One night steel guitarist Buddy Emmons got a call from Glen Campbell who wanted to know if was interested in cutting some Ray Charles tracks that night. When Emmons got to the session he assumed it was for Campbell until he saw Charles walking out into the studio. Later on Emmons would play onstage in Nashville with Charles. “You could hear your name a million times,” Emmons would run in the Steel Guitar Forum the night Charles passed away, “but you never get used to hearing Ray Charles introducing your name to an audience.”
The world lost Buddy Emmons July 21, 2015 and folks would agree that he did more to call attention to the instrument and innovation. The re-airing of a Buddy & Jim Show special on SiriusXM Outlaw Country seemed like a perfect opportunity to celebrate the more than fifty years of the man affectionately known as “The Big E.”
“He was a guy who changed the steel guitar,” said Steve Fishell, a steel guitarist who helped bring together people like Willie Nelson, Duane Eddy, Vince Gill and John Anderson for the Emmons tribute album The Big E: A Salute to Steel Guitarist Buddy Emmons. “He was a player’s player. His influence was all pervasive, technically but also mechanically. He made so many innovations to the instrument that will never be matched.”
Emmons was still a teenager when he was discovered in Detroit by the great Jimmy Dickens. The two would cut “Buddie’s Boogie” and “Raisin’ The Dickens,” a rollicking instrumental led by Emmons’ fierce steel lead lines. Ray Price, who enlisted Emmons on the classic “Night Life,” recalls waking up in Detroit thinking he was hearing the radio. The next morning he learned it was Emmons who was making noises in the cellar. Emmons had a ritual of turning the lights out and practicing in the dark not knowing where the frets were.
When Emmons played with the legendary Ernest Tubb, the “Texas Troubadour,” he befriended a young Texan singer by the name of Willie Nelson. The two hit it off and Nelson persuaded him to get off the tour bus and drive through the night by car to the next show. During the ride, Nelson began singing songs he had written called “Night Life,” “Darkness on The Edge of Earth” and “Hello Walls.” Emmons was floored and encouraged Nelson to move to Nashville. When it came time to contribute a song for the tribute album, Nelson intentionally didn’t include steel guitar so as to remember the memory of the night he sang with Emmons in the car.
Emmons’ recording of “Someday Soon” with singer Judy Collins drew attention to the burgeoning country rock movement in Southern California in the early Seventies. Emmons was in demand as a session player with the likes of Glen Frey of the Eagles, songwriter J.D. Souther and singer Linda Ronstadt. Emmons was part of the Everly Brothers reunion and played on Don Everly’s solo album Sunset Towers.
Emmons dueled licks with legendary guitarist James Burton on Gram Parsons’ “That’s All It Took” featuring a young singer by the name of Emmylou Harris. For The Big E, Harris revisited “That’s All It Took” forty years after she cut it on Parsons’ “Grievous Angel” album. Fishell accompanied her and Rodney Crowell when they went out on the road together.
Miller remembered the first time he heard Ray Charles and Emmons playing on the track “Feels So Bad.” At the time he was working a lumberyard making roof trusses. He marveled at the name of the album The Volcanic Action of My Soul. Jim Lauderdale mentioned seeing Emmons the first time as part of the Nashville Pickers. Emmons was legendary for conducting days-long jam sessions with musicians like Ben Keith who played with Patsy Cline and later Neil Young, appearing on the seminal Harvest album. “We would carve out all the licks and new ideas while the rest of the pedal steel players in Nashville were asleep,” Emmons said.
On The Big E: A Tribute To Buddy Emmons, Vince Gill sings “Country Boy.” Gill chose the track because it was the first record his dad and uncle bought. The record also came out before Jimmy Dickens passed away. On the album we get to hear the little big man known as “Tater” sing “When a House Is Not A Home.”
In remembering Emmons, Fishell talked to Miller and Lauderdale about the eloquent language Emmons evoked on his instrument. The steel guitar was typecast as a hillbilly or country instrument and Emmons was able to push it into different areas. Consider his beautiful instrumental reading of the Beatles’ “Yesterday” which he recorded with Sneaky Pete Kleinow of the Flying Burrito Brothers. Guitarist Ry Cooder doesn’t remember the details of sessions they played on with Glen Frey of the Eagles in The Long Branch Pennywhistle Sessions. But what he does remember is the studio breaks with Emmons playing jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker’s solos at breakneck speed on the steel guitar.
Going back to the night he played with Charles, once Emmons got over being stunned and gathered his wits, Charles asked him to play behind him as he struck up a blues tune. “You know what the old man likes,” he soon said to Emmons who was a student of the singer. He and guitarist Jimmy Day who was a star in his own right playing “Crazy Arms” with Ray Price, would listen to Charles for hours.
In Emmons’ later years, the personal toll his wife’s death took in 2007 put an end to his playing music. Emmons was literally too heartbroken to play. But one day, about four years later, Fishell remembers getting a picture of a guitar from Emmons signaling he was thinking about music again. Emmons kept a distance from the tribute project but could only be elated by the outpouring of musicians who contributed their time.
Just a few weeks after Emmons left us, these details were all to be savored. A legacy to be celebrated; a life’s work to be forever remembered.
Originally posted here.
