Session musician Weldon Myrick was born in Jayton, Texas on April 10, 1939. In his career that has spanned for more then fifty years, Myrick has received such honours as being inducted into both the Country Music and Steel Guitarist’s Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n
Myrick began to play the steel guitar at age eight after his older brother, Tex, joined the Air Force and left his steel guitar behind. When he was thirteen, Myrick purchased his own Rickenbacker steel guitar and joined the group ‘Henley Diggs and the Double Mountain Boys’; the group was regularly played on the radio in Stanford, Texas. In his teenage years, Myrick backed Ferlin Husky, Minnie Pearl and Jim Reeves on travelling Opry shows visiting Lubbock.<\/p>\n
In 1956, Myrick made the move to Big Spring, Texas, where he began writing and recording with songwriter and producer Ben Hall. While the experience was valuable, the pay was not great so Myrick joined the police force and served as an officer for around three years in order to keep his head above water.<\/p>\n
In 1964 Myrick had his first session hit alongside Connie Smith with “Once a Day” (written by Anderson). Producer Bob Ferguson made the decision to combine Myrick’s soulful steel guitar playing with Smith’s booming voice, in doing so, Ferguson helped to kick-start Smith’s career, and Myrick to become a full-time studio musician. <\/p>\n
Myrick soon developed a distinct yet commercially accessible style that used the guitar pedals to raise and lower the pitch of the strings in counterpoint harmony while picking fast, staccato, double-stop and triple-stop passages. Myrick became one of Nashville’s top studio musicians and for over three decades, he was heavily sought after; backing everyone from country legends Chet Atkins, Willie Nelson, the Statler Brothers and Tanya Tucker to artists outside the genre including Delbert McClinton, the Pointer Sisters, Paul Siebel and Cat Stevens.<\/p>\n
In 1966 Myrick joined fellow steel guitarist Hal Rugg on the Grand Ole Opry and for the following thirty-two years Myrick was a member of the staff band. Myrick has released several solo instrumental records and been apart of several ‘Area Code 615’ recordings. Myrick was inducted to the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 1997 and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2009.<\/p>\n
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Session musician Weldon Myrick was born in Jayton, Texas on April 10, 1939. In his career that has spanned for more then fifty years, Myrick has received such honours as being inducted into both the Country Music and Steel Guitarist’s Hall of Fame. Myrick began to play the steel guitar at age eight after his older brother, Tex, joined the Air Force and left his steel guitar behind. When he was thirteen, Myrick purchased his own Rickenbacker steel guitar and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":3958,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n