I also am a sucker for the Farfisa a la Stereolab. And the Hammond organ.
Mr. Royale nominates the singing saw such as in the Theme from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Please extend a cyber high five to Mr Royale as I am also a big fan of the singing saw.
Early Mercury Rev regularly featured a saw player, whose sound was often mistaken for a theremin.
Yes!
Bruce Kaphan is the shit! His playing with the American Music Club is exceptional. I once saw him do a live show with David Byrne that was just plain transcendent. He would give any pedal steele player listed here a run for their money.
Awesome, I’d buy an album of that.
Does violin count? Not in a string section, but by itself. For example, Warren Ellis in The Bad Seeds, etc., Susie from the Mekons, Jonathan from Camper Van Beethoven, Swarbrick from Fairport Convention. I love that stuff.
I would think so, as you describe it – and that’s a good one!
Definitely counts. Other notable violins in rock include:
*Papa John Creach in late Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship
*Kansas
*David Cross in 1973-1974 King Crimson
*It’s a Beautiful Day (“White Bird”)
*Beatles (“Hello Goodbye” and “Don’t Pass Me By”)
Gotta love Papa John’s work!
On the other hand, the serious one, I do like David Cross in King Crimson. I like the violin on Dylan’s “Hurricane,” too – and a pre-emptive eye roll to the the first Townsperson who tries to Pince Nez me on calling that or the instrument on “Don’t Pass Me By” a violin when it technically may be a fiddle:)
My favorite add-on instrument, I realized, may be any kind of “snake charmer” horn, but then I realized that it hasn’t gotten much use in rock beyond early Pere Ubu and whatever is making those noises on Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica. I think it may be more of a jazz add-on, from the Dashiki Era of jazz.
My only real complaint about Papa John was that he overused that squiggly glissando during his solos.
There is no difference between a violin and a fiddle – they’re just different names for the same instrument. Country fiddle players sometimes shave down the bridge a bit to make it easier to play two strings at once. So go ahead and stomp the pince-nez of gripers.
My only complaint is that he should never have gone into the pizza business.
I have a real fondness for the Danelectro electric sitar, as heard on Joe South’s “Games People Play,” the Box Top’s “Cry Like a Baby,” B.J. Thomas’ “Hooked on a Feeling,” Steely Dan’s “Do It Again,” etc., etc.
Here’s a great example of the Danelectro electric sitar in action, courtesy of the Screaming Trees: http://youtu.be/JjCNwKJP1z8