Herb Remington

Not to sound like a product placement, but this is a case where having an identical name for a product and an artist makes sense. Remington stainless steel razors and Herb Remington and his flawless pedal steel artistry are a combination that deserves to be housed in the same building. If so, the shed out back would be stockpiled with Remington pedal steel guitars which are engineered, designed, and manufactured by Herb Remington, of course. The steel, as in steel guitar, first came into Remington's life while he was in high school. It wasn't his first instrument. He had been playing piano since the age of five, and those who feel mastery of the keyboard would not expand the abilities of a pedal steel player should provide some other explanation of why no one has ever sounded like this man on that instrument. Following the second World War, he went to California and wound up in the Bob Wills' Band, which to a pedal steel player is the same as arriving at St. Peter's gate. Ironically, his trip West had been to audition not for Bob Wills, but for Luke Wills, his brother. The better-known bandleading brother snatching him away is one of the few examples of sibling rivalry involving pedal steel players in music history. Thus Remington became one of the fabulously swinging and inventive players associated with Western swing, assuring him a place of reverence similar to that granted to the greatest baseball teams. As long as these pickers can still get on-stage, they will never go out of style. Merle Haggard provided employment from the '70s onward with Wills tributes, and two decades later Remington was gathering up the usual suspects for gigs and recording as the Playboys II. Another Western swing project is the River Road Boys, with whom Remington has recorded regularly...