John Hughey (December 27, 1933 – November 18, 2007) was an American musician. He was known for his work as a session pedal steel guitar player for various

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

acts, most notably

Vince Gill Vincent Grant Gill (born April 12, 1957) is an American country music singer, songwriter and musician. He has achieved commercial success and fame both as frontman of the country rock band Pure Prairie League in the 1970s and as a solo artist ...

and Conway Twitty. A member of the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame, Hughey was known for a distinctive playing style called "crying steel", which focused primarily on the higher range of the guitar.

Biography

John Hughey was born December 27, 1933, in

Elaine, Arkansas Elaine is a small town in Phillips County, Arkansas, United States, in the Arkansas Delta region of the Mississippi River. The population was 636 at the 2010 census. The city is best known as the location of the Elaine massacre of September 30 ...

. He began playing guitar at age nine, when his parents bought him an acoustic guitar from

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

. In the seventh grade, he befriended a classmate named Harold Jenkins, who would later become a prominent country singer under his stage name Conway Twitty. (Hughey and Jenkins also attended high school together.) Influenced by

Eddy Arnold Richard Edward Arnold (May 15, 1918 – May 8, 2008) was an American country music singer who performed for six decades. He was a Nashville sound (country/popular music) innovator of the late 1950s, and scored 147 songs on the ''Billboard'' cou ...

's steel guitarist, Little Roy Wiggins, Hughey asked his father to buy him a lap steel guitar. Along with Jenkins and other high school friends, Hughey performed in a local band called the Phillips County Ramblers. Hughey first played professionally as a member of Slim Rhodes and The Mother's Best Mountaineers, a

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

-based band. After leaving this band, Hughey joined Twitty on the road as his pedal steel guitarist, and backed Twitty from 1968 to 1988. He also recorded with various other acts, such as Marty Stuart,

Willie Nelson Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 29, 1933) is an American country musician. The critical success of the album '' Shotgun Willie'' (1973), combined with the critical and commercial success of '' Red Headed Stranger'' (1975) and '' Stardust'' (1 ...

Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...

, and

Dickey Betts Forrest Richard Betts (born December 12, 1943) is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, and composer best known as a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band. Early in his career, he collaborated with Duane Allman, introducing melodic tw ...

. By the 1980s, he began playing for

Loretta Lynn Loretta Lynn (; April 14, 1932 – October 4, 2022) was an American country music singer and songwriter. In a career spanning six decades, Lynn released multiple gold albums. She had numerous hits such as "You Ain't Woman Enough (To Take My Ma ...

, then moved on to play steel for

for twelve years. Hughey was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 1996. In the 2000s, he and several other Nashville musicians formed a

Western swing Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands. It is dance music, often with an up-tempo beat, which attracted huge crowds to dance ...

band called The Time Jumpers, who performed every Monday at a club in Nashville. Hughey died in Nashville on November 18, 2007, from heart complications, one month after having had a stent put in his heart. His funeral was held on November 21, 2007, at the First Baptist Church in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

Style and legacy

Hughey's method of steel guitar playing was known as the "crying steel" method, because of his use of

vibrato Vibrato ( Italian, from past participle of " vibrare", to vibrate) is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms ...

on the instrument's higher range. Vince Gill has cited Hughey as giving "definition" to his music, citing the single "

Look at Us ''Look at Us'' is the debut album by American pop duo Sonny & Cher, released in 1965 by Atco Records. The album reached number two on the ''Billboard'' 200 and was certified gold. Album information Shortly after their single "I Got You Babe" ...

" (from 1991's '' Pocket Full of Gold'') as an example. According to Gill, that song's steel guitar intro "makes that song recognizable by what happens before any words even get sung." Marty Stuart, for whom Hughey played on the 1992 album '' This One's Gonna Hurt You'', described him as "a top drawer statesman who helped define the whole 20th century sound of country music".

Family

For 45 years, Hughey was married to his wife, Jean, who often sat in the audience during The Time Jumpers' performances. Together, they had one daughter. Hughey also has four brothers and four sisters. Brother Gene Hughey would join John as part of Conway Twitty's band, The Twitty Birds, playing bass guitar following the death of Joe E. Lewis in 1976. Gene Hughey died August 2, 2021.

References

External links

John Hughey website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hughey, John 1933 births 2007 deaths People from Phillips County, Arkansas American country guitarists American male guitarists Guitarists from Arkansas Pedal steel guitarists 20th-century American guitarists Country musicians from Arkansas 20th-century American male musicians