Jimmy Day

Early life

Day was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, but grew up in Louisiana. A lean and lanky country boy, he began playing a traditional guitar, but was influenced by a steel guitar performance on local television by Shot Jackson. He decided then with certainty that he wanted to master the steel guitar. He received a six-string lap steel as a Christmas present in 1949. he auditioned for and was granted a job in the house band on the "Louisiana Hayride", a popular country music radio show which at the time rivaled Nashville's Grand Ole Opry.

Career

On the radio broadcast, Day gained experience in backing performers who were on their way to becoming megastars, including Hank Williams, Faron Young, Johnny Horton, Jim Reeves and Elvis Presley . His first recording session (at age 18) was Webb Pierce's song, "That Heart Belongs to Me" in 1952. He played in Ernest Tubb's "Texas Troubadors"

Contributions to the E9 pedal steel

Day is credited (along with Buddy Emmons), with splitting a single pedal on a pedal steel guitar which changed the pitch two strings simultaneously; he made it into two separate pedals, one for each of the strings. Emmons had the same idea, but the two men reversed the strings affected by each pedal. This led guitar manufacturers to ask whether the customer wanted a "Day" setup or an "Emmons" setup. Both Day and Emmons changed the instrument from 8 to 10 strings. Day added a new E string (a duplicate of the tonic note) at the 8th string position in 1958. This change has become a standard on the modern instrument.

Personal life

In the 1970s, Day left Nashville to move to Texas to live in Buda, a commuter town south of Austin. He became active in the Texas music scene, working with Price, Nelson and Johnny Bush; he ventured back to Nashville only occasionally. In the book, Bush said Day quit drinking in the last twenty years before he died, but his health had suffered because of it.

Day died of cancer in 1999 and is buried in Austin. He was inducted into the International Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 1982. . He was also a member of the Western Swing Hall of Fame (1994).