I was pleasantly surprised to see so many lap steels in Walter's vast collection. somewhere around 30 of them. I'm wondering if he played much steel, or spoke much about it. as far as I know, he never recorded any.
I was also a little surprised that he owned dozens of lap steels but not a single modern-day pedal steel... guess it just wasn't his thing. the Gibson Electraharp he had was obsolete by the 1960s and was missing parts.
aloha and mahalo!
I’ve been reading about WB’s lap steels here, and honestly they look really unique. I’m not super experienced with lap steels, but I’m curious — do they all have that warm, slide-heavy tone by default, or does the wood and pickup choice make a big difference?
Totally random side note, but I came across ultralytics detector provider while going through some AI-related stuff, and it made me think about how both instruments and tech rely on precision. In AI it’s detection accuracy, and in lap steels it’s those subtle string slides and sustain that make all the difference.