Up to this time, steel players sat on a regular chair, piano stool, or bench. Even earlier than this, around 1962 or '63, knee levers were starting to gain in popularity. Although Shot Jackson and others were adding knee levers to existing steels since the early 1950's, knee levers were pretty much standard on the Sho-Buds by 1964. The permanent, sometimes called the Custom, continued to be produced well into the 1960's. These pedal steels were very well received by the steel players and became very popular. It was not uncommon to see a single neck permanent as well. As a result, the double neck soon became the norm and many permanent double necks with pedals were produced through these years. During the late 1950's and early 1960's, the C6 neck was also evolving, with the Nashville players adding pedals and strings to eventually becoming standard with 10 strings and 5 pedals. The early permanents had no knee levers and basically consisted of raises only on the pedals(which is still the standard E9 three pedal setup today). Shortly after, the permanent model evolved to the standard ten string. Eight string, and later nine string cabinets were made with pedals, and by late 1958, the three pedals that we know today on the E9, became standard. The undercarriage parts were welded together and the pedal setups, unlike today, could not be changed. Soon after though metal end plates were added to the production. The cabinets of the first several Permanents were all wood with no metal end plates. Starting out in 1957, Shot Jackson and Buddy Emmons began building cabinets and assembling the pedal mechanism in Madison, Tennessee, just north of Nashville. These were the first pedal steels built by Sho-Bud. Attempts to contact long time employees and Jackson family members to interview will continue and the information presented here will be updated and added to when needed.Įmail: Sho-Bud Models in Chronological Order I am continually adding to my notes and information about Sho-Bud.
Volumes could be written about Sho-Bud, and what is presented here is by no means a finished work. If confirmation was impossible and not critical to the presentation of the material, the information was either excluded or an approximation noted.
I attempted to resolve the conflict by the corroboration of at least three sources.
Basically its been more than 20 years ago since this stuff happened and its reasonable to assume that people may not remember details that far back in time.Īs I compiled the information, I often encountered conflicts in details and facts. What I had to rely on was employees memories, and those memories are fading fast. This in itself has been extremely difficult to do because nothing has never been published or written about Sho-Bud, whether it be the company or the models of pedal steels-other than the individual brochures from Sho-Bud.
For example, the Permanent model was continued to be built and sold for a number of years well into the Fingertip era.Įvery effort has been made to assure accuracy in the dates and information given. The dates given for one particular model sometimes overlap into the dates of another model. The following lists briefly the different models of pedal steels that Sho-Bud produced through the years. Field Guide to Sho-Bud Pedal Steel Guitars