For a very brief and very deluded time in my late teens, I thought I’d like to be cool and for me the height of cool was pedal steel master Sneaky Pete Kleinow. (Think Wild Horses by the stones, but his rep was made with The Flying Burrito Brothers. I was so into the “steel” I could admit Lloyd Maness, Red Rhodes, Buddy Emmons, and others were greater virtuosos than the Sneaky One, yet, no slideman had a more tubular sound and Sneaky was the only one who often would just jump out of the sundry country rock grooves of the period.
Heck, i went out and bought a Sho Bud Maverick and spent hours sitting at it meditating on how it was all beyond me even if the student steel guitar didn’t return to the correct pitch after you’d press one of the pedals.
I’m not being maudlin this week. As an associate put it, “life is for the living” but, man, a triple play out into the cosmic orchestra. RIP Sneaky and thanks for the permanently etched sounds. Enjoy the light end of the street…
