Jeff Newman

Original post: 10/31/05 Yahoo 360

My first formal training in playing the pedal steel guitar came from the World's Greatest Steel Guitar Instructor, Jeff Newman. Jeff was not only the best instructor around, he was one of the greatest players in the world. I first attended one of his weekend seminars in Dallas, somewhere around 1978. I later went on to study E9th steel guitar at his school, Jeffran College, in Hermitage Tennessee. (That's a trip to Nashville I didn't want to return from!) In the early 1980's, Jeff invited Buddy Emmons (Worlds Foremost Steel Guitarist) to teach at his school. Needless to say, I was in two of Buddy's classes at Jeffran College also. Some of the other students in my classes at Jeffran included Tim Lusby (Darrel Singletary), Steve Palousek (Ray Price, Gene Watson, etc.), John Fabian (Carter Steel Guitars) and Jeff Pederson (Clint Black).
Jeff Newman was killed in the crash of his ultra-light aircraft on April 7, 2004. He had other airplanes too and we would often talk about flying when we visited at steel guitar conventions every year. This picture shows Jeff Pederson on the left and Jeff Newman in the middle.
I miss Jeff...

A Past Blog from September 2005

My first blog entry (on Yahoo 360, and not shown here on blogspot) was the beginning of a chronological series on my musical interests and history. But, I'm going to jump ahead to the present and mention a reunion I attended this past weekend.

You might say that this was a "family reunion" of sorts. You see, the very first real band I ever played music with has become a part of my extended family. A couple of the members lived in my hometown of Honey Grove and the others lived within a 25 mile radius of HG. We gave this band the name, "Bois d'Arc Bottom Band (or Boys)"

It all began when Gary Moreland and I met some guys from Wolfe City and Gober at a filling station in Ladonia one evening. Gary and I had begun to play music at night on the square in Honey Grove as we met in search of something to do in "Smalltown Texas." As we learned to play and sing a small repetoire of bluegrass numbers together, we eventually went from there to the live studio room of KFYN radio in Bonham to present a weekly show called "Bluegrass American Style." Just guitar, banjo and no room for errors, we hammered out about 30 minutes of live music for a handfull of Saturdays. Then, we showed up one Saturday to discover that the disc-jockey flew the coup...with my very first guitar; a yellow, f-hole archtop, Old Craftsman acoustic. Needless to say, we didn't play anymore at KFYN. Shortly after that, we met the rest of the soon to be, Bois d'Arc Bottom Boys.

Members of the BBB shown in the attached picture were /are (from left to right): Kelly Connell (bass), Gary Manning (piano), myself (banjo only at that time), Mike Erwin (drums), David Trout (rhythm guitar), Gary Moreland (guitar), Phillip Rozell (standing, harmonica), and Bob Robinson (sitting, lead guitar). And, everyone sang...except me. I don't think I could have found that eighth harmony part to sing if I had wanted to!

The BBB performed at rodeo dances, clubs, VFWs, county fairs and opry houses over the span of about 3-4 years. Yes, it seemed like 10-15 years. There were times when we played five nights a week in Denison Texas. Needless to say, we got pretty tight...musically. I eventually started playing steel guitar, and I have to say that my playing style was greatly influenced by the band's repertoire of progressive county music (Willie & Waylon, The Marshall Tucker Band, etc).
So, to make a very long story short, these are my "musical brothers." And, in 1997, after 20 years of not playing together, we decided to have a reunion. It took place at the VFW in Bonham Texas and I think we sounded as good or better than we did 20 years before that. Several of us went on to play with other bands from 1979 to 1997 and that sharpened our pickin' skills even more. But when we got together for that first reunion, it was pure original Bois d'Arc Bottom Band, just like we had never stopped. And, the taste of that reunion has led us to do our best to repeat it every year, as long as the good Lord allow us!

Early in March of 2009 I joined my first bluegrass band. I have always enjoyed playing bluegrass, but it was always sporadic and sometimes part of what Bois d'Arc Bottom was doing. In my earliest years of banjo playing, I traveled most of northeast Texas with Joe Julian, J.T.Bryan, Ross Whit and sometimes Stuart Anderson, mostly attending Texas Fiddle contests and playing Texas fiddle music. I always felt that I lacked true experience in playing REAL bluegrass banjo. Now that I'm in a real bluegrass band, I'm playing dobro all the time! Here's how that came about...

I have known most of the members of "Hard 2 Git" for a pretty long time. I can remember me and Gary Moreland playing at PJC in the mid 70's and Sam Bolton was on the same program. I usually ran into Sam at one of his convenient stores in Paris (BoMart). And, over the years I have shopped at Village Jewelers, owned and operated by James and Anna Martin. James used to have the band, "Simply Gospel." I remember several years ago hearing that Stuart Anderson had joined the Hard 2 Git band as their banjo player. I was surprised that he had joined a Paris bluegrass band.

About a year ago, Hard 2 Git's regular dobro player, Jonathan Perry, moved out of town and left the band dobro-less! Jonathan also maintained the website for H2G. Since I had run into H2G several times at the Lake Bonham Hoedown as I played with Joan Kelton, James happen to ask me if I knew anyone that could build a website. I told him that I had designed a few and might could help out. From that conversation, I became the webmaster for H2G.
One evening James asked me to come over to his home so he could settle up with me on the cost of the website work. When I got there, Debbie and I sat down in their living room and visited for quite a while. All of a sudden James said, "Now, here's what I really wanted to talk to you about." He told me that the whole band had agreed on asking me to join Hard 2 Git as their new dobro player. They also wanted Debbie to be a big part of the band. (Maybe she will blog about the "fun" she's had with H2G!)

Since joining H2G in March, we have played in Lone Star, Pickton, Bonham, Tom Bean, Paris (FBC and Cowboy Church), Sulphur Springs and Mountain View, AR. We usually practice once a week at the Martin's in Paris or Stuart's home in Commerce. Our schedule of shows can be seen at http://www.hard2git.com/ .