Sho-Bud Steel Guitars Relaunches, A Family Business Once Again

Tone: it’s the Holy Grail for musicians, and it’s the cornerstone of Sho-Bud, the iconic pedal steel guitar company founded in 1955 by Harold “Shot” Jackson and Buddy Emmons. When Emmons moved on, Jackson, with sons Harry and David, continued handcrafting instruments integral to the sound of country music.

In the early 1980s, Sho-Bud was acquired by Fred Gretsch. In 2005, after twenty years away from the business, Shot Jackson’s sons, David and Harry Jackson, joined by David’s daughter, Dawn Jackson, resumed building instruments. As Jackson Steel Guitar Company, they introduced new pedal steel, lap steel, resonator, and slide guitars.

In December 2024, the third generation of Jacksons, siblings and co-CEOs Dawn and Will, reacquired the company name and family legacy. “We knew that the name carried a lot of weight,” says Dawn Jackson. “It’s our heritage, and we wanted to bring it back while Dad and Harry were still building.”

“I want to acknowledge Fred Gretsch, his wife, Dinah, his family, and his team,” says Will Jackson. “A lot of people approached him to acquire the Sho-Bud name over the years, and he didn’t do it. He saved it for us. We very much appreciate what he did in terms of preserving the name, keeping it intact, and not selling it to someone else. We’ll be eternally grateful to him for that.”

Sho-Bud relaunched this year with new and classic gear, plus several projects across platforms and generations. The reach stretches from traditionalists devoted to the classic instruments they saw on the Opry stage, to young musicians incorporating steel in everything from country to metal.

Central to all of this, of course, are the instruments, which include the high-level, traditional, maple cabinet Pro V; bender-equipped, stand-up SlideKing LS lap steel; and best-selling Maverick II.

“It’s not the Maverick of old,” says Will Jackson of the Maverick II. “The original Maverick was designed to be a low-cost, entry-level, beginner guitar. With the Maverick II, our objective was to build one of the sweetest-sounding guitars. We developed a front and rear extruded aluminum panel that has a hard rock maple soundboard that sits between them. On top of that, the one-piece aluminum neck now binds the key head and tail plate together.

“When you sandwich all that together, this particular guitar, as Dawn describes it, cuts through all the other noise. It’s distinctive, it’s clear, it rings and resonates. It has that Nashville sound because we still utilize the exact same pickup design that Shot developed back in the ’50s. When you marry that to this modern design cabinet, it is incredible. The Maverick II definitely stands out in terms of its tonal qualities. It’s pretty much unmatched. It’s quite an advancement in terms of pedal steel guitar technology.”

Sho-Bud plans a reissue of the signature Lloyd Green model, the LDG, which the Jacksons describe as “a continuation of the original classic design,” and a limited-edition LDG, cut with modern components and updated mechanisms, each one signed by Lloyd Green, David Jackson, and Harry Jackson. Other reissues will follow, including Jimmy Day’s Blue Darlin’.

Sho-Bud co-CEOs and siblings Will Jackson and Dawn Jackson.

 

“Relaunch,” in Sho-Bud vernacular, is all about name recognition, product reputation, and upholding a decades-old legacy. “We built steels for the past twenty-five years under the name Jackson Steel Guitars,” says Dawn Jackson. “So the relaunch, for us, circles around the Sho-Bud name.

“What’s happened in the months since we secured the name again, the outpouring of support from the guitar industry in general, has been overwhelming,” she says. “That lends itself to the weight this brand carried around the world, and how throughout the years of its ‘dormancy,’ it maintained a true following, and not only from older generations. Younger people love the brand too. When we mention Sho-Bud, every door is open. So that’s really the relaunch. We maintained building these amazing instruments during our Jackson Steel era, but the [Sho-Bud] brand itself has the leverage and momentum behind it.”

“A lot of people have asked, ‘Is this just a rebranding of Jackson Steel Guitars?’ Definitely not,” says Will Jackson. “We’ve been sitting on a few patents that we’ve obtained over the last couple of years. They’ve got about fifteen years or so left on them while we fine-tune these components.”

Those components include a tunable vibrato, on-the-fly D Drop, The EDGE® multi-bending system, and Core-Over™ strings, all of which they’ve introduced to Sho-Bud artists with positive response.

“When a traditional, fretted-instrument guitarist is, say, holding a chord, when they use an old-school vibrato — let’s say a Bigsby, for example — when they hit that thing, all those strings are falling out of tune,” says Will Jackson. “Our tunable vibrato doesn’t destroy the chord. When they’re holding a chord and they go down, all those strings fall in tune now.

“We’ve got a Drop D tuner that allows an artist, again on a fretted instrument, to simply roll their E down to a D while they’re playing. They don’t have to take their fretting hand off and adjust anything on the key head. They don’t have to stop and tinker around with their picking hand to adjust anything. They’re able to use the palm, the heel, of their hand, roll it right down to a D, and roll it right back up to an E. So it’s very novel, very easy to use.

“With our Core-Over strings, we take the winding off up to where it passes the bridge and on the pickup side of the nut, so it’s just the core of the string going across those two touch points. It create incredible amounts of sustain. The sound profile of the string is much rounder, bigger, fuller. It’s amazing.”

(L to R) Kyle Ince, Bob Sheehan, Slash, Ted Stern, Andrea Whitt, Skunk Baxter, Dawn Jackson, Pavel, Hexx Henderson, Mark Tucker, Rocco DeLuca, and Will Jackson pose for a group photo at the Sho-Bud Showcase Live at the Desert 5 Spot in Los Angeles.

 

On April 24, in Hollywood, the company celebrated the return of Sho-Bud Showcase Live, national concerts spotlighting steel-centric artists in all genres. The series kickoff, Sho-Bud’s first live event in over forty years, included, among its many participants, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, Robert Randolph,
Andrea Whitt, Rocco DeLuca,
Hexx Henderson, Hatfield Rain, Shooter Jennings, and Slash.

Sho-Bud Music is a record label and publishing company originally established by Dawn Jackson to release an album by her band, the aforementioned Hatfield Rain. “Around that time, I started working with Dad and Harry on Jackson Steel and never did anything with the [album] mixes,” she says. “It’s getting ready to come out after all this time, so I’m super-excited.” Along with that recording, Sho-Bud Music is promoting other Sho-Bud artists.

Coming soon is Shot Jackson’s Sho-Bud Showcase radio program, which will now become a podcast featuring music, interviews, and over 150 digitized reels from the original 1970s and early 1980s WSM broadcasts. “We have all the reels and we’re going to start releasing them,” says Dawn Jackson. “The podcast will also include interviews with today’s Sho-Bud artists and, of course, our dad and Harry.”

Harold “Shot” Jackson built Sho-Bud on a foundation of superior instruments, customer service, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty. Those values remain at the core of Dawn and Will Jackson’s goals, whether putting instruments in the hands of internationally renowned musicians or newcomers learning their way around pedal steel.

Sho-Bud CEO Dawn Jackson poses with Slash and a Sho-Bud Steel Guitar.

 

“These instruments are not like traditional fretted instruments,” says Will Jackson. “Fretted instruments don’t have moving parts per se. But these do. Because they have those linkages and mechanical pulling mechanisms, as they’re used, they wear. Anytime you make a change to these instruments, you have to be careful, because in the interest of trying to maximize performance or life on one end, you can impact tone on the other end, and that is something we can’t sacrifice.

“Sho-Bud has always been known for that Nashville sound, the tone that we got. The story I recall as a kid was Shot sitting there on a pickup-winding machine, which was made out of an old sewing machine motor. He had apple bushels next to his workbench. He would wind a pickup, plug it in, and if it gave him the tone he was after, performed the way he wanted it to, it went in the keeper bushel. If it didn’t, it went into the discard bushel.

“That is how our family has built these things. There are no Rhodes Scholars over here or MIT graduates in engineering. These guys developed these instruments through pure trial and error and using their ears to develop that tone. Again, we can’t sacrifice mechanical advantages over tone. Some guitar companies do, but we cannot do that. For us, it is about tone, tone, tone. We live and die by that.”

“We’ve always maintained the tradition and look of our guitars — the beautiful cabinets, our certain inlays, the finishes,” says Dawn Jackson, “but aesthetics are second. Tone has always been number one for us.”

“These instruments require maintenance,” says Will Jackson. “If there is a nut, a screw, a bolt, it will get turned by someone. When these things leave the shop, they’re set perfectly. People will start adjusting things, and that’s what they’re for. You need to fine-tune things ergonomically to make it fit. But, because these things can be very sensitive, sometimes they overdo it, or they have trouble chasing the tuning back to where they wanted it.

“We are here to support them in terms of Zoom calls, where they can show us exactly what they’re doing, what the instrument is doing, or what it’s not doing that they would like it to do. We can help walk them through that, using a blend of modern technology to help them fine-tune some of these traditional instruments. We’re always looking for ways to make it easier for them to keep these guitars maintained.”

As a family-owned and operated company, versus a multi-department corporation, the Jacksons are front and center when phones ring, texts chime, and emails arrive – no call centers, AI assistants, or being transferred through a half-dozen departments and hold times. They field calls, walk customers through setups, stay active via social media, keep up with forums, provide instructional videos, and cherish human-to-human relationships.

Slash plays a Sho-Bud Steel Guitar.

 

“Will and I have been a team since we were kids playing football in the backyard,” says Dawn Jackson. “We really believe in team efforts, and that’s why we’re so big on using the words ‘Team Sho-Bud.’ The dynamics between us, our father, and our uncle – we’re all creators and passionate about the things we do.

“We have the same objective in mind, which is to maintain our family heritage,” she says. “I am so proud that Sho-Bud is still a family business, and that people love and respect that. We work together, play off of each other, and it just works and works well.”

“I’m proud of my family – our dad, our uncle – for the sacrifices they made over the years to build these instruments, and to deliver the tone and the sounds that everyone enjoys,” says Will Jackson. “I’m very proud of the work they put into this, and of Dawn for rolling up her sleeves and helping them. I’m proud of the way Sho-Bud has evolved. It’s fun to be a part of the rebirth of Sho-Bud. These instruments, these new components, are going to be total game changers. I’m very proud to represent these products and wear the old brand. It’s exciting times.”


All Photos: Ashley Marie Myers, courtesy of Sho-Bud. Lead and alternate images: Slash plays a Sho-Bud pedal steel guitar.

Bobby Hicks, “Snowflake Breakdown”

In our plaintive annual quest to unearth some semblance of a holiday-themed canon from the bluegrass songbook writ large, a few concessions must immediately be made. As argued in a past wintry edition of Tunesday Tuesday, titles of otherwise wordless and themeless songs are more than enough to justify a tune’s place in holiday and Christmas party playlists — or at least, this writer vehemently believes that they should be. 

That particular context might just be unnecessary, though, because anyone ought to welcome absolutely any excuse or justification to marvel at the sheer magic (holiday and/or otherwise) of Bobby Hick’s fiddling. Yes, this is no more than a contrived set up to allow some unbridled gushing about “Snowflake Breakdown.” The hoedown-style fiddle tune was a cut on Hicks’ 1978 album, Texas Crapshooter, which boasted an A side of all Texas and western swing tunes, featuring Buddy Emmons on pedal steel and Buck White on piano among others, and a B side of his signature bluegrass fiddling style, staffed by Sam Bush, Roy Huskey Jr., Alan Munde, and fellow Bluegrass Hall of Famer Roland White. The “wow, these pickers on this tune are each so unique and genius in their own rights, they’re like snowflakes” metaphor is just a little too irresistible here, so just go with it. 

For us fans of a bluegrass fiddler who plays with a heavy dose of North Carolina by way of Texas and a dash of the best parts of fiddle contests, has an unparalleled pedigree as a Blue Grass Boy with Bill Monroe, and a reputation as one of the most confounding double-stop talents in the universe, all we want for Christmas is (really, truly, honestly) more Bobby Hicks.

In Memoriam: 2015

For this month's In Memoriam, we’re going to honor the Americana musicians who have passed this year. Americana is a broad term — part of what makes it so great is its diversity. The communities are often based on regions instead of genre, which adds to its breadth and scope. In no way is this article meant to be all encompassing. Inevitably, deserving people will be excluded. Consider this a communal effort. We want to know who you will miss — no matter how big or small, whether they were a local stalwart or a national treasure. Follow our Spotify playlist and add your own commemorations. Together, we can celebrate the lives of all the deserved musicians that have passed this year. 

Little Jimmy Dickens in 1971. Photo credit: Public Domain.

Country

It’s been a tough year for country music as some legendary folks have died. Little Jimmy Dickens passed on January 2. He was 94 years old, and best known for a long career on the Grand Ole Opry. We also lost Johnny Gimble on May 9 at 88 years old. Gimble is remembered for fiddling with Bob Wills. His work is one of the hallmarks of Western Swing, and a defining feature of the Texas Playboys’ sound. On June 11, Jim Ed Brown passed. Though he’d been out of the spotlight for decades, Brown had a string of hits beginning in the late '60s up until the early '80s. Today, he is perhaps best known as the DJ responsible for the popular radio show Country Music Greats Radio Minute. We lost Buddy Emmons on July 21. He was one the of the greatest steel guitar players that ever lived. Emmons played with everyone from Little Jimmy Dickens to Ray Price, Ernest Tubbs, andGeorge Jones. Lynn Anderson followed on July 30. Anderson was 67 years old. She is best known as a 1970s country-singing siren and was a regular on The Lawrence Welk Show. Her contemporary style and crossover appeal made her one of the biggest musicians of her day. Tommy Overstreet passed on November 2 at 78. In his time, he placed 23 songs in the Billboard Top 40.

Blues

B.B. King's death devastated the blues scene. He was a living legend and an ambassador for not only the blues, but also the United States. His absence will be felt for decades and his importance cannot be overstated. North Mississippi bluesman Robert Belfour passed on February 24 at 74 years old. Belfour introduced a lot of folks to North Mississippi blues. His live performances were mesmerizing, opening eyes to the infinite possibilities inherent in the blues. We lost Captain Luke on May 12. His lounge inflected blues were unique and singular.

Percy Sledge in 1974. Photo credit: gtpugh via Foter.com / CC BY-SA.

R&B/Soul

The soul community lost some greats, as well. Ben E. King, the legendary voice that fronted the Drifters, had a long and illustrious career, but will forever be remembered as the voice and co-writer of the timeless masterpiece “Stand By Me.” Muscle Shoals' artist Percy Sledge passed on April 14. He is best known for his breakthrough hit “When a Man Loves a Woman.” We lost Allen Toussaint on November 10. Toussaint was one of the most successful songwriters and producers to ever come from New Orleans. He left an indelible mark on everyone from the Meteors to the Band.

Folk

The folk world lost some important musicians from its second wave. Ronnie Gilbert, who is best known for her work in the Weavers, passed on June 16. The Weavers were the template for every 1950s folk act that followed — their intricate harmonies and clean-cut image were an instant success. If not for the McCarthy Witch Trials, their hey-day would have surely lasted years, if not decades, longer. Gilbert continued performing and recording as a solo artist, and the Weavers received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2006 Grammys. We lost Theodore Bikel on July 21 at 91 years of age. Bikel is best known as Tevye from The Fiddler On The Roof, though he was also the co-founder of the Newport Folk Festival.

Bluegrass

Bluegrass wasn’t as hard hit, but we did lose New Grass dobro player Tut Taylor who played on John Hartford’s classic album Aero-Plain. In later years, he played extensively with fellow New Grass legend Norman Blake. Taylor was 91 years old. Richard Watson — son of Merle, grandson of Doc — passed, as well, on June 1. 

Behind the Curtain

Behind the scenes, we lost two seminal figures. Samuel Charters passed on March 18 who was best known for the book The Country Blues. Charters' books, although often flawed, brought many southern bluesmen back to prominence in the 1960s. We also lost legendary producer Bob Johnston on August 14. He helmed the board for Columbia Records on classic albums from Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, and Simon & Garfunkel.

 

Follow our Spotify playlist and add your own commemorations:


Lede photo credit: victorcamilo via Foter.com / CC BY-ND.

Watch Traveller Perform “Western Movies”

Traveller may be a supergroup, but the trio (which features Robert Ellis, Cory Chisel and Jonny Fritz) is more than the sum of its parts. Case in point: this excellent, humorous live video of their new tune "Western Movies," which they put together for NPR Music. Like what you hear below? Listen to their debut tune, "Nobody Makes It Out," here

Other Roots Music News:

• Famed steel guitar player Buddy Emmons passed away. [Rolling Stone

• "Happy Birthday" may be in the public domain. [Consequence of Sound

• A Kentucky distillery plays music for its booze. [A.V. Club

• The IBMA Awards nominees will be announced August 12 on SiriusXM's Bluegrass Junction. [Bluegrass Today

• Watkins Family Hour covered Ella Fitzgerald's "When I Get Low, I Get High" at Newport.