From the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s Facebook page: Steel guitarist Pete Finney, who died Saturday at age seventy, was a widely admired Nashville musician. He exemplified how top instrumentalists can adapt to a remarkable range of styles and settings, whether in a recording studio, a concert stage, or the corner of a small nightclub.
On America’s biggest stages, Finney backed the Chicks, Vince Gill, the Judds, Reba McEntire, and Patty Loveless, among others. He toured with Loveless for more than twenty years. He was touring with McEntire when eight members of her band and two crew members lost their lives in a plane crash in 1991; Finney survived because he flew on a second plane, with another musician and crew members.
Michael Nesmith, who made the pedal steel guitar an essential element of his solo work and his First National Band Recordings, recruited Finney in 2017 to tour with him, which included a final tour with the Monkees prior to Nesmith’s death in 2021.
A native of Maryland, Finney performed with Washington, D.C., mainstay Liz Meyer (ex-roommate of Emmylou Harris) until moving to Austin in the late 1970s to join Doug Sahm’s band. Relocating to Nashville in the mid-1980s, he toured with Foster & Lloyd and later contributed to the solo careers of Radney Foster and Bill Lloyd.
Along the way, Finney recorded and performed with a diverse array of artists including Beck, Jon Byrd, Shemekia Copeland, Justin Townes Earle, Jon Langford, Jim Lauderdale, Allison Moorer, Ron Sexsmith, and Candi Staton, among scores of others. He frequently performed in pickup bands in small Nashville clubs, where he might be seen with top-flight players such as Mac Gayden, Jen Gunderman, Jimmy Lester, Chris Scruggs, Kenny Vaughan, and others.
. . . . . . . . .
Read more of this glowing tribute here:
https://www.facebook.com/countrymusichof/posts/steel-guitarist-pete-finney-who-died-saturday-at-age-seventy-was-a-widely-admire/1328902645945467/