Album Notes

Spanish Steel, goes where no pedal steel guitar has gone before; Michael Perlowin presents unique-sounding flamenco based classical music from Spain.

As with his forays into the world of Debussy, Stravinsky and Broadway with his Firebird Suite and West Side Story albums, Michael Perlowin is again shattering the stereotype of the pedal steel guitar as a country-and-western-only instrument. In his new album, Spanish Steel, he presents 20 tracks from or about Spain, featuring works by Manuel de Falla, Isaac Albéniz, Joaquín Rodrigo, Julio Martinez Oyanguren, and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

This new album sees Perlowin continuing to alternate between the use of the pedal steel as both a featured and ensemble instrument. However, this CD features Perlowin’s guitar work more than his previous outings, as the guitar is such an integral part of Spanish music. It is fair to say that this is not so much a “pedal steel guitar album” as it is an album of music in which the steel is predominantly featured for its unique expressive sound.

This, Perlowin’s 3rd album, shows how his engineering skills and mastery of the recording studio has blossomed to match his abilities as a virtuoso musician.

Spanish Steel is a totally unique and original album fulfilling Perlowin’s goal of showing the beauty and expressiveness of the pedal steel guitar. Replete with fascinating liner notes, it is the best example to date of the depths of Perlowin’s enormous talent.

Dave Beyer played drums and percussion, while Bill Watkins contributed timpani samples to complement Perlowin on pedal and lap steel guitars, electric and acoustic guitars, fretted and fretless basses, sitar, mandolin, mandocello, 5-string banjo autoharp and additional percussion.