Chris Scruggs works very quickly, he assures us. He’s brought his Fender 1954 Dual Professional steel guitar, an acoustic guitar, and an electric bass, and tracking one after the other, layering up a steel number he composed for the occasion, which he decides to call “Get Well Iva Lee.” Iva Lee turns out to be the wife of Scruggs’ first steel teacher, Caton Roberts, who played in Hank Snow’s band. Sadly, Iva was recently diagnosed with cancer.

When Scruggs was a teenager, he’d go down to visit Johnny Sibert, a security guard at The Tennessean, taking with him a little lap steel. Sibert was Carl Smith’s famed steel player during the ‘40s and ’50, but had grown weary of the music business. And that’s how one of the finest non-pedal steel players got their start: sitting in the security booth on Sunday afternoons. His youth was not misspent by any means-a year in Europe at age 14 with his mother (who raised him) reinvigorated his passion for rockabilly, twang, Western swing, and roots music. Since those high school lessons with Sibert, Scruggs has played in a number of punk bands, with the likes of BR-549, and in the hallowed halls of the Opry.

Though born into country music nobility, with the Scruggs family on one side and his renowned singer/songwriter/producer mother, Gail Davies, on the other, Chris Scruggs can stand on his own merits. His hands remove any potential doubts with their deft movement over the steel. Scruggs’ skill and encyclopedic knowledge of his instrument fill our office in the mid-morning. Scruggs’ album he recorded at The Wavelab (where Neko Case and Calexico have also worked) in Tucson, Arizona should be arriving any day now.

Read about the gear we used to record him.

Check out the Country Way, Volume 2 tracklisting here.