Emmons created new designs for the instrument, including his signature model, the Emmons Guitar in 1963, which he sold through his Emmons Guitar Co. Emmons not only mastered this teary quality but used the technique to execute dazzling runs and complex jazz chord changes. 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 types, 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’s an odd case of the ironic outsider clashing with earnest New Yorkers. “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 modern jazzmen such as Horace Silver and Sonny Rollins. With the album “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, Rosemary Clooney and the Henry Mancini Orchestra.
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. Dazzling instrumentals such as “ Raising the Dickens” (1955) (credited to the Country Boys) and “Four Wheel Drive” (1957) influenced a generation of pickers. Emmons - commonly known in Nashville as “the Big E” - was known for fast and flashy string work. He was 78.Ī family friend, Ernie Renn, issued a statement to the Nashville Musicians Association confirming the death. Buddy Emmons, an innovative pedal steel guitarist who toured with the Everly Brothers, Ray Price and Ernest Tubb and was one of the first to bring the instrument into the jazz and rock genres, died July 21 at his home in Hermitage, Tenn.
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