While living in California, he also found session work for a number of artists, including Ray Charles, the Everly Brothers, Linda Ronstadt and Gram Parsons. Emmons took a job as the bass player for Roger Miller, who was based in Los Angeles at the time. He’d play on classic albums such as Price’s “Night Life" and "Touch My Heart."Īfter five years in Price's band, Mr. Emmons left Tubb’s band in 1962 and joined Ray Price’s Cherokee Cowboys, taking the spot of pedal steel player Jimmy Day. Less than a decade later, he’d leave Sho-Bud and create the Emmons Guitar Co. with Ron Lashley. Emmons and musician Shot Jackson formed the Sho-Bud Guitar Co. in 1956. Emmons a stunning musician, he also was a remarkable innovator, and would frequently tinker with his steel guitars, experimenting with different tunings and pioneering the split-pedal setup, which can be heard on "Half a Mind." Mr. His crying pedal steel licks were an integral element of songs such as Tubb's 1958 hit single "Half a Mind." Emmons found a job as part of Ernest Tubb's Texas Troubadours. In 1956, Dickens dissolved his band, and Mr. Emmons and guitarists Spider Wilson and Howard Rhoten, the band "reached its zenith," Stubbs said after Wilson's death in March. Emmons was making his "Grand Ole Opry" debut as part of Dickens’ backing band, the Country Boys. It was in this city that country music star Little Jimmy Dickens discovered him in the summer of 1955 by the July Fourth weekend of that year, Mr. Emmons dropped out of school, then moved to Detroit to play in Casey Clark’s band. Soon his parents noticed his musical aptitude and bought him a triple-neck steel guitar.Īt 16, Mr.
His father bought him his first lap steel guitar at the age of 11, and the young boy quickly took to the instrument. He took it to another level and expanded (the instrument’s) boundaries.”īuddy Gene Emmons was born on Jan. 27, 1937, in Mishawaka, Ind. He was placed here at a pivotal time, when the pedal steel guitar was a relatively new instrument. “He had an unbelievable gift and was so forward thinking. “Buddy Emmons was truly a musical genius,” says Eddie Stubbs, WSM DJ and "Grand Ole Opry" announcer. The number of musicians he influenced over the past half-century is immeasurable. Emmons, a member of the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame, played with some of country music’s finest, including Little Jimmy Dickens, Ernest Tubb and Ray Price, and his work forever changed the genre.
Nicknamed “The Big E” for his height, Mr. Pedal steel guitar innovator Buddy Emmons has died at the age of 78.
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