Search - Buddy Emmons :: Amazing Steel Guitar: The Buddy Emmons Collection

Nashville has always been filled with country musicians who moonlight playing jazz. Superb session guitarist Hank Garland, who played alongside country stars such as Patsy Cline and Elvis Presley, also waxed an album with jazz heavy Gary Burton. Speedy West and Jimmy Bryant, the phenomenal steel guitar/electric guitar tandem, incorporated heavy doses of bebop into their work. Emmons too was bitten early by the jazz bug, and this 16-song retrospective proves he had the chops to fit in. The first three cuts find the then-19-year-old Emmons backed by Little Jimmy Dickens's Country Boys. Of most significance, however, is the presence of 1963's Steel Guitar Jazz, which includes jazz contemporaries Booby Scott, Charlie Persip, and Jerome Richardson. Emmons glides through standards, old ballads, and even handles Sonny Rollins's "Oleo" and Horace Silver's "The Preacher." His atmospheric, mood-creating work on the slow numbers is as impressive as his rippling runs on the uptempo tunes. Emmons is the consummate "musicians' musician." --Marc Greilsamer