Emmons Classes - Part 1

In 1980 I attended Jeff Newman's school (Jeffran College) in Nashville (Hermitage), TN. I returned to Nashville in 1983 and 1984 because Jeff brought Buddy Emmons to the college to teach C6th. These times were the highlights of my musical education. What can top spending eight hours a day, five days a week with the "World's Foremost Steel Guitarist"?
If my old memory serves me correctly, we would start bright and early every morning as soon as the "Big E" walked in. Jeff and Buddy had worked hard to have tablature ready for everything we were to work on that day. Each student brought their own steel guitar to the class and I chose to bring my double-neck Sho-Bud...since this WAS a study in C6th. Each student had a cassette recorder/player (remember those?) and a set of headphones. Buddy would show us how a piece was supposed to sound and we would spend a few minutes playing along with a rhythm track trying to play it like he did (yeah...right!). Noon would eventually roll around and we'd have lunch somewhere, then hit the tab again in the afternoon.
On Wednesday or Thursday night (come on memory!) Buddy would bring in the rest of the heavyweights and "show us how it's done!" as Charlie Daniels would say. Phil Baugh on guitar, Duke Dumas on bass and John Stacey on drums. Man, we went through a lot of cassette tape during those weeks!
Some of the other players in my classes were: John Fabian (Carter Steel Guitar), Jeff Pederson (Clint Black), Tim Lusby (Daryl Singletary), Steve Palousek (Emmons Co., Ray Price, etc.), and Janet Lynn. After the 1983 class, I believe we all came back in 1984.

Stay tuned for Part 2!

Holiday CD Project

Another holiday season has rolled around and I'm at it again. I guess the banjo instrumental CD will have to wait.
As I was looking over my music collection a couple of weeks ago, I realized that I've done a fair amount of studio recording in my 55 years. (Yes, I turned 55 this month.) I didn't start playing an instrument until I was around seven or eight, but I saw my first recording studio when I was twenty. I played steel and high-strung guitar on Bois d'Arc Bottom Band's first 45 RPM record in 1977. In 1980 I got to record in the famous Nashville studio, Bradley's Barn, as part of Jeff Newman's E9th steel guitar class.
So, I decided to take some cuts from various sessions and put them on a CD. Why? Because I have first hand experience at being a grandson who treasures the few recordings left behind by his grandfather. Maybe someday my descendents will be interested in playing music and possibly be inspired by this small amount of audio I've left behind.
As you can see from the preliminary CD cover design, there are twelve different sessions indicated. I've picked from one to three songs from each session for this CD. There were other recording sessions over the years, but most of those were Gospel music and I wanted to first document the Country music sessions. The quality of the recordings range from...well...what you would expect from ripping from 45RPMs and cassette tapes to modern CD quality. Debbie helped me produce this work and we both enjoyed listening to these cuts and reminiscing. I had only recorded in maybe three studios before we married, so she's been right there supporting me since then. We both hope you enjoy it!
Boyd and Debbie