Tagged with: gospel
2007
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Little Wooden Church On A Hill
Willie Eason
Pedal Steel – Part IIPsalms 150:4 “praise him with stringed instruments”
Pioneering preacher/guitarist Willie Eason first brought the lap steel into the US Pentecostal ‘House of God’ churches alongside his brother Troman during the 1930’s, beginning a tradition now know as ‘Sacred Steel’, where the steel guitarist plays an integral part of the service alongside the preacher.
Almost unheard of outside the House of God communities until relatively recently the tradition has spawned many notable names including the Campbell Brothers, Aubrey Ghent (whose live version of ‘Praise Music’ is definately worth checking out for a proper hairs-on-back-of-the-neck gospel stomp), Calvin Cooke and Robert Randolph, with the latter popularising the sound after developing a more secular rock/funk orientated style.
The track included here is by the original father of the scene Brother Willie Eason. I know he’s not playing a pedal steel on this track.. its a lap steel guitar, but he played a huge part in creating a tradition that now includes pedal steel players – i’m sure this discrepancy is enough to have some muso pedants frothing at the mouth but it’s a good enough link for me.
The track is also available on the Arhoolie Records compilation called ‘Sacred Steel’ (which also contains the Aubrey Ghent track mentioned earlier) which you can download from emusic.
There are some other good articles covering the Eason brothers and the sacred steel tradition found here: