But it was a battle for a long time, and it's still a problem on occasion.
But now that I've been accepted in Nashville after eight years of working in the studio there, I can pretty well go in and play myself. And some of the older steel guitarists will even say, `Why don't you play this?"They're resisting change, I guess, and this attitude has sometimes been a problem for me. `What? Isn't this good enough for you?' they ask. If you rebel against this and say, 'Hey, l want to try something different,' they often try to place you in a position where you feel you're putting down the other guys. While I'm not against the way anybody's approaching the instrument, some producers seem to want you to come in and play like someone else. "'I have a set way of thinking how it should sound and the way it can lit into a song. "So many people have already stereotyped the steel guitar," he says. While Paul says that the steel guitar is becoming more accepted by non-country players and listeners, he admits that it still has a long way to go. But too many times, he feels, a producer will hire musicians because they're hot at the moment, rather than because their playing style best suits the material to be recorded. He enjoys the challenge, especially when it gets him into more reading and opportunities for creative playing. Franklin has also recorded two solo LPs: Just Pickin a mixture o f E9th country and C6th bebop, and Play By Play, a jazz-rock collection (both are available from Scotty's Music, 9535 Midland, Overland, MO 63114).Ĭoncerning studio work, Paul has mixed feelings. Entertainer, and Your Body Is An Outlaw, ), to name a few. Since then he's performed with Lynn Anderson, Donna Fargo, Jerry Reed, and, most recently, Mel Tillis.įranklin has also spent a great deal of time in the Nashville studios, recording with Linda Hargrove (Love, You're The Teacher, (Capitol, ST 11463) and Impressions,, Brewer & Shipley ( One Toke Over Tire Line, Jerry Reed (Half And Half, ), and Mel Tillis (Mr. Everyone was amazed to see this youngster holding his own in jams with seasoned pros, and the reputation Franklin built there led to his first Nashville road gig at 17 with Barbara Mandrell. He worked clubs and sessions around Detroit (he played on the Gallery LP, It's So Nice To Be With You, when he was 16), and by the time Paul was 17 he grew tired of his hometown scene and moved to Nashville.Ĭountry music players, disc jockeys, and fans have a big celebration every year in Nashville called the DJ Convention where jam sessions are an important part of the proceedings, and Paul's father had been taking him to them since his early teens. would also take his son to clubs, jamborees, and shows where he could hear - and sometimes play - exposing him to hot road musicians such as Buddy Charleton, Sonny Garrish, and Jimmy Crawford.īy the time Paul was 11, he decided that all he wanted to do was to play steel guitar. His dad helped him a lot in these formative years, never demanding but always encouraging him to learn solos exactly as they were played on the records. So Franklin learned licks as best he could by listening to records by steelers such as Buddy Emmons, Jimmy Day, Hal Rugg, Pete Drake, and Curley Chalker.
Buddy emmons pedal steel guitar speed licks professional#
Paul plucked on this for about six months, after which he got his first pedal steel, a Fender 400.Įxcept for a Hawaiian steel guitar teacher who knew nothing about pedals, but who was able to show Paul the rudiments of picking and bar control, there were virtually no professional steel players or instructors around Detroit.
So Paul Sr., an inveterate tinkerer, converted an old Vega guitar into a dobro-like instrument. When the younger Franklin was eight, his father asked him if he would like to play an instrument, and the son replied a steel was what he desired. Paul Franklin was born on May 31, 1954, in Detroit, and there was always a great deal of country music around the house since his father, Paul Sr., loved the steel guitar. When Paul's not on the road as a member of country singer Mel Tillis' band, he jams around Nashville, does recording sessions with the likes of Linda Hargrove and Jerry Reed, answers calls for commercial jingles for RC Cola, Chevrolet, and others, cuts his own LPs, tapes steel guitar instructional material, and helps his father build Franklin steel guitars Noted for his supple single-string picking style and use of numerous effects - including a Korg X-911 guitar synthesizer - he elevates the steel guitar beyond its traditional role, infusing it with a meaning of its own apart from country and Hawaiian music. PAUL FRANKLIN is one of the newer breed of steel guitarists who is changing the whole concept of the instrument. Paul Franklin, Pete Drake, Herb Remington and Rusty Young. Interviews with notable steel guitar players.
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