Beloved Steel Guitar Player Pete Finney Has Passed Away

What a remarkable legacy of music and memories Pete Finney leaves behind. The steel guitarist and music historian was beloved across country music, and performed with some of country music’s biggest stars, along with many of the favorite honky tonkers and Americana stalwarts that make up Nashville’s rich artist community. Pete Finney passed away on Saturday, February 7th at the age of 70.

Finney almost became a small footnote in country history early on in his career. He was part of Reba McEntire’s band during the fateful plane crash in 1991 that killed eight of Finney’s fellow band members along with two crew personnel. He happened to be on the other plane that fateful day ferrying the rest of Reba’s band and crew.

Pete Finney was originally from the Washington DC area, learning to play piano at age 5. When he was 7 or 8, some family friends who were traditional folk musicians started teaching him guitar. Finney’s parents didn’t play music, but were big music fans, and had a big house where they would host parties for local and regional musicians. This included musician and archivist Joe Hickerson, who catalogued folk songs at the Library of Congress. This is where Finney got his affinity for keeping up with the history of music too.

Finney soon became obsessed with the sound of the steel guitar, first through seeing folk musicians recording in Nashville with folks like Pete Drake, and rock bands with steel guitar like Poco. This eventually led him to an affinity for country music. During a trip to Nashville, he stopped by the Sho-Bud showroom, which is where Robert’s Western World is currently located, and fell in love with the instrument.

Finney was a self-described hippie country guy in the mid ’70s. He finally got a steel guitar of his own and was gigging regularly in Washington DC when he talked himself onto a local gig featuring Kinky Friedman and Doug Sahm from Austin, TX. That ended up being Finney’s ticket out of DC and to the Live Music Capitol of the World where he moved in 1979 to be a member of Doug Sahm’s band.

The Doug Sahm gig didn’t last long though. Sahm was in and out of Austin, and often unreliable. So Finney found more steady work with early ’80s star Sylvia, which eventually led him from Texas to Nashville.

“He was the first person I hired to play steel guitar in my band back in early 1983. He lived in Texas at the time and moved to Nashville to work with me on the road which he did for the next 5 years,” Sylvia said in a remembrance. “Pete was such a kind and gentle soul and a wonderful musician. He was also a walking encyclopedia of the history of country music!”

Another performer who Pete Finney would regularly perform with was Hall of Famer Patty Loveless, who carried Finney in her band for more than 20 years. But he played on an off for quite a few other country stars during this time too, including Vince Gill, The Judds, and the [Dixie] Chicks. He also played local gigs and at times toured with Beck, Justin Townes Earle, Jon Lanford, Jon Byrd, Sarah Gayle Meech, Allison Morrer, Candi Stanton, Shemekia Copeland, and more.

Finney also had an affinity for playing with other local musicians in Nashville like Chris Scruggs. They were both in the Stone Fox 5 for a spell that had a standing residency for years at The Stone Fox in West Nashville. He also performed with “Cousin” Kenny Vaughan, and the two were roommates together on Patty Loveless tours. Finney also worked with former Monkees member Michael Nesmith, and later Mickey Dolenz on a 2021 Michael Nesmith tribute tour.

Then there was the whole other side of Pete Finney’s musical contributions that centered around his work as a historian. Most notably, he worked as a direct consultant on the Country Music Hall of Fame’s major exhibit “Dylan, Cash, and the Nashville Cats” that ran from 2015 to 2018, and still runs accompanying programming today.

Highly respected among his steel guitar and musician peers in Nashville, the passing of Pete Finney was mourned, but also marked by fond remembrances by the people he performed for and with for 50 years.

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