Campbell Brothers Sacred Steel Guitars

Sacred Steel

"...Chuck steals the show with his pedal steel. The instrument's extra strings, pedals and levers open up a universe of sounds that simply can't be reached on any other kind of guitar, and this man is a master..."
--Jim DeKoster, Living Blues

The Steel Guitar

Introduced in the United States around 1900, the Hawaiian, or steel, guitar differed from the standard Spanish-style guitar in that it Hawaiian guitars became the first and most popular style of electric guitars in the 1930s. The electric models were built out of solid wood, a type of construction that was not commercially adapted to Spanish-style guitars until the 1950s.

Steel Guitars were originally developed and popularized in Hawaii. Several Hawaiians have been credited with the invention, but actual inventor is not known. This sound was first popularized by Hawaiian groups, which were a big hit at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. From there the sound of the Hawaiian guitar spread throughout the United States. From about 1915 to 1930, the major music publishers published a large number of Hawaiian guitar methods and songs.

The steel guitar is designed to be played horizontally using a sliding steel bar. This makes it much easier to play compared to fingering the strings of a classic spanish guitar. The lap-steel and pedal-steel are variations of this instrument. The ease of learning and playing the Hawaiian guitar made it popular with both users and teachers.

Over the last 100 years the form of the steel guitar has changed as users sought to expand the range of the instrument. The first incarnation was the resonator guitar, which used an internal resonator to make it louder. These guitars continue to be played by many country and bluegrass musicians. Additional necks and strings were added, and as the guitars got heavier, they were placed on the laps of players (lap steel guitars). The lap steel guitar is held in the lap facing the player. The player then presses a steel bar against the strings as the guitar is in 'open' tuning to generate the characteristic sound. The most recent iteration is an evolution into a tabletop guitar with pedals and knee levers attached to the strings (table steel and pedal steel guitars). This enables the player to change the tunings on the guitar as it was played.