Ralph Mooney, steel guitar pioneer and key figure in the Bakersfield sound has died. Mooney played with Buck Owens, Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard and co-wrote the song “Crazy Arms,” which went to #1 in 1956 for Ray Price.
According to the LA Times Mooney died at home in Kennedale, Texas, from cancer related complications.
He had recently played on Marty Stuart’s 2010 Ghost Train: The Studio B Sessions.
"He was my all-time country music hero as far as musicians go," Stuart said. "When I was making the Ghost Train record, I took it to California with me. I was listening to it as I was driving down Victory Boulevard, and when I heard him play I started crying, because it was always my dream of going to California and hearing my music sound like that.”
Byrds founder Chris Hillman paid tribute to Mooney: “Ralph Mooney was one of the chief architects of the Bakersfield sound. Nobody played steel like Ralph. When Ralph took a solo, you knew it was all California.”