page_title: Sneaky Pete Kleinow
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Sneaky Pete Kleinow / Biography
caption_attribution_description: 1970s artifacts at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. 5 ...phen Stills &amp; Crosby, Stills and Nash Portrait C. 1969 ... 6 ..., 1965 ... 7 Joni Mitchell Electric Guitar, 1978 Ibanez George Benson Model Collection of the Rock &amp; Roll Hall of Fame and Museum ... 8 ... ... 9 Lyric Fragment of "My Old Man" Written by Joni Mitchell Recorded by Joni Mitchell Released on Blue, 1971 Collection of Joef Bernstein Reproduction ... 10 Pete Kleinow of the Flying Burrito Brothers Stage Suit, 1968 ... 11 ... Crosby's seamless harmonies possess the ability to soothe and electrify. The guitar seen here is made of koa, a wood found only in Hawaii. Guitar-maker Robert Lee gave this instrument to Crosby as a birthday present. 12 Pete Kleinow of the Flying Burrito Brothers Pedal-Steel Guitar Fender 400 Collection of Anita Kleinow ... 13 ... and Jim Messina, ... Finally, in 1979, their 11th album, Legend, reached the Top 20. Paul Cotton wore this shirt on the cover of Poco's 1982 album, Backtracks. 14 John McEuen of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Banjo ... 15 Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young in Santa Monica, California, 1959 ... 16 "Heart ... ... Flickr Tags: ohio guitar cleveland instrument 1970s rockandrollhalloffame. Flickr Tags: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Cleveland Ohio. from Flickr album "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame" by Sam Howzit
context_page_description: Peter E. "Sneaky Pete" Kleinow was an American country-rock musician, songwriter, and motion picture special effects artist. He is best known as a member of the band the Flying Burrito Brothers and as a session musician for such artists as Neil Young, Joan Baez, Jackson Browne, The Byrds, Joe Cocker, Rita Coolidge, Eagles, The Everly Brothers, George Harrison, The Steve Miller Band, Joni Mitchell, The Rolling Stones, Ringo Starr, Stevie Wonder, Spencer Davis, Linda Ronstadt and many others.
context_section_description: Kleinow was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana; inspired by Jerry Byrd, he took up the pedal steel guitar in high school. Following graduation, he was employed for over a decade as a maintenance worker at the Michigan Department of Transportation. In 1963, he relocated to Los Angeles, where he began a career as a visual effects artist and stop motion animator in the film and television industry. After uncredited work on The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm (1962),  The Outer Limits (1963–1965), and 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964), Kleinow became closely associated with the long-running children's series Gumby and Davey and Goliath while moonlighting in the city's country-oriented nightclubs as a member of Smokey Rogers & the Western Caravan (from which his distinctive nickname originated) and the Detours (often deputizing for bandleader Red Rhodes, then concurrently employed as a session musician).
  Through this scene he became acquainted with Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons of the Byrds in 1968, helping the group to replicate their newly country-infused sound onstage with banjoist Doug Dillard on several local club dates. Guitarist Roger McGuinn later alleged that Hillman and Parsons intended to replace Dillard with Kleinow and did not countenance Kleinow's inclusion alongside Dillard in an upcoming European tour, a decision that hastened Hillman and Parsons' departure from the band. After signing to A&M Records and briefly considering Lloyd Green (who, as per Hillman, "would have never left a lucrative career as a session man to go out with us"), Parsons and Hillman invited Kleinow to join their new project: the Flying Burrito Brothers. For Kleinow, the opportunity was the culmination of his desire to "finally make a living with music," and he would work for much of the next decade as a professional musician. Never paragons of commercial success (the band's first album, The Gilded Palace of Sin, peaked at #164 on the Billboard album chart), the Flying Burrito Brothers would go on to influence generations of popular musicians.
  One of the first pedal steel players to work in a rock context, Kleinow favored the outmoded Fender 400, a cable-operated eight-string model. According to bandmate Bernie Leadon, "Sneaky uniquely played an eight-string Fender cable pull steel tuned to B6 instead of the more common C6. He played an usually more jazz or swing tuning in a style that most other players use an E9 tuning for. His rationale was [that] B is the 'five chord,' or dominant chord, to the key of E. This resulted in absolutely-to-Pete steel licks. And no one else thinks like him anyway." In addition to favoring atypical tunings, Kleinow liberally incorporated such electronic accoutrements as the fuzzbox, the Leslie speaker and the Echoplex into his style. His unorthodox style of playing would immediately influence a number of second-generation country rock pedal steel players, including Jerry Garcia, Buddy Cage of the New Riders of the Purple Sage and his eventual replacement in the Burrito Brothers, session musician Al Perkins.
  Favoring a relatively abstemious and reclusive lifestyle in comparison to some of his bandmates (nevertheless, according to bassist Chris Ethridge, he "loved to drink wine" and frequently exhibited science fiction films at the "Burrito Manor" shared by Parsons and Hillman in Reseda throughout 1968); intolerant of the group's infamously erratic live performances; and increasingly disenchanted by his exclusion from the creative process—including the diminution of his parts in released mixes and the summary rejection of his songwriting efforts—Kleinow eventually left the Flying Burrito Brothers in 1971. Despite this setback, the imprimatur of the band allowed Kleinow to enjoy a lucrative career as a session musician throughout this period. He appeared on albums by Joe Cocker (Joe Cocker!, 1969), Delaney, Bonnie and Friends (To Bonnie from Delaney, 1970), Joni Mitchell (Blue, 1971), Billy Joel (Cold Spring Harbor, 1971), Little Feat (Sailin' Shoes, 1972), Little Richard (The Second Coming1972), Frank Zappa
caption: The nudie suit worn by Kleinow on the cover of 1969's The Gilded Palace of Sin, along with his Fender 400 pedal steel guitar, displayed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
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