Pedal steel

@bdp24 Good call on Ben Keith and Greg Leitz—scratching my brain last night trying to pull up his name! A little hard on Jerry though—I admire ANY multi instrumentalist and appreciate how Garcia could cross genres. I have a guitar playing friend who thinks Jerry only passable on his primary instrument, putting Clapton far above him as a true guitar great. From a technical standpoint I’m in no position to argue with him—I tried to pick up the guitar at 50 and failed miserably. But when I sit down to listen I’d pick Garcia’s playing (and singing) over Clapton any day of the week.

@dodgealum: Tell your guitar-playing friend to give a listen to Danny Gatton (mentioned by another poster above). In-cre-di-ble! Vince Gill---a mighty fine player himself---nicknamed him The Humbler ;-) . A guitarist’s guitarist. Jerry Garcia has his fans, but few of them are other great guitarists. Hey, don’t shoot the messenger!

I favour Telecaster players myself---Gatton played the Tele, as did his sometimes-bandmate Evan Johns (three albums on Rykodisc, a bunch on other Indi’s, including the one I did with him entitled Moontan). So do Albert Lee (The Everly Brothers, Emmylou Harris), James Burton (Ricky Nelson, Elvis, Emmylou Harris---she gets all the best musicians ;-), Steve Cropper (Booker T & The MG’s), Don Rich (Buck Owens’ Buckaroos), John Jorgenson (The Desert Rose Band, The Hellecasters), Al Anderson (NRBQ, solo), Dave Edmunds (though he played Gibson ES335’s for years), Albert Collins, so many others.

The Strat has it’s adherents too: Ry Cooder, Richard Thompson, Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits), both the Vaughan brothers. But the guitar played most often with a pedal steel player---by far---is the Telecaster.

Lucky Oceans...

Saw him playing with "Asleep at the Wheel" in 1975 (Gabe & Walkers, Iowa City, IA).

Didn't follow him after that, but live he was the musical equivalent of watching Fantasia on psychedelics.

DeKay 

Eric Heywood.

Most notably with Son Volt. Has played with many others. Saw him with Tift Merritt and that was wonderful!

The Campbell Brothers are great as well as any Sacred Steel CD
Robert Randolph Live at Wetlands and his playing on the first  Word CD  will blow your mind.
Happy listening