I just made up a saying: “It’s not how good you look, it’s how good you sound,” and that sentence sums up this sweet little National lap steel. I once had a lead singer that looked like a watermelon farmer, but he sounded like a tenor angel when he started singing. I guess this old lap brought back some fond memories of my past band days…
Being approximately 80-years-old, this lap steel shows many signs of emitting sweet slide sounds for a very long time. Just look at the photos: they perfectly tell the story of eight decades of making music and the greatest part is, she’s still going strong. This steel is loud and the difference between the Chimes, Hawaiian, and Harp tones are clear and distinguishable. The controls work smoothly and without any noise and the package includes the original cord, a cool old slide bar, and some fingerpicks. It’s a great vintage package for not a lot of biscuits.
On a side note, it’s been well-documented in the past that when I get a really cool bass into the shop, I detail it out and break out into some Iron Maiden, which is one of my all-time, most favorite bands. That gets me the hugely-feared “stink-eye” from the wife and there have been times when my recovery from them was slow and painful. But, when I found myself with this lap, an amp, a slide, and a bunch of fingerpicks, well… you know what I had to do. Folks, at a fairly high volume, I quickly figured out and played a couple of run-throughs of “Run To the Hills” and it did not take very long before I was the unfortunate recipient of my first-ever “double stink-eye.” In some Florida counties, what happened to me is called domestic violence. After it was all over, she called it “just desserts.” Kirk out and heavily wounded.
