Editing Steel guitar (section)

===Country music===
{{Main|Pedal steel guitar}}
[[File:Lapstyle.jpg|thumb|alt=A resonator (acoustic) guitar played in lap steel fashion. The bar is held on a slant.| [[Resonator guitar]] played in lap steel fashion. It demonstrates slanting the bar and a grooved tone bar]]
The earliest record of a Hawaiian guitar used in country music is believed to be in the early 1920s when cowboy movie star [[Hoot Gibson]] brought Sol Hoʻopiʻi to Los Angeles to perform in his band.<ref name="premier-ross"/> In 1927, the acoustic duo of [[Darby and Tarlton|Darby and Tarleton]] expanded the audience for acoustic steel guitar with their [[Columbia Records|Columbia]] recording of "Birmingham Jail" and "Columbus Stockade Blues".<ref name="volkbook"/> [[Jimmie Rodgers (country singer)|Jimmie Rodgers]] featured an acoustic steel guitar on his song "Tuck Away My Lonesome Blues" released on January 3, 1930.<ref name="tuckaway">{{cite web |title=Jimmie Rogers Discography |url=http://jimmierodgers.com/songs.html |website=jimmierogers.com |publisher=Jimmie Rogers Museum |access-date=July 11, 2020 |ref=BVE 55308-3}}</ref> In the early 1930s, acoustic lap steel guitars were not loud enough to compete with other instruments, a problem that many inventors were trying to remedy.

====Resonator guitars====
In 1927, the Dopyera brothers patented the [[resonator guitar]], a non-electric device resembling a large inverted loudspeaker cone attached under the bridge of a guitar to make it louder.<ref name="carlindobro">{{cite book |last1=Carlin |first1=Richard |title=Country music : a biographical dictionary |date=2003 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |isbn=9780415938020 |page=109 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0ZjrAgAAQBAJ&dq=dobro+in+hawaiian+music&pg=PA109 |access-date=January 2, 2021}}</ref> The name "Dobro", a portmanteau of DOpyera and BROthers, became a generic term for this type of guitar, popularized by Pete Kirby ("[[Bashful Brother Oswald]]") on [[Nashville, Tennessee|Nashville's]] [[Grand Ole Opry]] for 30 years with [[Roy Acuff|Roy Acuff's]] band. He played the instrument while standing with the guitar facing upward held horizontally by a shoulder strap. Oswald's Dobro attracted interest and fascination; he said, "People couldn't understand how I played it and what it was, and they'd always want to come around and look at it."<ref name="bradspos">{{cite web |title=Brad's Page of Steel |url=https://people.well.com/user/wellvis/oswald.html |website=people.well.com |access-date=January 3, 2021}}</ref> [[Josh Graves]] (Uncle Josh) further popularized the resonator steel guitar into [[Bluegrass music|Bluegrass]] music with [[Flatt and Scruggs]] to the extent that this type of lap steel became an established and familiar fixture in this genre.<ref name="carlindobro"/> The dobro fell out of favor in mainstream country music until a bluegrass revival in the 1970s brought it back with younger virtuoso players like [[Jerry Douglas]] whose Dobro skills became widely known and emulated.<ref name="carlindobro">{{cite book |last1=Carlin |first1=Richard |title=Country music : a biographical dictionary |date=2003 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |isbn=9780415938020 |page=109 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0ZjrAgAAQBAJ&dq=dobro+in+hawaiian+music&pg=PA109 |access-date=January 2, 2021}}</ref>

====Electrification====
In 1934, a steel guitarist named [[George Beauchamp]] invented the electric guitar [[Pickup (music technology)|pickup]]. He found that a vibrating metal string in a magnetic field generates a small current that can be amplified and sent to a loudspeaker; his steel guitar was the world's first electric guitar.<ref name="history-channel">{{cite web|title=First-ever electric guitar patent awarded to the Electro String Corporation|url=http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-ever-electric-guitar-patent-awarded-to-the-electro-string-corporation|website=history.com|publisher=[[A&E Television Networks]]|access-date=September 20, 2017}}</ref> According to music writer Michael Ross, the first electrified stringed instrument on a commercial recording was a steel guitar played by [[Bob Dunn (musician)|Bob Dunn]] on a Western swing tune in 1935.<ref name="dunn-oklahoma">{{cite web |last1=Foley |first1=Hugh W. Jr. |website=Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture |title=Dunn, Robert Lee (1908–1971) |url=http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/D/DU009.html |publisher=[[Oklahoma Historical Society]] |access-date=May 8, 2020 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080905014233/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/D/DU009.html |archive-date=September 5, 2008}}</ref> Dunn recorded with [[Milton Brown]] and his Musical Brownies.<ref name="milton-brown">{{cite book |last1=Ginell |first1=Cary |title=Milton Brown and the Founding of Western Swing |date=1994 |publisher=[[Univ. of Illinois Press]] |location=Urbana, IL |isbn=0-252-02041-3}}</ref>

====Western swing====

In the early 1930s, musicians adopted the newly-electrified lap steel guitar into a type of dance music known as "[[Western swing]]", a sub-genre of country music combined with [[Swing music|jazz swing]].<ref name="cundellthesis">{{cite web |last1=Cundell |first1=R. Guy S. |title=Across the South: The origins and development of the steel guitar in western swing |url=https://b0b.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Across-the-South.pdf |website=b0b.com |publisher=University of Adelaide |access-date=November 29, 2020 |ref=PhD Thesis, Elder Conservatorium of Music |location=Adelaide, Australia |date=July 1, 2019}}</ref> The design of this instrument and the way it was played underwent continual change as the music of the genre evolved.<ref name="cundellthesis"/> In the 1930s, [[Leon McAuliffe]] advanced steel guitar technique while playing in the western swing band [[Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys|Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys]].<ref name="playboypkrs">{{cite web |last1=Kienzle |first1=Rich |title=Bob's Playboy Pickers |url=https://www.vintageguitar.com/18687/bobs-playboy-pickers/ |website=vintageguitar.com |publisher=Vintage Guitar Magazine |access-date=November 22, 2020 |date=March 1, 2006}}</ref> In October, 1936, McAuliffe recorded "Steel Guitar Rag" with Wills' band on a Rickenbacker B–6 lap steel with phenomenal record sales.<ref name="playboypkrs"/> Steel guitarists felt a need to change tunings for different [[Voicing (music)|voicings]], so leading players added [[Multi-neck guitar|additional necks]] with different tunings on the same instrument.<ref name="boggsquad">{{cite journal |last1=Meeker |first1=Ward |title=Boggs' Quad |journal=Vintage Guitar Magazine |date=November 1, 2014 |url=https://www.vintageguitar.com/20992/boggs-quad/ |access-date=November 22, 2020}}</ref> The added bulk meant that the instrument could no longer be managed on the player's lap and required placement in a frame with legs and marketed as a "console" steel guitar. Prominent layers of that era, including [[Herb Remington]] and [[Noel Boggs]], added more necks and eventually played instruments with up to four different necks.<ref name="boggsquad"/>

====Honky-tonk====
By the late 1940s, the steel guitar featured prominently in "[[honky-tonk]]" style of country music. Honky-tonk singers who used a lap steel guitar in their musical arrangements included [[Hank Williams]], [[Lefty Frizzell]] and [[Webb Pierce]].[[File:Rickenbacker Console 758 tripleneck steel - 2011 TSGA Jamboree.jpg|thumb|alt=A Rickenbacker [[Multi-neck guitar|triple neck]] steel guitar| Rickenbacker Console 758 triple neck steel]] Most recordings of that era were made on a C6 neck (guitar tuned in a [[C6 tuning|C6 chord]]), sometimes called a "Texas tuning".<ref name="borisoffhowworks">{{cite web |last1=Borisoff |first1=Jason |title=How Pedal Steel Guitar Works |url=https://makingmusicmag.com/how-pedal-steel-guitar-works/ |website=makingmusicmag.com |publisher=[[Making Music (magazine)|Making Music Magazine]] |access-date=August 30, 2020}}</ref> Using tunings with [[Sixth chord|sixths]] and [[Ninth chord|ninths]] became common and identifiable with the steel guitar sound.<ref name="anderson">{{cite web|last1=Anderson|first1=Maurice|title=Pedal Steel Guitar, Back and To the Future!|url=https://www.b0b.com/infoedu/future1.htm|website=The Pedal Steel Pages |access-date=September 16, 2017 |date=2000}}</ref>

====Modern country music and pedal steel====
The original idea for adding pedals to a console guitar was simply to push a pedal and change the tuning of all the strings into a different tuning<ref name="anderson">{{cite web|last1=Anderson|first1=Maurice|title=Pedal Steel Guitar, Back and To the Future!|url=https://www.b0b.com/infoedu/future1.htm|website=The Pedal Steel Pages |access-date=September 16, 2017 |date=2000}}</ref> and thus obviate the need for an additional neck, but these early efforts were unsuccessful. Around 1948, [[Paul Bigsby]], a motorcycle shop foreman, designed a pedal system.<ref name="winnie-winston">{{cite book |last1=Winston |first1=Winnie |last2=Keith |first2=Bill |title=Pedal steel guitar |date=1975 |publisher=[[Oak Publications]] |location=New York |isbn=978-0-8256-0169-9|page=116 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fzEZAQAAIAAJ}}</ref> He put pedals on a rack between the two front legs of a console steel guitar to create the [[pedal steel guitar]].<ref name="bigsby-ross">{{cite magazine |last1=Ross |first1=Michael |title=Forgotten Heroes: Paul Bigsby |url=https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/Forgotten_Heroes_Paul_Bigsby?page=2 |magazine=[[Premier Guitar Magazine]] |access-date=September 11, 2017 |date=November 17, 2011}}</ref> The pedals operated a mechanical linkage to apply tension to raise the pitch of certain strings.<ref name="bigsby-ross"/> In 1953, musician [[Bud Isaacs]] used Bigsby's invention to change the pitch of only two of the strings, and was the first to push the pedal while notes were still sounding.<ref name="hawaiian-electric"/>[[File:Sound of steel guitar (pedal).ogg|thumb|Western Swing played on a pedal steel guitar]] When Isaacs first used the setup on the 1954 recording of Webb Pierce's song called "[[Slowly (Webb Pierce song)|Slowly]]", he pushed the pedal while playing a chord, so certain notes could be heard bending up from below into the existing chord to harmonize with the other strings, creating a stunning effect which had not been possible with on a lap steel.<ref name="hawaiian-electric"/>  It was the birth of a new sound that was particularly embraced by fans of [[Country-and-Western Music|country and western music]], and it caused a virtual revolution among steel players who wanted to duplicate it.<ref name="brenner">{{cite web|last1=Brenner|first1=Patrick|title=Early History of the Steel Guitar|url=http://steelguitaramerica.com/instruction/history/|website=steelguitaramerica.com|publisher=Patrick Brenner|access-date=June 29, 2017}}</ref><ref name="winnie-winston"/> Almost simultaneously, an entire musical subculture took a radical stylistic tack.<ref name="cundellthesis">{{cite web |last1=Cundell |first1=R. Guy S. |title=Across the South: The origins and development of the steel guitar in western swing |url=https://b0b.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Across-the-South.pdf |website=b0b.com |publisher=University of Adelaide |access-date=November 29, 2020 |ref=PhD Thesis, Elder Conservatorium of Music |location=Adelaide, Australia |date=July 1, 2019}}</ref>  Even though pedal steel guitars had been available for over a decade before this recording, the instrument emerged as a crucial element in country music after the success of this song.<ref name="hawaiian-electric"/> When the lap steel was thus superseded by the pedal steel, the inherent Hawaiian influence was brought into the new sound of country music emerging in [[Nashville]] in the 1950s.<ref name="cundellthesis"/> This sound became associated with American country music for the ensuing several decades.