I knew Bruce in high school and also took lessons from Buddy Charleton, but Bruce truly had a great knack for it and obviously worked very hard at learning and developing his own style. It is great to see this interview as it's been many years since we last spoke and I remain among many of his hometown fans.

i love it!

steel guitar is just plain very emotional.

He was a monster on the ZB

I like the old country stuff. Slide guitar of Don Helms, 50s and 60s traditional pedal steel. Very little effects. Modern pedal steel with distortion sounds awful. Violent playing is awful. Steel guitar is delicate, tasteful, melodic. Pick blocking, bar slants, harmonics, volume pedal, clean playing. I am old. I like the old stuff. Porter Waggoner, “I Thought I Heard You Calling My Name”, for example, is emotional, has harmony, straight guitar picking and gentle slides of the pedal steel. The modern stuff is awful. You may as well have a synthesizer keyboard with all kinds of bells and whistles. Annoying! Even Tommy White said the pedal steel guitar is a dying instrument. Expensive, difficult to learn, takes a lot of thinking and music theory involved. I love the pedal steel guitar. We are discriminated against with the blue grass hillbilly crowd, because it is not an acoustic instrument.

Thanks for this great interview! I like such stories where he called the old steel player of Carl Smith and such and get insights that way. I knew of Kayton Roberts and its interesting that Chris uses the same tunings. I got a dual Pro as well while i have the walnut version like as can be seen on Kaytons videos as well. and Im still trying around, have been more on A6 than an C6.

I think I will be the first Jazz/Heavy Metal/Techno/Clasical Lap Steel guitar player. Fact check please.

I tell my kung fu students, "Getting your Black Belt means you know everything you need to perfect your art!" No one ever masters any skill unless a person likes to lie to themselves.

My love for steel guitar was Uriah Heep "Tales" from The Magician's Birthday. Also, YES on the YesSongs live album. It took me 50 yeats till I bought my first lap steel guitar from Sweetwater I bought a Gretch G5700 on January 10th, 2025! I'm 65 years old, but I bought my first Yamaha sv-200 electric violin on April 2024. Better late than never. Never too old to learn to play a musical instrument.

I’m sure Waits cried all the way to the bank

Gram said on an interview that he really liked Al Perkins on steel. He felt that the Burritos would have been better suited with Al rather than Sneaky Pete. Gram also got Byron Berline to work with the stones and he knew Bobby Keys from hanging out and recording with Leon Russell, Jesse Ed Davis etc. When Keith Richards recorded with George Jones, the sessions went well. Keith said that Gram was my teacher, and he taught me well

The drummer for the Burritos and The Byrds was Micheal Clark.

Original tracks recorded in France and brought to LA to overdub/mix. I believe I remember Mick Jagger saying they also originally wanted Al Perkins on "Wild Horses" from their previous album 'Sticky Fingers' and left the tapes with Gram and Jimmy Miller in the States to work on in LA, after recording at it Muscle Shoals, but Al didn't pan out. (But Gram got to record and release The Burrito Brothers' version first).

A storyteller this dude ain’t!

Great interview ... He's from where I grew up and played. in Modesto, ca...

Great version but the late Tony Browns version wants some beating

...RIGHT! lets not forget its a TOM WAITES penned song...

I bet a dollar that Keith's pirate costume was just something he pulled out of his closet or his wife's closet as he is known to steal a scarf or a shirt from his wife. Good story. I think the Stones like to keep their recording sessions loose and improvisational, and they encourage artists to let it rip.

The song was first done by Tom Waits before the crappy Eagles' cover.

When will you post the entire interview? Great guest!

Great of you to interview this legendary steel player!👏

One of the great intonate-r’s

Wow... amazing behind the scenes story: let me get this straight... they called him on the phone and he drove down in his car and played on the track. Unbelievable!!

About 8-10 years ago I saw that a band from US was coming to my town in Sweden. They were gonna play at a small place next to where I live. And Al Perkins was in the band! Of course I went there. Only 15-20 people in the audience. One of the best steelplayers ever. I wish I had the guts to thank him after show but I’ll do it now. Thank you Al. 🎸

He played the sublime pedal steel solo on the Stones’ “Torn and Frayed”.

Great player love the Pacific steel album. what brand guitar is Al playing?

The Manassas album inspired me to play pedal steel because of Al. He's always been one of my favorites. Did great work with Emmylou and the Nash Ramblers on dobro too. His columns in Guitar Player magazine were really good advice for playing steel.

Could listen to Chris Scruggs talk “music” for hours.

He is a super star on his steel guitar.

Great video I love learning I hope to be a good church player ❤

12:04 **"Next To Jimmy"

4:53 Fuzzy

So where at in one of your videos do yall talk about Lloyd and his push pull?

Master class. Been playing pedal steel since the early 1980s. It's really interesting to hear some of this history from the 40s,50s and 60s that got us to where we're at today!

Chris Scruggs is a generational gem

Thanks a lot for this !!!

Thanks for this great interview! When is Greg Leisz or Eric Heywood coming? 🙂

Bruce played on one of my buddy’s records J.D. Myers.They shot a cool vid in Dallas of “Mental Revenge”.

Another unknown Hinson

Thanks Russ, informative and interesting talk. I enjoyed watching.

So glad I found this channel, I've learned a lot from these interviews and I'm excited to watch more!!

Would love to see longer and more unedited episodes with more playing. This is for the nerds!

Two guys sitting at steel guitars not playing one lick.

I came here just out of curiosity, ended up hearing about Uncle Larry... Great interview, great video and questions! I learned so much! And maaan... I feel like I could spend a whole day talking to Russ.

Another great interview!

Too much talking, not enough playing.

i really enjoyed this, thanks :)

Love this interview with Justin Schipper!! So knowledgeable and experienced.

Very inspiring. Thank you, Russ. Another fun interview in your series.

When did Justin start playng steel? For a very long tme up until his death Jeff Newman showed how to tune and play just about any steel. He had a Woodshop Work series available and tons of seminars. I guess my point is there is tons of stuff that was available long before the internet hit. Emmons Tom Bradshaw and a dozen others had tons of instructions in the early eighties.... I had some Paul franklin cassettes from the seventies!!!!