KeysDAN Bob Lyons - Feel Good Steel Drummer

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Bob Lyons - Feel Good Steel Drummer
	Bob Lyons performs traditional Steel Drum Music in South Florida, including reggae, calypso, and all the standards for beach weddings and lively parties. Nothing instantly captures the atmosphere of the islands like the sound of live steel drums. Steel Drums have an uncanny way of making everyone relax and feel good.
I was formally trained on bass. I played a lot of classical, blues, and jazz before deciding to devote all my energy to the steel drums.
My History: I grew up in Fort Lauderdale, surrounded by jazz, calypso, and reggae. My parents often played tapes of steel drum bands around the house that they had brought back from their Caribbean vacations. I started playing bass in my brother's rock band when I was nine. By the time I was thirteen a local bass player, Jaco Pastorius, became famous when he joined the world's top jazz group, Weather Report. Jaco had a huge influence on my life and my music. He incorporated steel drums into many of his sophisticated and modern compositions. To understand some of what he was doing I had to become a serious student of music theory. In 1981, while in music school at Florida State University I bought my first steel drum. After a few years I moved to California to find work. I was lucky enough to join up with a group of Trinidadian pan players in Los Angeles who taught me the authentic music of the Caribbean. It was during this time that I made the transition from bass to full-time pan player. We played at every theme park, hotel, zoo, resort, fair, bar, or restaurant with live music in Southern California. After ten years of playing twelve gigs a week on the West Coast it was time to get back to my roots and my family in South Florida.
	On the left is the great Boogsie Sharpe. That's me playing the bass and studying him very carefully. This picture was taken at a gig in San Diego in 1990. He is the best musician I ever heard.
Some Steel Drum History: Steeldrums were invented in Trinidad & Tobago. Trinidadians refer to the instrument as 'Steel Pan', but I have given up trying to educate Americans to that fact. So I usually just call them Steeldrums. Almost all Steeldrums are still made from the bottom side of a 55-gallon oil barrel. The Steeldrum is the only musical instrument invented in the 20th Century. Sure, there are electric and synthesized versions of instruments that were already around, but the Steeldrum is an entirely new invention. The sound is not generated from the size or weight of a piece of metal the way a xylophone is. Each section of the surface of a Steeldrum is tightened and loosened with a hammer by a skilled tuner. One Steeldrum actually works as many individual drums with steel skins. At least that's my limited understanding of it. As far as I'm concerned, it's a miracle that such an angelic and haunting sound can come out of an oil barrel.
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