Bud Isaacs
American steel guitarist
Forrest "Bud" Isaacs (1928–2016) was an American pedal steel guitarist notable for his early use of the instrument on Webb Pierce's 1954 recording of "Slowly", which became a major hit and one of the most-played country music songs of 1954. Isaacs was the first to push a pedal while the strings were still sounding to create a unique bending of notes from below up to join an existing note; this was not possible on older steel guitars.
Isaacs performed professionally with numerous artists, including Red Foley, Little Jimmy Dickens and Chet Atkins on the road and in recording sessions. He became a member of the house bands at the Grand Ole Opry and the Ozark Jubilee. Isaacs was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 1984.
Early life
Isaacs was born March 26, 1928, in Bedford, Indiana. His father was a millworker at Bedford Cut Stone Company. His mother enrolled Isaacs in lessons provided by the Oahu Music Company located above Hoover's Confectionary in Bedford. Initially he played a conventional acoustic guitar Hawaiian style (horizontally across the knees) with raised strings. He persisted at the Hawaiian academy but preferred the lap steel style and tunings of Noel Boggs.
The public source identifies “Bud Isaacs” as american steel guitarist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Isaacs, American and steel.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bud Isaacs” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.