“Man of Steel” Robby Turner Has Passed Away

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He played as a primary musician in the band for The Highwaymen. He was the final steel guitar player and producer for Waylon Jennings. He played on Sturgill Simpson’s High Top Mountain and Chris Stapleton’s Traveller. He earned the nickname the “Man of Steel,” which he titled his 1996 album after.

He was one of the most respected steel guitar players to ever take the stool, and a staunch country music traditionalist. He was Robby Turner, and similar to the strings he made weep on so many records and songs, the country music community lets out a collective cry at news of his passing. He died on Thursday, September 4th at the age of 63.

Robby Turner’s parents, Doyle and Bernice Turner, played in Hank Williams Drifting Cowboys band from 1946 to 1948. His father was a steel guitar player and his mother played rhythm guitar. Robby was born into country music if anyone ever was, and by the time he was 9, he was playing drums and touring with The Wilburn Brothers. Drums would be Robby’s first instrument, but they certainly wouldn’t be his last. Turner is proficient with pretty music anything with strings, including a piano. But his passion was to follow in his father’s footsteps and play steel guitar.

At the age of eleven, Robby was working in a local honky tonk in Paragould, Arkansas three nights a week to save up enough money to buy his own steel guitar. At the age of 12, Shot Jackson of the Sho-Bud steel guitar company sponsored the young Turner by giving him his own rig—the youngest such player to be endorsed by the company.

For the next fifteen years Robby played and toured with acts such as The Singing Rambos and Charlie Rich, and began to be known for his studio work, both as a player and a producer. But it was in 1990 when everything would change significantly, and Turner’s legacy would be cemented.

Well-known producer Chips Moman was looking to field a group of musicians to be the backing band for the supergroup The Highwaymen with Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, and Kris Kristofferson. Chips Moman asked Turner if he wanted the steel guitar position. Robby ultimately became a staple of The Highwaymen sound, and perhaps even more importantly, the gig led to a close friendship with Waylon Jennings that lasted all the way up to Waylon’s death in 2002.

From the start of The Highwaymen until the very end of Waylon’s life, Robby was Waylon’s go-to steel player, and one of his seminal right hand men. Turner performed on Waylon’s last nine albums, along with touring with him regularly. If you want to know where some of the early comparisons between Sturgill Simpson and Waylon Jennings come from, it’s partly due to the presence of Robby Turner on both of their recordings.

In 2012, Robby Turner took on the solemn and important task of finishing a collection of songs Waylon recorded before his death. Waylon went into Robby’s “Turner-Up” studio to cut his final recordings—just simple vocal and guitar tracks, and left them in the care of Robby with the instructions to finish them some day. And finish them he did, resulting in 2012’s Goin’ Down Rockin’ – The Last Recordings.

But Robby Turner’s total contributions range incredibly far of field. He toured the world with the [Dixie Chicks] as their steel guitar player. He’s worked in one capacity or another on albums from Willie Nelson, Travis Tritt, Jim Lauderdale, Deryl Dodd, Randy Travis, Paul Simon, Rodney Crowell, Charlie Robison, Mark Chesnutt, Gary Allan, Marty Stuart, Jamey Johnson, Nikki Lane, Billy Done Burns, and so many more.

It was really his contributions with Sturgill Simpson and Chris Stapleton through the connection of producer Dave Cobb that allowed Robby Turner to touch the most recent generation of country fans with his work.

It is the job of side players to be secondary to the music, and Robby Turner took this task solemnly. But those who knew Robby Turner did not think of him as secondary to anyone. He was a living country music legend, just like the big names he backed. And now he will take his rightful place in the all-star country band in the sky.

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