Buddy Emmons

Buddy Emmons secured his standing among Nashville’s top-tier musicians through mastery of the steel guitar. He entered the world in Mishawaka, Indiana, and first developed an attachment to the instrument at eleven after receiving a six-string lap steel as a present. During adolescence he studied at the Hawaiian Conservatory of Music in South Bend, Indiana, then launched his professional career at sixteen in Calumet City and Chicago. In 1956 he traveled to Detroit to substitute for Walter Haynes in Little Jimmy Dickens’s group and soon received an invitation to become a permanent member of Dickens’ Country Boys. Those appearances included several Grand Ole Opry performances and a handful of recordings, one of which was the 1957 single “Buddy’s Boogie.” He also cut two Columbia solo sides, “Cold Rolled Steel” (1956) and “Silver Bells” (1957).

By the late 1950s Emmons was sitting in from time to time with Ernest Tubb’s ensemble on Midnight Jamboree. He began a five-year association with Ray Price & the Cherokee Cowboys in 1963 and, two years later, joined Shot Jackson to make the album The Steel Guitar & Dobro Sounds. Their partnership produced the Sho-Bud Company and its novel pedal-steel design that employed push-rod mechanics. In 1969 Emmons moved to Los Angeles to play bass in Roger Miller’s band, filling remaining dates with studio work for numerous other performers. He left Miller in 1973, secured a solo deal, and issued several albums before the decade ended.

Following 1978 he recorded for smaller imprints, where he and Ray Pennington sometimes assembled groups of Nashville’s leading session players under the name Swing Shift Band. Emmons joined the Everly Brothers’ touring lineup in 1993 and continued accepting studio calls through the 1990s and early 2000s until a repetitive-motion injury halted his playing around 2001. After full recovery he limited himself to chosen projects and occasional stage appearances rather than routine session work. He passed away in Nashville during July 2015 at the age of seventy-eight.