The “Sho-Pal”

Al Brisco’s First Steel Guitar

Well, actually the early 1960’s, Al was playing bass & piano with a country band called “The Rhythm Pals” in the Renfrew, Ontario area.

The band members consisted of: Kent Smith (lead guitar), Glenn Toner (rhythm & vocals), Bob Johnston (drums), Al Roach (fiddle), & Al Brisco (bass & piano). Around 1963 the band changed their name to “The Countrymen”.

One summer evening at a band practice taking place at Bob Johnston’s parents farm house in Horton Township, Kent Smith made the statement, “Would ever be nice to have a steel guitar in the band”. The band was doing a lot of George Jones, Ray Price, Hank Williams, and similar material.

This statement encouraged Bob Johnston to remember his mother had bought him a lap steel guitar (Simpson-Sears) to learn when he was a child. Bob immediately got a ladder and dug the steel out of the attic.

Al proceeded to tune it to some major key, & using a knife for a bar & a flat pick, attempted to play a tune with it.

Later, in the fall of 1963, Al was helping a another country singer, Jack Burant, from the Renfrew area at a car wash he was operating. There he saw a home-made pedal steel that Jack had assembled. It had a tuning (probably E9th) that Jack had found in a country song magazine.

Jack had figured out a way for the pedals to pull the strings. This inspired Al on to pursue the pedal steel. He wrote a letter to Bob Johnston, who had gone off to university in New Brunswick, asking if he could buy that old lap steel.

Note: Bob found this letter in 1994 & returned it to Al, where it is on display.

I believe Bob gave this steel to Al, plus Al also discovered that his cousin Milton Brisco had an identical lap steel, which he bought for around $25.00.

Knowing that Jack Burant could rig up some pedals, & using the picture of Pete Drake’s Sho-Bud pedal steel on the front of a Starday double LP, Al went to Scott’s Hardware store in Renfrew & purchased plywood for the body, pipes & fittings for the legs, & proceeded to build a table on which to mount the two 6 string Simpson-Sears lap steels.

In the middle of winter, (app. January of 1964), Al & Jack could be found welding the changer & bell crank parts in the unheated chicken coup on Jack’s family farm outside Douglas, Ontario. Al continued to assemble the guitar, having 3 pedals on the front neck only. Al named the guitar, “Sho-Pal”.

This photo shows Al playing the Sho-Pal with “The Countrymen” in August 1964.

“The Countrymen” then consisted of Bob Johnston (drums), Guy Jamieson (bass & vocals), Al Roach (fiddle), Kent Smith (lead guitar), & Al Brisco (pedal steel, bass, electric rhythm).

Some interesting notes:
• The body of the guitar was much bigger than it had to be to hold the two 6 string lap steels (remember, Al only had a picture on an album cover to go by, as there were no factory built pedal steels in the Ottawa Valley at that time).
• The plywood body was stained with a natural coloured sealer, with black hand-painted rectangles to imitate the inlay trim used on Sho-Bud’s, etc.
• The pedal board & pedals were made out of wood, using coat hangers for pull rods.
• D9th tuning was used to cut down on string breakage, plus it was very hard to get the high gauge strings in those days, usually using the high 5th string for a 5 string banjo.
• Al hand-painted the ‘Sho-Pal’ name in a half-moon semi-circle, getting the ‘Sho’ from Sho-Bud, & the ‘al’ in Pal from his given name.
• Al built a plywood case for the “Sho-Pal”, which had a handle on each end. Bob Johnston nicknamed it ‘The Coffin’, as it was quite cumbersome.
• What an awful guitar to play….you had to tune it after almost every song. The band guys remember Al spending most of his set breaks, just tuning, tuning, tuning!!! (Again, this was partially due to the newness of understanding the instrument. Part of the tuning problem was the attempt to pull the strings through the slots in the ivory nut…of course they would pull OK but not return).

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  Al played the Sho-Pal throughout 1964. He soon met Ken Davidson of the "CFRA Happy Wanderers". "The Wanderers" were the biggest name country band in the Valley at that time. They had a radio show every day, etc.,

  Al would listen to Ken playing his Fender 400 as much as possible. The limitations of the Sho-Pal were becoming apparent. Ken found a used Fender 400 which Al purchased for $350.00.

  Around this time, Al came in contact with Paul Gurry, a great country guitar player who was playing with "Davy Gibbs & The Country Hoppers" out of the Peterborough area.

  Paul had heard about the Sho-Pal & wanted to pursue pedal steel. He purchased the Sho-Pal from Al for $65.00.

  The next time Al saw the Sho-Pal was in 1967.
  He was in Montreal recording the ‘Saddle Songs” album with “The Sons Of The Saddle” (Siebert Brothers).
  Al & Gene Siebert went to The Country Palace one evening where Dusty King was playing. Paul Gurry was the lead guitarist, and there was the Sho-Pal! Paul even did a few tunes on it.

  Paul had removed the rear neck, reduced the size of the rear deck, & had painted part of the guitar blue.

  The Sho-Pal ended up in someone’s basement in Montreal. It was stored there for many years after Paul Gurry had returned to Ontario.

  With the help of Ron Dann & Paul, the guitar was found & returned to Al.
  It sat in a box waiting to be restored as a winter project.

  Paul Gurry passed away in the fall of 2001.
  Al asked if he could bring the guitar to Paul’s wake. The old guitar was partially restored …one new leg & pipe fittings (to match the other 3 original legs), repaired tuning keys, replaced clap board to mount the new leg to, etc.

  The Sho-Pal is now on display at "Steel Guitars of Canada",
  awaiting complete restoration.

  

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