It’s not like pedal steel guitars were only sold to white people. He probably got it the way other musicians got theirs. He bought it. As far as playing it…it’s a guitar. Playing it is much like playing electric slide guitar with an open tuning. The man, in addition to being a terrible person, was a tremendously talented guitar player. I don’t think there’s a more complicated answer than that. He was a guitar player who liked the sound of pedal steel guitars, so he bought one and messed around on it until he could make it make music, which in his case probably didn’t take all that long.
3 Likes
