Here on the Mississippi gulf coast we just had one of our Deep South Steel Guitar Org shows. It was a very good one with Joe Wright, Hank Corwin, Tony Lane (George Morgan Band steel player from those good ole days) and many others.

One young man from Alabama, by the name of Gordon Dodson, was on the program. Gordon plays a 14 string EXCEL tuned to Julian Tharpe´s tuning; first seven string tuned to the standard E9 and the bottom seven tuned to E6. (Julian referred to this as E96). It was a delight to see and hear Gordon play songs you never hear at a steel show, just like Julian used to do too. Gordon played and sang songs ie "Hot Rod Lincoln" with all the proper effects and then another that was a crowd pleaser from Robert Mitchum´s movie "Thunderroad". Again with all the correct sounds and music. Gordon related a story that when he was a very young boy in Alabama, his neighbor on one side was the Tharpes and on the other side-Curly Chalker´s family. Neat story for all these steel guitar roots etc.

Joe Wright was playing his 12 string Sierra as only Joe Wright does. I gave him an hour on the program and when Joe brought up his wife, Connie, to sing, I wished we had six more hours to give them. Connie Wright sings as good or better than anyone you, we, or anyone has ever heard.

R.J. Buras gave a great performance on his 12 string Universal EXCEL, which was made for Joe Wright when he was in Japan for that show there.

Hank Corwin, recently retired from the Nashville scene and now lives here on the coast in Biloxi, Ms. really demonstrated all the music that is in a single ten, E9, 3 pedals, 4 knee levers pedal steel. This guy is amazing-no other words to fully describe his talent. While he was on stage, a guest came up and requested "The Shadow of Your Smile". Hank immediately played it solo and I thought Curly was on stage. All the inflections from Curly´s rendition of that song with Stan Hitchcock brought the audience to a complete silence. Hank informed all that being able to read music allows him to play songs like that properly. Hank has been teaching a few local players and he played with one of his students on stage. Bert Courregge played his set with Hank playing all the harmony notes and chords along with Bert. Sounded like a big orchestra.

Hank and I have also been practicing together. Hank practicing, me struggling. I do my best to play the melody lines and Hank can put in more harmony notes than he has strings. Hank and I are planning to do a project in Nashville soon. It will be a two CD project. Hank will do one all to himself and then he and I will play on the second one. Hank will play songs from Thelonious Monk and a few other real jazz musician´s songs as that is what he really likes to play. Should be interesting.