Jay Dee Maness

JayDee Maness (born January 4, 1945) is an American pedal steel guitarist who is a veteran session musician in Los Angeles. He is known for his work with Gram Parsons, the Byrds, Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, Ray Stevens, Eric Clapton, the Desert Rose Band and Vince Gill. Maness received The Academy of Country Music's "Steel Guitarist of the Year" award 18 times and was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 2003.

Early life

Maness was born in Loma Linda, California, in 1945 and grew up in nearby Riverside. His father wanted him to play steel guitar and bought him a six-string Magnetone electric steel guitar with amplifier at a price of $30. He began playing at age 10. He first recorded with the band on a pair of singles ("Luxury Liner" and "Blue Eyes") before contributing to the group's sole album, Safe at Home. According to music writer Mark Deming, this album was one of the first rock albums to have a distinct country influence. The track, which was recorded in two takes, and featured Maness's 20-second solo, won a Grammy Award for best arrangement of 1975 and became the title track of Stevens' Misty album of the same year.

The Desert Rose Band, Eric Clapton, and other work In 1985, Maness became one of the founding members of the Desert Rose Band, a country-rock group, with fellow ex-Byrd Chris Hillman, John Jorgenson, Herb Pedersen, Steve Duncan and Bill Bryson. He left the band in 1990, but returned to it in 1998 and has remained part of the line-up since then.

Maness's acclaimed bridge solo on Eric Clapton's 1992 hit "Tears in Heaven" was, according to the musician, another piece of recording luck that came out of the blue for him: "Eric Clapton is another long story. I went to the studio [in 1991], got all my stuff loaded in, got inside and somebody told me 'Eric isn't feeling well and isn't going to show up today. Can you come back tomorrow?' So tomorrow comes, and Eric is there, feeling better. We took all day to do that one song. When he finally got the take that he wanted, I thought I was finished - I was unloading and putting stuff away. Eric says 'Wait, wait, I want you to do the solo on this record,' and we stayed, just the two of us, and finished. And the rest is history! It really became a good record for him. And I got a platinum record of that one on my wall, Eric signed it and gave it to me." The album is an instrumental tribute to Sweetheart of the Rodeo, and features a vocal of "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" featuring guest vocalists Jeff Hanna, Herb Pedersen, Richie Furay, and Jim Lauderdale.

Awards Maness has won the ACM award for steel guitar on 18 occasions (1970, 1971, 1974–76, 1980 (tied with Buddy Emmons), 1982, 1983, 1986–90, 1992, 1993, 1997, 1999, 2002).