Great Speckled Bird was a country rock group formed in 1969 by the Canadian musical duo Ian & Sylvia.
 Ian Tyson sang, played guitar and composed.
 Sylvia Tyson sang, composed and occasionally played piano.
 The other founding members were Amos Garrett on guitar and occasional vocals, Ben Keith on steel guitar, Ken Kalmusky on bass and Ricky Marcus on drums.
 They were named after the song, "The Great Speckled Bird", as recorded by Roy Acuff(1938).
"The Great Speckled Bird" is a hymn from the Southern United States whose lyrics were written by the Reverend Guy Smith.
 It is an allegory referencing Fundamentalist self-perception during the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy.
 The song is in the form of AABA and has a 12 bar count.
 It is based on Jeremiah 12:9, ""Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her; come ye, assemble all the beasts of the field, come to devour.""
 It was recorded in 1936 by Roy Acuff.
 It was also later recorded by Johnny Cash and Kitty Wells (both in 1959), Pearly Brown (1961), Hank Locklin (1962), Marty Robbins (1966), Lucinda Williams (1978), Bert Southwood (1990), Marion Williams, and Jerry Lee Lewis.
Great Speckled Bird is a country rock album by Great Speckled Bird, a band formed in 1969 by Canadian musicians Ian and Sylvia Tyson.
 The other group members at the time of recording were Buddy Cage, on pedal steel guitar, Amos Garrett, on guitar and backup vocals, and N.D. Smart, on drums.
 Nashville session musicians David Briggs and Norbert Putnam sat in, with Briggs on piano and Putnam on bass guitar.
 Although founding member Ken Kalmusky is listed in the original liner notes, he had actually departed the group prior to recording.
Brian John "B. J." Cole (born 17 June 1946) is an English pedal steel guitarist, who has long been active as a session and solo musician.
 Coming to prominence in the early 1970s with the band Cochise, Cole has played in many styles, ranging from mainstream pop and rock to jazz and eclectic experimental music, but has never forgotten the instrument's roots in country music.
 Through his varied and extensive session work and long career as a performer, he has come to be regarded as Britain's pre-eminent pedal steel guitarist.
 Cole also plays lap steel and dobro.
The Great Speckled Bird was a counterculture underground newspaper based in Atlanta, Georgia from 1968 to 1976.
 It was founded by New Left activists from Emory University and members of the Southern Student Organizing Committee, an offshoot of Students for a Democratic Society.
 Founding editors included Tom and Stephanie Coffin, Howard Romaine and Gene Guerrero Jr.
 The first issue appeared March 8, 1968, and within 6 months it was publishing weekly.
 By 1970 it was the third largest weekly newspaper in Georgia with a paid circulation of 22,000 copies.
 The paper subscribed to Liberation News Service, a leftist news collective.
 The office of "The Great Speckled Bird" at the north end of Piedmont Park (240 Westminster Dr.) was firebombed and destroyed on May 6, 1972 after the paper published an exposé of the mayor of Atlanta.
Bennett Keith Schaeufele (March 6, 1937 – July 26, 2010), better known by his stage name Ben Keith, was an American musician and record producer.
 Known primarily for his work as a pedal steel guitarist with Neil Young, Keith was a fixture of the Nashville country music community in the 1950s and 1960s before working with numerous successful rock, country and pop artists as both a producer and versatile, multi-instrumentalist sideman for over four decades.
Mark Spencer, (born September 28, 1957 in Champaign, Illinois) is an American guitarist, steel guitarist, engineer, multi-instrumentalist, and musician currently based in Brooklyn, New York.
 An original member of seminal alt-country band Blood Oranges, he continues to work as an in-demand band member and sideman with a diverse range of new and established musical artists.
 He is currently a member of the band Son Volt, and appears on their 2009 release American Central Dust as lap and pedal steel guitarist, keyboardist, background vocalist, and engineer.
Jeff Newman (January 7, 1942 – April 7, 2004) was an American country musician who played the pedal steel guitar.
 He was a veteran Nashville session player.
 A devoted teacher and player, Newman also wrote a column for the short-lived specialty magazine "Steel Guitarist", appearing on the cover of the September 1979 issue.
 He is widely regarded as having been the premier instructor of the Pedal Steel Guitar and, together with his wife, Fran, operated the Jeffran College of Pedal Steel Guitar outside Nashville for many years.
 His instructional material remains available and popular as of this writing (2017).
 Newman was inducted into the International Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 1999.
Paul V. Franklin (born May 31, 1954 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American multi-instrumentalist, known mainly for his work as a steel guitarist.
 He began his career in the 1970s as a member of Barbara Mandrell's road band; in addition he toured with Vince Gill, Mel Tillis, Jerry Reed and Dire Straits.
 He has since become a prolific session musician in Nashville, Tennessee, playing on more than 500 albums.
 He has been named by the Academy of Country Music as Best Steel Guitarist on several occasions.
 In addition to the pedal steel guitar and lap steel guitar, Franklin plays Dobro, fiddle, and drums, as well as three custom-built instruments called the Pedabro, The Box, and the baritone steel guitar.
The Dead Livers is the name of a country rock band formed in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, in April 1978.
 Formative members were Marty Atchison (vocals), Brendan Mitchell (guitar and steel guitar), Michael Schack (bass guitar), Edward Mitchell (guitar) and Tony Pizzi (drums).
 Later members included Richard O'Keefe (drums), Warren Keats (guitar), Peter Thorne (guitar), John Berto (guitar), Randy Broughten (pedal steel guitar)(before joining the Gear Daddies in the US), Bob Suffern (pedal steel guitar), Rodger Delfos (guitar), Ross Nicholson (guitar and vocals), Craig Reeves (piano), Les Gough (bass guitar), Ron Mahony (drums), Don Farrell (guitar) and Mark Meallin (guitar).

Question: Of the founding members of the country rock group, Great Speckled Bird, who was primarily known for his work as a pedal steel guitarist?
Answer: Ben Keith