Lee's Bio  

Lee Dill, Spartanburg, SC

Pedal Steel Guitar, Slide Guitar, Dobro

I began playing music at the age of 13. My dad played Dobro and acoustic guitar. I became interested and started playing the Dobro then lap steel guitar. I started listening to the Grand Ole Opry on Friday nights on WSM 650 AM radio. That's where I fell in love with the sound of the pedal steel guitar. I heard Weldon Myrick, Hal Rugg and many other great players perform on the opry and I knew I wanted to play the pedal steel guitar. I couldn't afford one so I decided I would build one. I used scrap wood and some old bar stool legs to make a table. I used short pieces of wooden molding to make pedals and used small hinges to attach them to a wooden pedal bar. I then ran clothes hanger wire from the pedals to the guitar strings just behind the nut. It took a lot of adjusting but I got the pedals to pull one string to a different note. One day my dad came into the garage and saw what I had done and not long after that he bought me a Sho-Bud Maverick guitar and I've been playing ever since. Some of the players that influenced my playing were Buddy Emmons, Paul Franklin and Ralph Mooney. I've been a part of Tobacco Road for about the past 16 years. I like doing original music because it forces me to be creative. I can't simply learn a part some studio player performed on a song, I have to come up with a part that fits the song and play it well which is harder than it sounds. I try to listen to new and established players to pick up new ideas and learn some of the classic parts that the great players have done in the past. I currently play a Mullen D-10 guitar with a pretty standard Nashville set-up. I use a Lexicon Processor for reverb and a Nashville 400 amplifier. I have an old stratocaster with a raised nut I play " dirty slide " on and a Regal Black Lightening Dobro with a quarterman cone and other modifications. I hope you like the music and if so come out to one of our shows and check us out.

THANKS!

V.LEE DILL