Known for her lush, vibrant tone and impeccable intonation, Cindy Cashdollar is one of the planets finest lap slide guitarists. She has played with Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, the Dixie Chicks, Dolly Parton, and Merle Haggard, and she earned five Grammy Awards as a member of the swinging Asleep at the Wheel.

Velvet Shimmer

One of Cashdollars favorite instruments is her Electro Hawaiian Model I, built by Southern California luthier Bill Asher. Inspired by Weissenborn hollowneck acoustics from the 1920s, Asher designed the Electro Hawaiian for Ben Harper in 1998. Built from Honduras mahogany and routed with cylindrical body chambers, the 25"-scale lap slide guitar features a figured koa top and fretboard, a curly maple bridge with an aluminum saddle, an ebony nut, Gotoh tuners, and a nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Its two custom humbuckers are connected to a 3-way toggle switch and master volume and tone controls. The latters pull pot is wired to split the pickup coils. My Asher sounds amazing, says Cashdollar, like rich, dark velvet with shimmer on top. Finallya Weissenborn sound you can hear onstage.

Equally at home picking a vintage Dobro, an old National resonator guitar, or laying down fat horn voicings on a tripleneck 8-string steel, Cashdollar is a master of bluegrass, gutbucket blues, honky tonk, swampy R&B, and Western swing. Cashdollar visits each of these worlds in her long-awaited debut solo album, Slide Show [Silver Shot]. Joined by Dobro master Mike Auldridge, pedal-steel legend Herb Remington, slide guru Sonny Landreth, and Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna cofounder Jorma Kaukonen, Cashdollar explores the full range of slide sonics, from sweet and sassy to gritty and growling and all points in between.

Two slide players is a dangerous concept. Whats the definition of a half-step? Two slide guitarists playing in unison [laughs]. The potential for disaster is real, but theres an advantage, too, because you both have leeway to adjust your tuning. Fortunately, the players who join me on Slide Show all have great pitch and know how to listen. To avoid getting a big mish-mash of notes, I made sure our instruments were panned apart in the mix. That way listeners could hear how we spontaneously responded to each others playing.

Like a chain letter? I hated the thought of doing this album that way. Actually, you need to be face-to-face when playing such an unforgiving instrument as slide guitar. You have to watch your partners body movements, and be able to feel the air around him to sense what hes going to do. For that reason, we recorded all the tunes livethough I went back and redid a line here and there.

Not really. I could only get these people on the fly, which is why this record took three-and-a-half years to finish. We had a small budget, so there wasnt time to get together with anybody in advance of the session. Wed go into the studio and slog it out as we went along. One exception is Sliding Home, a beautiful tune originally recorded by Jim Weider [on the album Big Foot]. I knew it would be way too difficult to do without some advance planning, so I sent the track to Sonny [Landreth] along with an arrangement Id charted outcomplete with you are here areas marked with highlighter [laughs]. He was familiar with the music before he came to Austin to record it.

Sonny tuned his Strat to open D [D, A, D, F#, A, D, low to high], and my Campbell 6-string lap steel was in Dobro open G, which is G, B, D, G, B, D.

Yes. Actually, on Spanish Fandango, you can hear both tunings. Steve James tuned his National Resophonic Style EN to the guitar open G [D, G, D, G, B, D], and I tuned my 1929 National Tricone to Dobro open G.

Rightthough my first instrument was guitar, and the first slide I heard was John Fahey playing bottleneck. Even when I picked up the Dobro and started to play with a tonebar, I was listening to bottleneck music. Then I discovered Mike Auldridge, and I got involved with bluegrass. Id see him at festivals all the time, and he became a huge inspiration. He was my idol when I was learning Dobro. Ironically, if it werent for Mike, I wouldnt be playing steel. When he got an 8-string resonator and recorded Eight String Swing, it made me want to add more strings, too. I got an 8-string steel, and I began to explore the world of Western swing.

It was a thrill to have Mike play on Slide Show. I asked him to surprise me by bringing a couple of tunes for us to work out in the studio. He had his 8-string Deneve resonator, which has a big range. It was a creative challenge for me to come up with 6-string resonator parts to play in tandem with his. Once we took a few minutes to go over the two songs, it became clear what voicings each of us should use, who would take the low road and who would take the high road, and where one of us needed to back off a bit to let the music breathe. Having listened to him for so many years, I knew his phrasing and timing, so it wasnt too hard to work around his lines. Id watch his shoulder, and Id know when he was going to lay into it. For The Other Woman in My Life, I played my Paul Beard resonator tuned to open G. On Keep My Heart, I used my tobacco sunburst 37 Dobro Model 27 tuned to open A [A, C#, E, A, C#, E]. That Dobro is the first resonator guitar I owned.

I love the different sounds so much. The Nationals are a little grittier and organic with a gutbucket appeal. The original tricone modelsthe type of Nationals I playdont sustain as much as a Dobro, so theyre a bit funkier. If I think something needs a little dirt rubbed on iteven a country track where its less expectedIll use the National. The Dobro is a little sweeter, and it can be really pretty. But I dont think these differences should dictate or limit the musical context. A funky blues might sound great with a Dobro. To me, music is like cookinga mix of sweet and sourand these different resonator tones are my spices.

I have a new National Baritone Style 1 Tricone, which I posed with on the album cover. Such a beautiful low end! For the baritone, I use the same Dobro G tuning, but dropped down to open C, D, or E. I also have a Bill Asher Electro Hawaiian thats the most amazing instrument Ive ever owned. It sounds like an amplified Weissenborn. And it records great. I just used it on the new Ryan Adams album, Cold Roses. The Asher stays in open D.

As far as traditional steels, I love my old double-8 and triple-8 Fenders. I own a modern triple-8 Remington Steelmaster, and I had its George Ls pickups custom wound to Fender specs for a brighter tone. I run all my electrics through a new Fender 65 Twin Custom 15a Twin Reverb with a single 15" speaker. Im trilled with the sound. Its the perfect amp for non-pedal steel.

For overdrive on Sliding Homemy duet with SonnyI used an Ibanez TS9DX Turbo Tube Screamer that he gave me. I generally dont use pedals in the studio, because I find they compress the soundand theres already enough compression thrown on the tracks after youve done your job. Instead of using pedal distortion, I often run a lap steel through a small combo amp. On Something I Cant Do, for example, I cranked up a tweed 61 Gibson GA-20 Crest to get a gritty sound. I always use an Ernie Ball volume pedal with my steels.

Every room is different, so I like to take time to experiment. Ill play and have the engineer move the mic around until we find the sweet spot. Often thats down by the lower bout, pointing at the edge of the coverplate. You dont want to get too close in, because then you hear more fingerpick noise than anything. How much attack do you want? Thats what dictates the mics proximity to the coverplate. When I want a sound thats condensed and bassy, Ill move the mic away from the cone and more toward the neck. On my hollowneck Weissenborn, Ill use two micsone up at the neck and another over the soundhole.

For my acoustics, I have a custom tonebar that looks like a Stevens, except, instead of being square, the tip is rounded like a bullet-nose steel bar. The round end makes the transition from string to string so smooth. This bar has indentations like a Stevensso you can hang on for dear lifebut its much heavier, and it has a heat-treated matte finish that doesnt nick. With the lap steels, I use a John Pearse Thermo-Cryonic round bar with a 34" diameter.

I use a John Pearse Vintage Thumbpickit has a small tip, which I prefer to a typical thumbpicks larger tipand I wear Dunlop .0225-gauge nickel-silver fingerpicks on my index and middle fingers. Theyre indestructible and wont bend out of shape. And I put John Pearse strings on all my guitars. The specific gauges for each tuning are listed on my website [cindycashdollar.com].

It varies from day to day, but [jazz trumpeter and vocalist] Chet Baker has been my mainstay for years. I simply cant get enough of his phrasing and tone. I listen to a lot of bossa nova. My favorite is the record Stan Getz made with Joao Gilberto, Getz/Gilberto. Im enjoying David Alvins latest CD [Ashgrove] and Ben Harper with the Blind Boys of Alabama [There Will Be a Light]. I cant forget Daniel Lanois beautiful Shine. It made a big impression on me.

When you go into a studio, its tempting to make it this tremendous undertaking. Some people decide to record difficult material because they think its cool, or they hope it will impress the world. But its always better to choose songs youre comfortable with. You can sit there and Pro Tools all you want, but the music will never feel right unless youre comfortable, and, ultimately, thats what listeners care about.