One of the latests passings of such an amazing talent. We will miss you Jerry!
Jerry Byrd, steel guitar pioneer
By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer
Jerry Byrd, a legendary country music steel guitarist in Nashville of
the 1960s and a fixture on the Hawaiian music scene since the 1970s
when he relocated here, died yesterday in Honolulu. He was 85.
"He changed his whole style of playing Nashville steel to Hawaiian
steel," said singer Melveen Leed, who worked with Byrd on many albums.
"He loved Hawaiian music and he traveled with me to Nashville. He was
one of the greatest musicians I've ever come across; inside and out, he
had a pure heart. We will miss him."
Byrd was widely respected and acknowledged as one of the pioneers of
steel guitar, in both the country and Hawaiian music genres. He
performed with some of the greatest country headliners of his
generation, including Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Ernest Tubb, Red
Foley, Marty Robbins, Hank Snow, Burl Ives and Chet Atkins. When he was
head of a publishing firm, he was the first to sign on Dolly Parton,
who would - years later - hire Byrd to play steel guitar for her
set-in-Hawai'i TV series.
When he moved to Hawai'i more than 30 years ago, the steel guitar was
not in vogue but he helped bring it back into the mainstream through
his work with local artists, including Danny Kaleikini and Leed. He
recorded sessions with other Island talent, including Irmgard Aluli and
Puamana, Emma Veary, Karen Keawehawai'i, Don Ho, Joe Recca, Alan and
Julie Grier, Eddie Kekaula, Hui 'Ohana, and Gary Aiko.
For a time, he appeared on the "Hawaii Calls" radio show and did gigs
at the defunct Blue Dolphin nightclub at the Outrigger Waikiki hotel,
where, as Byrd recalled in his autobiography, Jerry Garcia of The
Grateful Dead showed up one night to ask if Byrd could give him steel
guitar lessons.
"Last week, Gordon Freitas (a local entertainer) and I went to see him
at Malama 'Ohana at Kaiser's Moanalua hospital, and had a long talk
with him," said Honolulu musician Keith Haugen. " 'I did it all,' he
said. 'All that I wanted to do.' That sort of summed it up for a man
who was truly the greatest steel guitar player ever, and a musician's
musician.ÊI remember when he came to Hawai'i and was so happy to be
teaching young Hawaiians to play what everyone outside of the Islands
called the 'Hawaiian guitar.' "
"He certainly did things his way," said Leah Bernstein, president of
Mountain Apple Co., which recently distributed Byrd's newest CD, a
reissue entitled "The Master of Touch and Tone."
"He was a lot of fun, but not big in promoting his albums," Bernstein
said. " 'Oh, no, I just make the music,' " he would tell Bernstein,
declining radio interviews or other marketing options. "He would bring
the masters of his recordings for Mountain Apple to release - that's
what he wanted - and he did it his way, not the Mountain Apple way.
Which was all right."
Bernstein said when she visited Byrd recently at a hospital, few knew
who he was. "I brought a box of CDs so he could pass them out," she
said. Among the birthday greetings and photos, Bernstein said she saw a
photo of astronauts for the next space mission, who had written a note
to Byrd when they saw he was in the hospital through postings on the
Web.
Byrd was born March 9, 1920, in Lima, Ohio, the oldest of five
siblings.
He is often credited for defining the steel guitar sound of early
Nashville - the twang that characterized many recordings - as well
as the lush tunings he incorporated in Hawaiian music renderings.
Byrd was the first inductee into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame, and his
Rickenbacher lap steel, common among pioneer country musicians, holds a
spot in the Country Music Hall of Fame.
His first instrument was a mail order number he paid $65 for, from a
Spiegel catalog. He later acquired, in 1937, a Rickenbacher Electro
Steel Guitar, which came with an amplifier, for $150, working out
payment with the seller, a man named Ronald Dearth, who operated a
music studio in his hometown.
His first band was a Hawaiian-styled combo. He toured cities such as
Dayton and Chicago before joining Tubb as a backup musician in
Nashville.
According to his autobiography, "It Was a Trip: On Wings of Music,"
Byrd said he got hooked on Hawaiian music in 1933, when, at age 13, he
encountered a touring Hawaiian troupe during the height of the
Depression. "There were six or eight of them, and the stage drop was a
scene with palm trees along an ocean shoreline, and a volcano
erupting," he writes. "All that exotic stuff, like in the movies. And
the music - you couldn't have captured my attention any more if you
hit me in the head with a hammer. But it was the sound of the steel
guitar that captivated me the most."
He still believed in Santa Claus then, and asked for a steel guitar for
a present. But that year, he found a banjo-'ukulele beneath his tree.
"I could have shot Santa Claus!" he wrote.
He tuned in to "Hawaii Calls" and was enchanted by the steel tunings of
David Keli'i.
Byrd also was a prominent country radio personality between 1935 and
1937 on WLW in Cincinnati and also gigged at WJR in Detroit from 1942
to 1944.
Over the years, he underestimated his own popularity. He conducted his
steel guitar classes at Harry's Music Store in Kaimuki, and one day,
his autobiography notes, Alan Yoshioka, an employee there, called Byrd
to ask him to come over since two musicians wanted to meet him. They
were Stevie Ray Vaughan and his brother Jimmie Vaughan, two
contemporary icons from The Fabulous Thunderbirds. Byrd later gave
Jimmie lessons in Hawai'i.
In Hawai'i, Byrd performed at such venues as the Royal Hawaiian Surf
Room and the Halekulani's House Without a Key.
Survivors include his wife, Kaleo Wood, who was at his side when he
died. His two daughters, Lani Jo and Luana June, also were present,
along with a brother, Jack.
Byrd died of complications from Parkinson's disease. He had been
hospitalized since March 4.
Services are from 8 to 11 a.m. Saturday at the Elks Club, to be
followed by a scattering of ashes.
