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Date Posted: 11/19/07 9:39pm
Author: Peter Cooper
Subject: John Hughey Passes

Date: Monday - 19 November 2007
headline: Famed steel guitar player dies in Hendersonville
Short text: By PETER COOPER - TENNESSEAN.COM
Text: Famed steel guitar player dies in Hendersonville
Vince Gill: “He gave my music definition."

John Hughey, a member of the Pedal Steel Guitar Hall of Fame whose deft instrumental work graced recordings by Vince Gill, Conway Twitty, Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson, Marty Stuart, Loretta Lynn and other greats, died Sunday evening at the Hendersonville Medical Center, of heart complications. He was 73.

“This is a pure heartbreaker,” said Stuart, who brought Mr. Hughey into the studio to play on the 1992 hit album, This One’s Gonna Hurt You. “John was a top-drawer statesmen who helped define the whole 20th century sound of country music. The work he leaves behind is timeless.”




Mr. Hughey was known for an atypical sound that focused on the steel’s high tones. His use of the metal bar to produce a tremulous tone led some to refer to his “crying steel” guitar, and his Hall of Fame plaque refers to him as the master of “bar shiver.” That sound appealed to country artists from the 1950s through the present, and also to rockers such as Presley and Dickey Betts and soul man Isaac Hayes.

“He gave my music definition,” said Gill, for whom Mr. Hughey played steel in the studio and on the road for 12 years. “His introduction to ‘Look At Us’ makes that song recognizable by what happens before any words even get sung.”

Mr. Hughey began learning the steel when he was in high school, playing at church and at school with his classmate, Harold Jenkins. After graduation, Jenkins went into the military and Mr. Hughey played steel guitar in the Memphis area. In the 1960s, the former schoolmates reunited as Jenkins, by then calling himself Conway Twitty, became a country star. Mr. Hughey performed and recorded with Twitty for 20 years.

During his decades with Twitty, Mr. Hughey also found time in the studio to record with Presley (From Elvis in Memphis), Nelson (Phases & Stages), Betts (Highway Call) and others. He left Twitty’s band in 1988, and it looked as if the steel player’s career in music was winding down. But soon Gill hit with “When I Call Your Name,” a single that featured prominent steel, and Gill needed a star steel player for the road band and for recording.

Gill called one evening and asked Mr. Hughey what he was doing.

“I was just sitting down to my last bowl of ice cream,” Mr. Hughey said. Gill replied, “No, I mean professionally.”

Soon, Mr. Hughey was in the studio, playing the luminous part on “Look At Us,” and then he agreed to become part of Gill’s touring band. His 12 years with Gill were in fact like one long, last bowl of ice cream, with Mr. Hughey bringing the sound of significant steel to a broader audience.

“I know it was a real great stretch of life for him, from a respect level,” Gill said. “I think he felt like a king, because we treated him as such. He was royalty to us.”

Around 2002, Mr. Hughey ceased touring, though he played each week at the Station Inn with The Time Jumpers, an extraordinary group of musicians who concentrate on classic country and western swing. Mr. Hughey would also show up to play in Lower Broadway clubs, where tourists would wander in and place tips into a jar just a few feet away from one of the greatest steel players of all time.

Once, Stuart heard a familiar steel sound at the Legend’s Corner club, and he poked his head in just as a song was ending. He saw Mr. Hughey onstage, and before Stuart could say anything, Mr. Hughey looked at him, grinned and explained, “Because I love it.”

Mr. Hughey is survived by family members including: wife, Jean; daughter, Cheryl (and her husband Beany) Carter; and four grandchildren, Katherine Carter, Gracie Carter, Reed Carter and Kirby Carter.

Visitation will take place Tuesday from 2-4 p.m. and 6-8 p.m. at the Hendersonville Funeral Home, 353 Johnny Cash Parkway. Another visitation takes place at First Baptist Church of Hendersonville, 106 Bluegrass Commons Blvd., from 12-1 p.m.

The funeral service will be held Wednesday at 1 p.m. at First Baptist Church of Hendersonville, with burial to follow at the Hendersonville Memory Gardens, 353 Johnny Cash Parkway.

TENNESSEAN.COM

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