Herb Remington
Herbert Leroy Remington (1926–2018) was an American lap steel guitarist who played Western swing music with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys from 1946 to 1949. A member of the International Steel Guitar Hall of Fame (1979), Remington is known for his Hawaiian style playing combined with swing-based jazz soloing. One of his signature recordings was Bob Wills' "Boot Heel Drag", which appeared on the B-side of Wills' classic hit, "Faded Love". He is also known for "Remington's Ride", a song that became a standard for steel players. Indiana-born Remington studied Hawaiian steel guitar as a youth, but serendipitously got into Western swing music in his teens and became one of the genres most renowned steel guitarists. Early life Remington was born in Mishawaka, Indiana, a suburb of South Bend; his mother taught him piano until he was about eight years old. He learned to play a conventional guitar in the finger-picking style of Merle Travis. He had lessons from door-to-door instrument salesmen and mail-order lessons at $1.25 per week. As a youth he was impressed when he first heard Hawaiian music played by a steel guitar at a local movie theater. He studied Hawaiian steel, taking sixty lessons from