Listen up, you dirty rats in Nashville, this is what a steel guitar is supposed to sound like:

It is beautiful when used well and subtly. In this song, the great Ralph Mooney adds to the lonesome and sad sound of Merle's voice with class.

Of all my complaints with contemporary Nashville music that I am occasionally forced to hear (I'm at work, and it's playing, and I can't turn it off, etc), one of them is that you jerks have turned the steel guitar into little more than an instrument which just keeps the rhythm going. It does nothing other than to say, "THIS IS COUNTRY MUSIC. YOU CAN'T REALLY TELL OTHERWISE, SO HERE'S A STEEL GUITAR."

BS. I can tell otherwise because the singer is exaggerating a Southern accent. And you've got some sap playing the banjo in the same way as the steel.

Steel is a beautiful instrument with so many ranges of use beyond my weakling comprehension. Don't use if you can't use it.

AS FOR OHIO

I just wanted to yell at you. That's all.