Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

In the car onthe weekend, Neil Young's Heart of Gold comes on the radio. My wife starts asking me about the steel guitar sound, which leads to a few questions.
First: in that song, does anyone know if it is pedal steel or not? I am unclear on how to tell them apart. The pedals just behave like string benders, right? Playing a lap steel would be like playing with a slide, so it would be easier to pick up I assume, but pedal steels look like complicated machinery to me.
Second: I know that Rickenbacker pedal steels are fairly rare (& therefore expensive), but what is the market on lap steels like? Could I pick one up in useable condition for a couple of hundred, or am I looking an $750-1000?
Third: Would I lose all my punk rock street cred if I picked up a steel guitar?

Thanks

Greg, adding lap steel to your arsenal would be VERY punk rock, as long as you wear a work shirt from a job you don't work at anymore.

If you hear some notes bending while others are staying constant, that's a pedal steel. If you hear everything move at once, it's probably a lap.

You can easily find an old Rick lap with the horseshoe replaced for about $200-400. With horseshoe, expect $400-800 depending on condition, etc. Just a rough guess. Cruise the bay.

You can't go wrong with a lap steel in any genre.
You can get a great Rick lap steel for under $500 and a spectacular one for $1000.
Here's an early 60's Rick that won't go over $500 in most auctions on Ebay. IMO it's worth $600.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... :IT&ih=014
Recently there have been some high end Rick lap steels that have sold for much less than than I would have expected.

Where are the shoes for that lap steel on ebay? Did the guy replace them with a bar magnet?

This certainly looks like a beauty, Richard.

You're right. No shoes--no sale.

It's an Electro, not a straight up "Rick." Could that explain the pu?

That lap steel looks nice, but how about the xylophone it's resting on.


I did a little research and the steel guitar on Heart of Gold is a pedal steel palyed by Ben Keith.
Lap steels seem to be more in my budget, so maybe I'll start looking. A local shop has one fromthe 40's that looks pretty good, a little expensive though.
http://www.capsulemusic.com/retail/detail.asp?ID=3501
Maybe I'll go check it out.
They also have some nifty looking Nationals and Gibsons, too.

The model 59 is one of my favorites.
That one looks pretty good. V/T knobs are not original.
The price is too high.
Without a good case it's not worth much more than $500 IMO.

As far as "Heart of Gold" that's Ben Keith on pedal steel. He joined the sessions for the Harvest album midway through, claims that Neil never even got a chance to introduce himself until they were finished...although they work together to this day, and you will see Ben on the newer "Heart of Gold" DVD concert movie.

Oops, too late, you already found that out. Ben's been around the block, played with dozens of major artists, even produced a Jewel album.

jdogric12aolcom wrote:It's an Electro, not a straight up "Rick." Could that explain the pu?

The earliest and latest Rick steels sported the "Electro" logo.
The company was originally named Electro-String. It became Rickenbacher in the early 30s and Rickenbacker in 1947, I think.

jdogric12aolcom wrote:
If you hear some notes bending while others are staying constant, that's a pedal steel. If you hear everything move at once, it's probably a lap.

Sorry to get in on this thread so late.

Some years ago, I thought I'd learn to play a bit of Dobro and maybe play in a bluegrass band. I bought an instruction book, and went through several of the lessons.

The lesson that intrigued me most was the one on non-bluegrass styles of playing; blues, C&W, Western Swing, etc. In one of the pieces, an altered tuning was used called a G9 tuning thus: GBDGAD. You could get a really neat pedal steel effect by choking the string (bending, really) with your ring finger behind the bar. It was really cool.

If done on a lap steel, it might end up sounding like Clarence White's B bender on the Byrds' recordings.

JimK

Talk about joining a thread late.....but better late than never.
That is indeed a pedal steel on Harvest and Isn't it Bill Keith??
I played pedal steel for many years in a band all over the Boston area. Beautiful instruments
but much, much different than a lap steel. The pedals ( and they have knee levers) are hooked
up to certain strings and when depressed ( or moved over in the case of the knee levers ) they raise
the attached string by a half step thereby enabling the player to change notes without moving the bar.
Tough instrument to play but such a great sound.