Video: Watch Pedal Steel Genius Susan Alcorn in Performance

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Randall Roberts
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Susan Alcorn

Few artists possess the rare ability to transform their primary instrument, bending it entirely to their will and pushing it beyond its natural limits. The pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn, who died late last week, was one such musician. Harnessing an instrument best known for its country twang, Alcorn freed it from its supporting role and reshaped it into a vehicle for genre-transcendent expression, drawing from avant-garde jazz, classical minimalism and global folk traditions to create music that was as searching as it was singular.

As with most pedal steel players, she got her start playing in country bands. But she was a little too far out for that scene, as writer Martin Schray noted in a lovely appreciation:

Her first “compliment“ as a pedal steel player came from a musician who came up to her and said he liked the songs she played, but not the way she played. Other musicians also had no sympathy and grimaced when she played. However, she later said that she was grateful for this criticism. It was the only way she was able to acquire the armor she later needed to push the boundaries of her instrument with free jazz influences, classical avant-garde music, Indian ragas and various styles of worldwide roots music.

In a 2020 feature on the pedal steel for NPR, Alcorn explained that her listening habits and love for free jazz transformed the way she played, telling writer Jesse Jarnow that her inspirations seeped into her playing. “I was doing country gigs and listening to Albert Ayler and people at the gigs would tell me I sounded different for some reason.” She added, “When I got into Ornette Coleman, most of the musicians I knew in Houston didn’t want to play with me anymore because it was like I was out-of-tune or something.” Alcorn’s philosophy on the instrument was strengthened by a 1990 interaction with Pauline Oliveros, which blossomed into a friendship. Oliveros played accordion, an instrument with its own baggage.

“I went to her first ‘Deep Listening’ retreat,” Alcorn said of Oliveros’ influence. “Pauline is from Houston, where I was living, and we became friends … And so that widened my ideas of what you would call music, and certainly what you would call improvisation. That had a profound effect on how I played, and still does.”

She expanded on the breadth of her inspirations in an interview with the website Post-Genre. “Throughout our lives, we are all exposed to many things. For musicians, some people know what they want to do right away. Maybe they go to a conservatory, or maybe they study Cecil Taylor. I started out playing trumpet and got kicked out of the school band when I was in the eighth grade. I started playing guitar because I was really into ’60s American folk music, with people like Joan Baez. I also got into country blues and musicians like Blind Willie McTell and Robert Johnson.”

Alcorn continued: “Then I got into rock music by people like Cream and Jimi Hendrix. Later, bluegrass. Then I started playing the pedal steel because what most people call classic country music connected with me. I found it direct and not harmonically complex, unlike so much of jazz or twentieth-century classical music. But there is a direct connection and certain lyricism.”

Alcorn released her first solo record, Uma, in 2000 and across the next quarter century made more than two dozen solo and collaborative albums. Her improv partners were some of the best in the business, including Eugene Chadbourne, LaDonna Smith, Meisha Feigin, Ken Vandermark, Joe McPhee, Bill Nace, Chris Corsano and Catherine Sikora.

Along the way, she and other players like Heather Leigh inspired a new generation of experimenters to harness the pedal steel guitar’s shimmering, humming power. “I don’t think you can overstate the importance of the fact that, when you ask who’s pushing the instrument forward, the answer is there are these two women — Susan Alcorn and Heather Leigh,” Chuck Johnson said in the NPR story. “More than any other instrument I know, the culture around [pedal steel] is so male dominated.”

As news of her passing spread through social media, Johnson acknowledged Alcorn’s influence, writing, “I’m having difficulty processing the news of Susan Alcorn’s passing. My music wouldn’t be what it is without her. Love to her family, her Baltimore community, and to everyone whose lives she touched.”

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