Steel guitar: lap steel and pedal steel

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Technology

Steel guitar: lap steel and pedal steel · According to tradition, the Hawaiian schoolboy Joseph Kekuku discovered around 1889 in Honolulu that he could play a guitar by sliding a piece of metal over the strings. He laid the guitar flat on his lap. Such a lap steel plays gliding notes that sound like a sighing voice. Hawaiian musicians took the instrument on tour through America and Europe, and in the 1930s it acquired an electric pickup. In country music, it became indispensable. Later, pedals were added that change the tuning of individual strings. Bud Isaacs introduced that pedal steel in 1954 on Slowly by Webb Pierce, and ever since it has wept in almost every country song.

Listening

• 
  Steel Guitar Rag · Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, 1936
• 
  Slowly · Webb Pierce, 1954
• 
  Sleep Walk · Santo & Johnny, 1959

In School of Rock

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• Genre Map · Technology^NL Map

See also

• Country rock