From The New York Times:
Ralph Mooney, who played pedal steel guitar on hit recordings by Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings and who was a writer of “Crazy Arms,” one of the most enduring shuffles in country music, died at his home in Kennedale, Tex., on Sunday. He was 82.
The cause was complications of cancer, said Wanda Mooney, his wife of 62 years.
Working as a staff musician at Capitol Records in Hollywood during the 1950s and ’60s, Mr. Mooney appeared on hit singles by the likes of the rockabilly star Wanda Jackson and the West Coast country singer Wynn Stewart. His bluesy introduction and slurring instrumental commentary lent a tragicomic note to Mr. Haggard’s boozy 1966 smash, “The Bottle Let Me Down.”
Mr. Mooney’s cascading steel guitar runs also galvanized several of Buck Owens’s early signature hits, including “Above and Beyond” and “Under Your Spell Again.” The epitome of the ebullient Bakersfield sound that took root in California in the late 1950s, these recordings influenced not only future country singers like Dwight Yoakam and Jim Lauderdale but also rock ‘n’ roll bands like the Beatles, the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers.
[Photo: Michael Manning]