Slash, Marty Stuart, Marcus King Lead Sho-Bud Steel Guitar Show at Ryman

Well this is pretty damn cool. If you don’t have any plans on October 27th and the means to get to Nashville—or even if you do and can wiggle out of them—you should boogie down to the Ryman Auditorium where a massive steel guitar showcase will be going down featuring both heavyweight guitar names, and some of the greatest steelers on the planet.

Called “Sho-Bud Showcase Live,” the lineup includes Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, Lloyd Green, Marty Stuart, Skunk Baxter, Dan Dugmore, Don Felder from The Eagles, Marcus King, Rocco DeLuca, Eddy Dunlap, Sarah Jory, Andrea Whitt, Hatfield Rain, Ed Williams, Johnny Cox, Cody Parks, and more to be announced. And before you get all animated about how guys like Slash and Marcus King are monster guitar players but not really steel guitarists, hold your tongue. Both those dudes have been cited sitting behind Sho-Buds in the past.

The point of the event is to celebrate the legacy of Sho-Bud guitars by featuring the artists, songs, and recordings that went into creating the Nashville sound, and made the steel guitar synonymous with country music. The showcase feels very similar to one that featured the Telecaster on its 75th Anniversary at the Ryman in May.

In 1955, steel guitarist Buddy Emmons joined with Shot Jackson to develop the now legendary “Sho-Bud” pedal steel guitar, and the two men set up a company to sell the instruments to the world, starting in a garage in Madison, Tennessee. The company later relocated to Nashville in 1963 when Emmons left to start the Emmons Guitar Company. But Shot and his sons David and Harry continued on.

Many of country music’s most legendary steel guitar players such as Lloyd Green, Jerry Byrd, Ralph Mooney, and Pete Drake were all Sho-Bud loyalists, with Lloyd Green receiving his own signature model called the LDG. For years, the current location of traditional country honky tonk Robert’s Western World on Lower Broadway in Nashville was the Sho-Bud showroom and production warehouse. That is why the balcony of Robert’s is named the “Sho-Bud balcony bar.”

Grestsch purchased Sho-Bud in 1979, and eventually ceased production of the guitars. But the family officially reacquired the name in December of 2024, and the grandson and granddaughter of Shot Jackson—Will and Dawn Jackson—officially restarted the company in 2025 with their father David and uncle Harry who’ve continued to make steel guitars.

Presale for the event is live now, with the pre-purchase password SHOBUD26. Tickets officially go on sale on Friday, August 14th at 10am Central via axs.com and at ryman.com.