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Music Preview: Pedal-steel guitarist Jay Dee Maness takes on leading role

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Jay Dee Maness is universally acknowledged as one of the finest pedal-steel guitarists in the known universe, and began his career recording with the Byrds and touring with Buck Owens, then waited almost 60 years to make his own solo album. When Maness fires up his steel at Viva Cantina in Burbank on Friday night, expect a flabbergasting display of the masterly musicality which has kept him in demand as a session player since the mid-1960s.

“I never have done a record as solo artist, and there won’t ever be another one,” the 71-year-old musician said with a laugh. “We had a great time doing it, but it was a lot of work because, as I told Skip Edwards, who produced it, I wanted to make sure that it was done as well as could be.”

Maness makes it sound easy — his playing has always been characterized by a steady rolling flow of perfectly shaped and delivered notes, a warm, luminous tide of fluidly expressive, perfectly realized music.

“I was born in Sunnymead, California. They call it Moreno Valley now and when I was about 11 years old, our neighbors had this little pearloid steel, with a matching amp. I liked the color and I liked the sound, so my Dad bought it for me for $50, and since money was tight he had to pay it off on time,” Maness said. “I signed on for a 12-lesson course, took the first 11 but never went back for the 12th. Although maybe I should have!”

Maness was a natural, becoming part of the rich local steel-guitar community that included stellar players like Speedy West, Ralph Mooney and Tom Brumley, and he was working the honky tonks while still in high school.

“I was playing in clubs when I wasn’t old enough to be in there, I’d have to go outside on the breaks so the ABC wouldn’t [revoke] their license,” Maness said. “My wife, well of course, she wasn’t my wife yet, but she’d come into those places and do her homework.”

He soon found steady work in Los Angeles studios, recording songwriter demos and with his dazzling affinity for the instrument, he easily made a name for himself both among straight-ahead country players and the new breed of hippie country-rockers.

“Sessions were what I was meant to do, I always thought, and I’d record for anyone who called me up,” Maness said. “I did a lot of demos with people like [influential guitarist] Jimmy Bryant. He was very knowledgeable. Taught me a lot. He forced me to learn to read a chord chart — I didn’t think I’d be able to look at something and still play the steel, he just told me, ‘You are to do this,’ and showed me how to look away, read it, and get back to playing.”

“Gram Parsons was in town. I’d met him and [the Byrds] Chris Hillman at some after-hour jam sessions and they asked me to come in and play on their records. I did Gram’s International Submarine Band album and the Byrds’ ‘Sweethearts of the Rodeo,’ but my real first professional break came in 1969 when Buck Owens called on me to join the Buckaroos.”

The Bakersfield-based Owens was a chart-topping demigod in the midst of a stunning run of more than 20 #1 hit records, and with his crack Buckaroos, led by the brilliant guitarist-fiddler Don Rich, and clad in a dazzling gold lame Nudie-tailored uniforms, Maness was at the critical, supercharged forefront of modern country music.

“I’d been doing all the demos for Buck’s Blue Book song publishing company and Tom Brumley was leaving the band after 12 or so years. Buck liked what he’d heard, called me in and decided he’d try me out, mold me into a Buckaroo,” Maness said. “It didn’t last but a year but I learned how to travel — I’d never been on the road — and I learned how to actually play some music. I got to do the first 13 episodes of ‘Hee Haw.’ It was quite an experience. Buck taught me a lot. At the time it wasn’t all fun but he was always right. We stayed friends for years and years.”

Maness happily got off the road, moved to Nashville for a period and kept busy. Very busy. His studio credits include work with everyone from country stars Porter Waggoner, Ray Price and Tanya Tucker to pop acts Sammy Davis Jr., Tom Jones and the Carpenters.

In the late-’80s he reunited with Chris Hillman as part of the very successful country outfit the Desert Rose Band (the band scored with Top-10 singles), and while he maintains a professional schedule today, it’s on a very particular basis.

“These days, I really only play if I know it’s going to be a lot of fun or it’s for a lot of money. And it has to be easy,” Maness said with characteristic self-deprecating humor. “My new album is called ‘From Where I Sit,’ and while it’s been on CD Baby since January, we haven’t had a party and gotten out to play some of the songs.”

Friday night at Viva Cantina, he said, is “going to be a lot of fun. I will have all the people who played on the record. I have a great band: Skip Edwards, Harry Orlove.”

“I came up through the ranks at the perfect time. It’s been a good ride and I am thankful I was able to do it all,” Maness said. “I still love to play and when the music is right, there is nothing better. If you like what you’re doing, it ain’t work!”

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Who: Jay Dee Maness

Where: Viva Cantina, 900 W. Riverside Drive, Burbank

When: Friday, June 24, 7:30 p.m.

Cost: Free

More info: (818) 848-8810, www.vivacantina.com

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JONNY WHITESIDE is a veteran music journalist based in Burbank and author of “Ramblin’ Rose: the Life & Career of Rose Maddox” and “Cry: the Johnnie Ray Story.”

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