#Rusty young how to#

As his stature grew in the ’70s, he wrote a monthly column for Guitar Player.Īs personnel changed, he spent less time behind the steel as he audaciously moved out to front the band and became its main songwriter. In those days, his tunings were E Chromatic and C6. In Poco’s early years, Young’s instrument preferences moved from Fender to ZB, Sho-Bud and later, Carter. “He made it okay to run pedal-steel through Leslie speakers, distortion units, wah pedals – anything to break the instrument out of its country straitjacket.” “Rusty was also a rock star,” Fishell adds. “Rusty was representing a cadre of steel players who woodshedded their jazz chops on the road, in practice rooms and little clubs all over America, but seldom recorded those wild skills.” “I was shocked when he went from playing the sweet melody of ‘Everybody’s Talkin’’ into a modern jazz, altered-chord/skipping-triplet solo,” Oceans said. He began the easy-listening hit “Everybody’s Talkin’” straight, then launched into pure bebop.

His selections revealed a versatility and depth only hinted at by his work with Poco. Young contributed to the much-admired 1970 instrumental anthology Suite Steel: The Pedal Steel Guitar Album with Buddy Emmons, Sneaky Pete Kleinow, JayDee Maness, and Red Rhodes. “Without any gimmickry, Rusty blazed through a climactic Hendrix-style solo, tipping his steel sideways and windmilling like Pete Townshend. I was floored!” “I first saw Poco in October, 1971, in Santa Monica,” he said. “Rusty got up from the metal folding chair and played his steel with one of the legs!” he recalled. Lucky Oceans, Asleep at the Wheel’s original steeler, was still new to the instrument when they opened for Poco in Washington, D.C.

Unlike most pedal-steelers, Young was a showman. His technique was flawless he brought an aching sadness to songs like Poco’s “Bad Weather” and Buffalo Springfield’s “Kind Woman.” “Rusty added a decidedly Western flair to his unique steel style. “He was my hero,” said Nashville steel-guitarist Steve Fishell. Their debut, Pickin’ Up the Pieces, included his signature instrumental “Grand Junction,” featuring pedal-steel and resonator, which was also prominent on their ’71 recording “Hoe Down.” From the start, Young added twang to the band’s gentle, relaxed country rock. Young traveled west to add the part.Ĭountry rock was in its primordial stages when Furay, Messina, and Young co-founded Poco (originally Pogo) in ’68, adding bassist (and future Eagle) Randy Meisner and Young’s friend, drummer George Grantham. Wrapping up Springfield’s recording commitments, Messina and Furay felt the ballad “Kind Woman” needed pedal-steel. band made up of Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Richie Furay, Jim Messina, and Dewey Martin had recently dissolved. Young was a guitarist with the rock band Böenzee Cryque in 1967, when a friend who’d joined Buffalo Springfield’s road crew, called.

#Rusty young how to#

Two years later, at 16, he taught guitar and sold instruments at Don Edwards’ Guitar City, a focal point for Denver-area steel players like Donnie Buzzard, who enlightened him on the instrument’s true potential by showing Young how to create unconventional sounds.

He first performed publicly in his family’s church in 1956 and bought his first pedal-steel, a Fender 1000 doubleneck, in ’60. “Together, we helped create what became known as the Southern California ‘Country Rock’ sound.”īorn in Long Beach but raised in Colorado, Norman Russell Young began learning lap-steel and guitar at a Denver music store at age six. “Our friendship was 50-plus years,” Poco co-founder Richie Furay sadly reflected on social media. Rusty Young, the versatile pedal-steel guitarist, guitarist, singer/songwriter, and original member of the pioneering country-rock band Poco, died at his home after suffering a heart attack on April 14.