Maurice Anderson

[David Wright]

Thinking of Maurice Anderson today, 8 years ago he left us, miss my Friend & Steel Hero ..........I can't put into words the impact he had on me, as a player..I'll always remember sitting down with him for a lesson , after 45 + years of playing and learning how much I didn't know...Miss him beyond words....We all have Heros, Maurice is mine.......

[mtulbert]

Ditto Well said David

[Fred Treece]

My first and most impactful memory of Maurice Anderson was when I heard his music on a cassette tape you had given to a keyboard player friend of mine after a gig we played with you in Modesto, probably around 1990. It was classic jazz recorded with an orchestra, I don’t remember the title, and I’d never heard anything like it. I didn’t play pedal steel at the time, but listening to that cassette changed the way I thought about how it could be played and the kind of music it was capable of making.

Having Mr. Anderson as a friend and mentor must have been amazing.

[Frank Freniere]

Terrific photos - thanks for sharing.

[Helmut Gragger]

Probably around 1990, a friend gave me a music magazine. They had an article in there about lap steels. I was immediately intrigued by that, and I tried to find every piece of information there was - and there was little. This was before internet.

In a musicality shop from yesteryear I did not find information on lap steels, but I found Winnie´s book.

I was hooked to the PSG. I wrote to all the addresses in the back, a whole stack of thin envelopes with blue-red air-mail collars went into the ether.

Some of those guys and companies where defunct, some had folded meanwhile, some had moved to unknown destinations, but some wrote back, amongst them Scotty and Maurice.

Maurice offered me a very fine D-10 for a competitive price. I had been on the phone over this with him several times, you know at daytimes when we would go to bed in Europe.

I remember he had a slang I would have referred to as Texan.

I remember him saying "your English is quite good", and I answered "well your´s is not bad either ..." referring to an age-old joke about American English. We were in fits of laughter over that.

I have bought the instrument, all was fine, except a D-10 was not what I wanted. I sold it to a guy in Vienna, who still has and loves it.

May those words uplift you.

[HowardR]

I miss him also......Reece was a gentleman.....

[Terry Wood]

Yes I agree with everything said.

Reece was one of The Good Guys! I miss him too David!

RIP Reece!

[Sam Conomo]

Thanks for that David,
All I can say ,you were
Very lucky to have had
Some special time with
Such a special steel
Player.

[rick andrews]

Thanks David, I agree. Reese is on my Mt Rushmore. He's the reason I play a universal tuning.

[Wayne Franco]

Best teacher I've ever had anywhere. I miss him all the time. What a legacy he left behind.

Wayne Franco

[Tracy Sheehan]

Jimmy Dickings steel player and i were sitting in in a club that played country music and the band leader did not like our playing and told us so. Jimmys steel player told him sorry but where we come from you either pick it or pack it. Reese broke out laughing. We became life long friends, I sure miss those days/Tracy

[John Viterito]

I just recently found out that "Reese" taught Ed Ringwald (aka Pee Wee Charles), arguably Canada's greatest steel guitarist, how to play the steel when Ed was just starting out. RIP. Mr. Anderson.

[Roger Rettig]

Back in the '70s, and at a point where I'd not long been playing steel, I encountered Maurice in England. He was looking for a trio to accompany him for a seminar he was doing. I found him a bass-player and drummer and, of course, watched his performance. To say that it was eye-opening would be an understatement!

Right at that moment, I had an opportunity to take a lesson with him; he made it clear that he'd willingly help me. I didn't do it - not because I wasn't aware of how much I didn't know, but because I was too intimidated to expose my shortcoming to him.

Wasn't that stupid?

[Fred Treece]

I had an opportunity to take a lesson with him; he made it clear that he'd willingly help me. I didn't do it - not because I wasn't aware of how much I didn't know, but because I was too intimidated to expose my shortcoming to him.

Wasn't that stupid?

In hindsight maybe that’s how you feel about it. When we’re young, sometimes we only see things from our own ignorant self-conscious perspective. You thought your encounter was only about you, maybe not fully understanding that one of Mr. Anderson’s missions in life was to advocate for the steel guitar in any way he possibly could, and he saw a young person looking for a lesson as an opportunity. In about 1978, I had a similar chance encounter with guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, who all but invited me to jam with him. I only realized many years later that he probably wasn’t kidding, and still kick myself in the butt for thinking he was.

[Roger Rettig]

You could be right, Fred. It's hard to get back inside the head of that 30-something year-old RR. It's partly, perhaps, because I wasn't as serious about steel then, and I saw it as a side-line to my guitar playing.

If it were physically possible then I, too, would now kick myself in the butt.