One mild evening in the beginning of the summer of 2005, I was onboard a Brighton bus en route to rehearsal with my old band Frock. An elderly gentleman (who smelt gently of drink) asked me about the cases I was carrying - "What kinda guitars are them?" I explained that it was one acoustic and one electric guitar, and the old man got very enthusiastic and excited - it was hard for me to understand his accent, and the alcohol had slurred his speach somewhat, but he definitely wanted to tell me about something he liked a lot. "Do you know?!" he asked, and when he saw that I didn't he proceeded to swing his left hand repeatedly from left to right, right to left, across his lap. I also caught the word "Hawaii" from the mixture of speech and musical sound effects. The old man was trying to tell me how much he liked the lap steel guitar.
I guess I had always been aware that the steel gutar exists, and I liked the sound of it, but if you'd have asked me back then about the difference between a lap steel and a pedal steel I couldn't have told you much of value. Anyway, the old man's enthusiasm stuck with me, and in a complete spur of the moment way, I soon found myself with one regular electric guitar less and with a vintage National New Yorker electric lap steel found on eBay.
I loved it straight away! But also found it a bit intimidating. I had never touched a lap steel before in my life! Thanks to the great people on the Steel Guitar Forum (steelguitarforum.com) I soon found out a thing or two about how to get started. I became aware of a guitar called "Weissenborn", I realised that those sounds Ben Harper made came from a guitar in his lap and... I got myself an old Oahu acoustic lap steel for $81. This was really it! I love the sound of an acoustic lap slide, and this old student guitar from the days of the Great Depression sounded as great as any! Eventually I got myself a Lazy River Weissenborn, which sounds great too. :-)
This is the most fascinating and expressive instrument I've ever come across. Here you can hear my first efforts. Check the blog for info on the current songs, and I hope you will enjoy my music!
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