While he's on the phone I start wandering through his magnificent collection of used guitar stock.  I walk by some of the finest examples of used steels in the world.  There's a Sho-Bud over there that's candy apply red lacquer and I can feel my credit card account growing larger with every look.  Bobbe doesn't take in just any guitar.  It has to have what I like to call the Seymour showroom appeal.  When he gets off the phone Bobbe starts sticking all the latest goodies in front of me to try out.  We're like two kids locked in a candy store, except for one thing, Bobbe owns the store.  In twenty minutes I have gone through three guitars.  Then someone walks in from North Carolina and Bobbe starts his day.

Bobbe is an Emmons push-pull proponent and he talks much about that in this interview.  He is straight forward and candid in his opinions.  He has played steel with everyone over the years from Johnny Paycheck to Connie Smith.  He has been around the block and is not afraid to give you his opinion.  Love him or not, you've got to respect the guy.  So let's listen in as Bobbe speaks.

How's the shop doing?  Unbelievably well.  You can see what hours that I'm working.  The showroom is open from one to five but I'm sometimes in here at nine in the morning.  I sometimes put in twelve hour days just to keep up with it.  I usually leave the mornings open for recording sessions.  If I don't record I get into the shop early to do my repairs.  Right now I'm working on a '68 Emmons fro Bruce Bouton.  Also one for Chubby Howard who worked with Boxcar Willie.  Chubby is plying up at the Rempro Valley thing in Kentucky.  It's probably the oldest recorded barn dance in the world.  He just bought an '83 Emmons.

Can you tell us about the shop and how it got started?  There was a real lull in the music business and the economy when I started this thing.  We're talking 1981.  The summer of '81 was really bad in terms of recession.  I was getting almost no session work and the road work was nil.  Everyone was fighting for sessions.  I had an aluminum roadster Shelby Cobra that was worth thirty-five thousand dollars at that time.  That's about all I had to my name, besides my house that I was paying on.  I was broke and living on nickels and dimes and wondering where I was going to eat.  As much as I loved that car, I sold it for $35,000.  Last week that very same car changed hands for three hundred and fifty thousand dollars!  I guess I should have hung onto it.  I took that money and went to buy some car parts that I need to fix up another car that I was working on.  As I stood there waiting to pay for my parts at that auto parts store, I noticed that the place next store was for rent.  I thought to myself, 'Well, I've got a pocket full of money and there's a place to rent over there.'  I decided to go into some kind of business because I couldn't trust anyone else supporting me the rest of my life.  I wanted to have control of my own destiny.

There was a gentleman standing outside of that auto parts store and I asked him who do I talk to about renting that store.  He said, "You're looking at him."  One month advance rent and it was mine.  When I was walking away, I was thinking, 'What in the world have I just done?'  It sat for a week with nothing in it.  I had an attic full of guitars which I brought down and piled up in the corner of that big empty room.  Then Ron Lashley of Emmons guitars called me from the airport one day and asked me to borrow a car.  I said if you can take a cab over to my new shop, I'll loan you one.  He came over and said, "What the hell is this?"  I told him I didn't know but I just rented it and I'm gonna do something because I'm tired of working for someone else.  He said, "Why don't you open a steel guitar shop here?"  I said, "Right, I'm broke now!"  My guitars were actually in the shop because my attic was full and I had nowhere else to put them.  Ron said that he would give me the Emmons dealership for Nashville if I opened the shop.  He was going to give it to Terry Crisp or Sho-Bud.  About three days later he pulled up in my loaned car and said that he needed to give me a bunch of Emmons orders for guitars.  I said, "Well, okay."  I placed an order for twelve double neck push pulls.  That's all there were back then.  They were working on LeGrandes, but due to the death of the one of the partners, the LeGrande rights were locked up for five years.  Of course, that was Fred Trogden who helped design the original push-pull.

So I put carpeting in the place and painted the walls.  I really didn't know if it was going to work or not.  All of a sudden the word spread and everybody was out here.  I just started buying every decent guitar that I could get my hands on from name players here in town.  They were all pretty much celebrity guitars.  I had a museum on my hands.  In 1984, Sho-Bud closed.  They didn't have heat in the building and it was just too much for Shot to keep open.  They called me up and asked if I wanted to buy any of their stuff.  I just about bought everything in the place.  I was even thinking about buying the building.  The price was seventy-two thousand dollars.  It's worth about a half a million now.  Three days later a little girl dynamo named Kathy Sacra walked in from my home town of Norfolk, Virginia.  She asked me for a job and I gave her one.  She put us on the map with an international mailing list.  She had worked for Sho-Bud and knew how effective a mailing list could be.  I said I didn't think that it would work.  Then she showed me a 22,000 person database.  I said, "You're hired!"  After she mailed out the first listing of guitars my business exploded.  After working for sixteen years with some of Nashville's finest and strangest, suddenly everyone had a friend in Nashville.  I try to run the business the same way now.  When someone calls, it's not just a cold voice on the other end of the phone; I really try to take care of my customers' needs.

Between January and the end of April is my buying period, so if you see me at the end of April, I'll have holes in my pants and a great stock of guitars.  It's actually easier to sell than to buy because there aren't enough of the guitars out there for sale that I'm interested in.  There's people out there with three and four beautiful steel guitars in their closet that I'd love to have.

You are an authorized Emmons dealer?  Totally.  The biggest in the world.  We also have a tremendous amount of Sho-Bud parts.  Sometimes we buy a beat up old Sho-Bud and throw away all the worn parts and restore the guitar to perfect condition.  They are impressive.  The people who originally worked on these guitars work on my guitars.  Sometimes we make superior replacement parts.

Do you ship internationally?  All the time.  We're big in Europe.

What's your opinion on guitars that are being built today verses the ones built in the past?  The building process has not gotten better as far as I'm concerned.  Are there better Stradivarius violins being made?

As you know, it was partly because of your influence and Tommy Hannum's sound from the Ricky Van Shelton band that I went for an Emmons push-pull, and I have to say that it is an awesome sounding guitar.  Why do the push-pulls sound so great?  It was really a matter of luck.  It wasn't these three guys who decided to build a Stradivarius of steel guitars.  They built what they imagined to be the best for its time.  Fred Trogden was a class AAA machinist.  Everything in his opinion needed to be 100% uncompromisingly correct.  It needed to be a magnificent machine.  Buddy Emmons said that it needed to be functional in its design.  No nonsense.  Ron Lashley said that they had to make money with it so they could be on the block in fifteen years.  The combination of those three characters made it great.  There were people who said that the push-pull mechanism didn't make it, but they were wrong.  The tonal qualities of that guitar were tied up in that push-pull mechanism.  I have name players who walk in here every week who trade their all-pull guitars for a '72 Emmons push-pull.

There were seven things that made that guitar great.  I'll tell you a couple.  The changer unit is one.  Its design is absolutely unique.  All the vibrations from the strings go into the body of the guitar.  In a pull guitar, the vibrations go into the end castings, then into the legs and down to the floor.  Do you want a good sounding guitar or a good sounding floor?  The way things were bolted together and path of vibrations were well connected.  The overtones backfeed the strings.  That's where you get that growl.  The LeGrandes have similar technology.  The push-pulls were criticized.  People asked if they were so good why aren't they still built like that?  One word.  Money.  They are triple the cost to produce verses an all-pull guitar.  Other classics are the old big bodied Sho-Buds.  The old Pro II's.  These guitars still continue to increase in value.

What is your rig set-up?  This is funny because on my album I used a Sho-Bud produced Fender.  They made 4400 of them and I was given one way back then to help promote it.  I love the strange tone that it gets.  I also use a '71 Emmons push-pull with Bill Lawrence pick-ups.  7 and 7.  All knee lovers work both necks.  The third pedal works both necks and takes the place of the fourth on the C6th.  I've played it for twenty three years.  It's never had to be rebuilt and it's been on over one hundred and sixty gold and platinum records.  Same springs, same everything.  It's just adjusted correctly.  Very important.  If a push-pull is not set up right in the first place it will stay that way forever.  I have found them to be very reliable.  Expansion and contraction do not affect the body of the guitar.  I went to Japan last year with a '65 push-pull and forgot my tuning wrench.  I did twelve shows and the guitar didn't budge.  There is not an all-pull guitar in the world that would have done that.

An amplifier needs to be deliver the sound of the guitar without adding or subtracting a whole lot.  I can't understand the guys that pay big money for custom amplifiers.  They're in vogue today and out tomorrow.  If they just bought one or two Peavey Session 400's they would sound better.  As far as I'm concerned the Session 500 was the dog of the era.  Considered great by amateurs only.  You can't beat the 400's.  The joke amongst Telecaster players goes:  Question:  What do you do if you see a steel guitar player drowning?  Answer:  Throw 'em a Session 500 amp!  The 500's weren't even as powerful as the Nashville.  I use two Session 400's.  I use a Boss DD-3 delay.  Sometimes I'll use their RV-3.

You still do a lot of recording don't you?  Every day.  I don't do demos.  Masters only.  I never listen to country music at all on the radio.  I don't like it!  It's not very challenging to listen to.  We do independent label recording.  I've worked with Tracy Lawrence, Steve Wariner, Rodney Crowell and others.  I do a lot of production work where I don't even play steel.

Do you direct when you record?  I go to a Yamaha bass preamp first.  Then into a Boss SE-70.  Then into a volume pedal.  Then from the pedal to the recording machine.  I used a Franklin stereo volume pedal.  Franklin builds the best stereo pedal in the business.

How did you get started in music?  My father was a band leader and taught high school and college band.  I thought steel guitar was cool.  I had an uncle who owned one.  I'd watch him and get into his Jerry Byrd collection and that was it.  My uncle gave me my first steel.  I never took lessons.  I just listed to the Jerry Byrd stuff.  I was doing pretty good until Bud Isaacs came along and confused me with his string raises like everyone else.  My uncle told me that he had a pedal on it.  I said good, lets build one, and we did.  We ruined a nice double neck Fender but from then on I was Bud Isaacs in my own mind.  I was in high school when I started playing professionally.  Early teenager.  I played in a rockabilly group called The Blue Cats.  They went on to be very famous.  Gene Craddock went on later to be Gene Vincent.  The Comets hired me after that.  I was sixteen.  I toured with Bill Haley.

My father didn't want me to be a touring musician so he made me join the Air Force.  I was a C-130 mechanic.  I stole all the parts I could to build a steel.  I made a beautiful Bigsby copy.  I worked with a western swing band around my base in Oklahoma and Texas.  I started MSA after that.  I've been trying to stay away from this subject but I'll say a little about it.  I hired Maurice Anderson from out behind the counter at McCord music in Dallas.  I took him out to my car and showed him the parts I had in the trunk.  Tom Morrell was just starting to build guitars in New Mexico.  I built guitars in Duncan, Oklahoma.  I tried to hire Billy Braddy in  Dallas but he said no after thinking about it.  Maurice said yes.  Morrell came to town three weeks later.  Our first address was 628 South Winnetka in Dallas off Jefferson street.  It lasted six months.  We didn't get along well because we all had difference of opinions.  In order to save the friendship and mutual respect, I left.

Did you play C6th?  My first tuning was E13th.  My C6th playing didn't amount to much until Maurice Anderson took me under his wing while I was at MSA.  I thank Maurice for that.  He also showed me a lot of chord work.  Billy Braddy also helped me on C6th.  I do think that you can learn the steel by yourself.  Jerry Byrd said that the talent thing is overrated.  It's the desire to be better that makes the difference.  There's no substitute for hard work.  You can overcome your own obstacles.  Look at all the courses that are out today.  We didn't have them back then.

What advice would you give to beginners as far as equipment?  Buy everything that you can afford right off the bat because you will just wind up buying all the rest of it later.  You will learn twice as fast on a double neck.  I think the steel in one of the easiest instruments to learn to play!  If you think a fiddle or trumpet is easy to play you're crazy.  Forget about how fast you can play.  It's really about how smooth and perfect it is.  Execution and tone.  The reason a steel player gets hired in the band is to play pretty.  Let the guitar player zoom out.  These new guys who think the faster you can play one note at a time on the guitar are only prolonging their own agony.  The deal is why should you carry two hundred and fifty pounds of equipment to play one note at a time.  If you're gonna do that, then play a piccolo or a mandolin.  The steel is not a banjo.  I'm not impressed by speed.  One of the most soulful and tasteful guys in Nashville is Tommy White.  What I love about his playing is not his speed but his feel.  He's taken the Lloyd Green style and expanded on it.  It's beautiful.  As an amateur player I judged how good someone was by how fast they played.  I was dead wrong.  It's not a competition instrument.  The guitar player can't even begin to do what a steel player can do.

Who influenced you?  Byrd, Maurice Anderson, Billy Braddy and Tom Morrell, who I have tremendous respect for.  Country influences are Bud Isaacs, Buddy Emmons, Jimmy Day.  I'm a late Lloyd Green fan sorry to say.

How crowded is the Nashville steel scene?  Here's what it is right here.  There are a lot of great players that the producers don't want to hear.  They are hiring guys that aren't necessarily great players to do sessions.  This is meant to keep the over-playing syndrome down.  There are guys doing sessions that literally can't get a club job.  They are doing well in the studios because the producers are scared to death to hire a monster steel player who over-plays.  Everybody in the field eventually walks into this shop.  The business is a good indicator of what's going on out there.  This is what I hear.  What bothers me a little is that there are new guys learning to play who haven't taken the time to listen to the recognized masters who have come before them.  I had a Chalker tape playing the other day when a player in the shop asked me who he was.  I told him that he was one of the greatest steel players in the world.  He had never listened to him and he had been playing four years.

How did you come to Nashville?  In a '47 pick-up truck!  I had planned to come to Nashville since I was fourteen.  That whole Air Force thing dumped me into Texas.  I would up in Delaware after that.  I had cut the fingers on my left hand pretty bad one day.  When I was laying in the hospital, I decided to play steel guitar full time.  I really loved country music then.  I loved Ray Price, Farron Young, and Jimmy Dickens.  The only way I could play that music was to go to Nashville.  That was 1967.  It took just two days to get into the scene.  I was working for Ferlin Husky two days after I arrived in town.  Then I went to work with Connie Smith, then Stonewall Jackson.  Others were Billy Walker and Ray Price.  As I said earlier, the shop was born out of desperation and hard times.  I'm glad that I was able to make enough money so I could open the shop.  I always did have it in my mind to someday open a steel guitar shop if things got rough.  It was always a dream.

Do you play live anymore?  Occasionally.  I went to Japan last year with Hank the 3rd.  My shop and production company really gobble up my time.  Once in awhile I'll get asked and go out and do it for the fun.  Then there's my airplane.  I need time to recreate.  The plane takes me places where I like to go.  Like the Bahamas.  My father always had an airplane so I flew from the time that I was eight or nine years old.  I just bought my first plane three years ago.  I'm a one-fifth partner in a Beechcraft Bonanza.  I've got a Cessna 172.  It's paid for but of course my house still has a mortgage on it!  The Cessna can carry lots of steel guitars.  I take the back seat out and load it up.

Is it true that you played with Elvis?  Yeah.  I did some recording with him.  I met him in 1955.  He was opening for Hank Snow and Farron Young.  I rode my motor scooter to the show to see Buddy Emmons playing with Jimmy Dickens.  I was about fourteen.  I walked backstage to talk to Buddy and Elvis was there.  No one was mobbing him at that time.  I was trying to talk to Scottie Moore about guitar and Elvis kept interrupting trying to be funny.  Elvis wanted to cut Micky Newberry's American trilogy that I had recorded on.  Elvis' producer called Mercury Records and wanted the same guys in back of Elvis.  That pulled me into the session.  A steel player name John Rich actually got to play live with Elvis.  Jimmy Day also.

What about those Echoplex recordings?  Yeah.  That stuff probably did more to set my career back than anything else I ever did.  You know Jeffrey Dahlmar got known for something that I'm sure he regretted too.  Ha, ha.  I still do it because I'm known for it.  It's kinda weird sounding.  It's not something you want to build a career out of.  I'm actually thinking of putting a course out on it because I've been associated with it for so long.  It is a neat trick as long as you don't overdo it.

What else Bobbe?  You know that there is so little mark up on steel guitars that I really do it for the love of it.  The overhead adds up, but business is good so I'll keep at it.  I think that the EMCI guitar was the best all-pull guitar ever built.  Every other person today is trying to build a steel guitar in their backyard.  I don't think any of them make it.  The next time another Paul Bigsby pops us, I'll be the first person to acknowledge it.  Anyone who wants to sell me an Emmons push-pull should please call my shop (615) 822-5555 because I'm always buying!