Just heard the sudden news of innovator Susan Alcorn passing away via IG. She was born the same year that I was: 1953. So it's another reminder of the passing of time and people. It's a surprise because I had seen her last year and as usual her music was exploratory and visited many areas standard music doesn't dare. Here is an obituary in Stereogum:
Susan Alcorn, the pioneering pedal steel player who steered the instrument in experimental, improvisational directions, has died. The High Zero Foundation, an experimental music organization and festival producer in Alcorn’s home base of Baltimore, announced the news on X this morning, sparking a flurry of tributes from Alcorn’s disciples and fellow experimental music icons.
Alcorn was born in Cleveland in 1953. She started playing guitar at age 12 and began experimenting with slide guitar as a teen after randomly meeting Muddy Waters; by adulthood she had switched to the pedal steel. She got her start playing in country bands in Houston in the early ’70s and began experimenting with the instrument in the ’80s, running it through a synthesizer to mimic the sound of other instruments and arranging John Coltrane’s “Naima” for pedal steel.
“I was doing country gigs and listening to Albert Ayler and people at the gigs would tell me I sounded different for some reason,” Alcorn told NPR in a 2020 feature about the experimental pedal steel scene. “When I got into Ornette Coleman, most of the musicians I knew in Houston didn’t want to play with me anymore because it was like I was out-of-tune or something.”
In 1990, Alcorn attended the first Deep Listening retreat organized by Pauline Oliveros, the accordionist and electronic music pioneer, who also lived in Houston. She credited her friendship with Oliveros with further expanding her understanding of what the pedal steel could do. Gradually, Alcorn built up a reputation as a one-of-a-kind visionary, one whose 2006 composition “And I Await The Resurrection Of The Pedal Steel Guitar” helped spark a renaissance surrounding the instrument.
In that NPR feature, Chuck Johnson, one of the pedal steel players who was profoundly influenced by Alcorn, said, “I don’t think you can overstate the importance of the fact that, when you ask who’s pushing the instrument forward, the answer is there are these two women — Susan Alcorn and Heather Leigh. More than any other instrument I know, the culture around [pedal steel] is so male dominated.” Alcorn collaborated with a staggering number of noteworthy musicians, including Oliveros, Jandek, Mary Halvorson, Joe McPhee, Ken Vandermark, Josephine Foster, and many more.
Tributes are pouring in today from other experimental titans like David Grubbs, Drew Daniel, and Wendy Eisenberg. Below, check out some of Alcorn’s music and read some of those tributes.