Creator

Fieldworker/Collector

Subject

Geographic Term

Description

Three audio cassette recordings. Interview with steel guitarist Glenn Lee at his Perrine residence. He discussed his family (including uncles, steel guitarists Willie Blue and M.J. Harrison), learning steel guitar, Keith and Jewel Dominion churches, steel guitarists Henry Nelson, Darrel Blue, & Aubrey Ghent, influence of country music (Willie Nelson, Hank Williams, Dolly Parton), playing Spanish guitar, fiddle, & banjo, his education, steel guitar tunings and playing styles, various people he has trained, playing the National Assembly in Nashville, and the lack of female sacred steel guitarists. The Sacred Steel Guitar Recording Project originated in 1992 when Florida Folklife Program folklorist Robert Stone discovered that several predominantly African American House of God churches (a sub-sect of the Pentecostal church) in the St. Petersburg area were using steel guitars in their religious services. The practice began by Willie and Troman Eason in the 1930s, and expanded upon by players such as Henry Nelson and Lorenzo Harrison. Realizing that this was a unique musical tradition, labeled Sacred Steel, the Florida Folklife Program to applied for a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to conduct fieldwork and create a music album for public dispersal. The aim of the project was to increase public awareness of the gospel steel guitar tradition, as well as document it for future generations. Matched with state funds, the grant period originally ran from October 1993 through October 1994, but was extended for another year. In that time Stone, along with sound engineers William Dudley and Mike Stapleton, interviewed and recorded several steel guitarists in the St. Petersburg area. An album entitled Sacred Steel was released in 1995. It was then re-released through an agreement with Arhoolie Records in 1997.