Just say “Buddy Emmons” to another steel guitar player, and you see their eyes glaze over in ecstasy. Resplendent in his brown derby, he is the consummate player, who is at home with Country and Swing. He was given a 6-string lap steel when he was 11 and he was hooked. He studied at the Hawaiian Conservatory of Music, South Bend, Indiana and by the time he was 16, he was playing in local clubs in Calumet City, Illinois and jamming in Chicago during weekends.

In 1965, he moved to Detroit where he subbed for Walter Haynes at a Little Jimmy Dickens gig. This led to him being a permanent band member of Dickens’ Country Boys. As a result, he started making appearances on the Grand Ole Opry. He recorded three singles with the Country Boys, “Red Wing” and “Country Boy Bounce (1956), “Buddy’s Boogie” and “Raisin’ the Dickens,” and “I Won’t Beg Your Pardon” and “Alone in Love” (1957) and two solos; “Cold, Rolled Steel” and “Flint Hill Special” (1956) and “Silver Bells” and “Border Serenade” (1957), all on Columbia.

Buddy started making appearances with Ernest Tubb’s Texas Troubadours on the Midnight Jamboree. In 1960, Buddy cut “Four Wheel Drive” and “Blue Wind” for Decca. From 1963 through 1968, he was a member of Ray Price’s Cherokee Cowboys. In 1965, he recorded his first album with that other great steelie, Shot Jackson entitled, “Steel Guitar & Dobro Sound,” on Nashville Records. He and Shot founded the Sho-Bud Company, marketing the first pedal steel guitars with push-rod pedals.

Buddy left Nashville to play bass guitar for Roger Miller in Los Angeles, in 1969. He played West Coast sessions for Ray Charles, Henry Mancini and Linda Ronstadt between tours for Miller. In 1973, Buddy split from Roger and returned to Nashville. Two years later, he started his association with Flying Fish Records. Among the albums he released on this label are Buddy Emmons Sings Bob Wills (1976), Buddies, with fiddle player, Buddy Spicher (1977) and Minors Aloud, with Lenny Breau (1978).

Century of Country