The guitar, the banjo, the mandolin, the fiddle, and the upright bass are just a few of the instruments commonly associated with country music. Though there is one instrument missing from that list, ...

The post Pedal Steel Is Weeping Its Way Out of Country and into the Mainstream appeared first on Consequence. For most, the hard-to-describe but easy-to-spot timbre of the pedal steel evokes ...

This is FRESH AIR. Pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn started out in East Texas country and Western bar bands, but she heard a larger role for the pedal steel beyond country music. That led her to ...

As the sound of country music has shifted, the emotive whir of its classic instrument has often been sidelined. The complicated antique has found new life in surprising forms. By Grayson Haver Currin ...

At 94, Robert Fuller has reformed the classic country band he played with in the 1950s and 1960s. Fuller, the sole remaining original member, once opened for country music legend Patsy Cline. The new ...

The late Pete Drake was a well-known Nashville session player whose pedal steel guitar licks were heard on many of country music’s biggest during the 60s, 70s, and early 80s. Songs like George Jones’ ...

WHO: Pedal steel guitar player Noah Faulkner. WHAT: This teenager inserts a country twang into eighties (and beyond) covers for his dog, Kara, and nearly 40,000 Instagram followers. WHY IT’S SO GREAT: ...

With a daring avant-garde approach, she pushed the frontiers of an instrument best known for speaking with a down-home accent. By Alex Williams Susan Alcorn, an experimental composer and musician who ...

MONTPELIER Jerry Fessenden feels that he was born for the pedal steel guitar. "It was something about the way my mother carried me in the womb," said the 62-year-old musician and instrument builder.

Pedal steel guitar is a staple of country music, but Alcorn bends it around odd corners. Her quintet's new album is beyond category — roaming betwixt jazz and improvised music and rock and country.