How do you feel about the state of steel guitar in country music today as opposed to 20-25 years ago?
I asked him some questions and I'm going to ask you about the same thing. Johnny Bush and he said you and he have been making rounds around town. I just got done with an interview with Mr. Everybody is going to one boot, hadn't you heard." Ernest asked me about where my other boot and I said, "It's a new thing, going around. When they told me that I just pulled the right boot off and handed it right across the guitar and said, "take it." I walked back on the bus with one boot and one sock. Bev's brother had to have some surgery just prior to us showing up in town for our concert and he lost his leg at the hip, it had to be amputated and it is a traumatic experience for anybody and he decided to have a funeral for that leg and he wanted to bury it in a Texas Troubadour boot. But I couldn't figure out why they wanted my right boot and he explained the story to me. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't even sell you a pair of boots, but you can get some like them from Champion Patent Leather Boots." He said "No, your right boot is what I want, it's special." I was beginning to think that maybe they were nuts.
I didn't know them and I was down with the Troubadours and Ernest and they came to our show and as soon as the show was over Cal walked over and introduced himself, introduced Bev and another gentleman with them, who was Bev's brother, Cal's brother-in-law, and after talking with him for a few minutes Cal asked me if I would sell him my right boot and I said "no, I ain't selling you a boot. One of the things that my memory got jogged about today, Cal Sharp was over here a few minutes ago and Cal's ex-wife was with him and I was telling Johnny Bush the first time I met Cal and Beverly was in Houston. Well there's been so many, you'd have time to read "Gone With The Wind" while I tell them. So tell us about some of your memorable experiences, that are repeatable, about working with the Troubadours? Of course we dug out a little hole between Emmons and Charleton so Darrell McCall could come in and sing a couple.ĭarrell was never a Troubadour, but he was always a friend and he could have been a Troubadour, he just wouldn't work that cheap. They asked me about it the sound and light people said, "the way you want this stage set up it is all steel guitars and there is no room for singers," and I said "now you're getting it." We did the same set-up on three different shows.
We let a few fiddle players work off and on, on the right side. We lined the front of the stage with steels the second tier was guitars and the third, rhythm section. Then we had tag team drummers, Jimmy Heap, Jr. And we had two of our old bass players and front men showed up Junior Pruneda from way down in Texas and Ronnie Dale from here in town. Billy Byrd didn't perform with us, but he sat out on the stage and smiled a lot end just thoroughly enjoyed it. On guitar we had: Leon Rhodes, Pete Mitchell, and Steve Chapman. I will name some of them for you: Don Helms, Jimmy Day, Buddy Emmons, Buddy Charleton, Kimo Head, Dickie Harris, Johnny Cox, and me. We had five or six International Steel Guitar Hall of Fame members that came in. We finally got it together and they came from all over the world. It was something that Ernest kind of wanted to do even before he left and it just never did happen. There were 23 of us together for the first time ever in history. Well our Texas Troubadour Reunion came together with great success. Tell us about the reunion of the Troubadours. You've got no business doing anything else. That's good, man, we need you back picking. Hopefully it won't be wasted this time and we can get this thing to record. Steel GuitarWorld Magazine ISSUE #23 1995
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