Lucky Oceans -The Steel, TheWheel, The Planet

Wed 17th Oct, 2007 in Features

Mr. Reuben Gosfield, better known as Lucky Oceans, is the man with the laid back voice you can hear on the show The Planet on Radio National (ABC). His style and his personal choice of programming brings you a wealth of knowledge and laughs as he gives you an experts view of all styles of music. After over 11 years of programming the show, sometimes silence is a nice thing. Lucky said, “I don’t listen to any music for pleasure. Just be quiet and let stuff breed in my mind. I’ve got to come up with a feature CD everyday. But it’s great; I have really been enjoying it.”

Lucky is an interesting musician and is definitely looking to expand the art of the pedal steel through his work. Lucky will be playing at The 1st Adelaide International Guitar Festival during the 23rd of November until the 2nd of December. He will be playing at the Slideshow concert on the 30th of November where you will get the opportunity to hear him show you his licks and his expertise on that most intriguing instruments, the pedal steel. Also,playing on the night will be Bob Brozman, Charlie Owen, Cindy Cashdollar and Roy Rogers (without Trigger!) to name a few.

Lucky began his life in Philadelphia and spent the 70s playing steel with a bunch of long hairs who liked playing country music. Damn hippies! But they learned their licks and paid their dues to become one of the best Western Swing bands in the world, Asleep The Wheel. But their beginnings were humble, and filled with apples!

” Ray Benson (co -founder of Asleep At The Wheel) and I grew up together and we are buddies from a suburb in Philadelphia. From elementary school we went to the same summer camps and we would just hang out, and we were just part of the same crew.
He used to like hanging at my place – œbecause my parents were relatively hip. We played in bands in high school and ended up going to different branches of the same college but we stayed in touch via correspondence,” said Lucky (Remember when people wrote actual letters?)

“We hooked up with Leroy Preston, from Vermont, and had a jam with him. Another friend of mine, his Dad, had a farm in Paw Paw, West Virginia. It was an apple orchard.He said any time you wanted to go up there just go up there; so we did and we moved in.”

“We basically squatted in this apple orchard, dropped out of college, and used to rehearse in the packing shed which was kept at 33 degrees Fahrenheit and we got a space heater and we’d pile up the apple crates and make a little area with blankets that we could rehearse on. That was the birth of Asleep At The Wheel!” recalled Lucky

“We went to the little clubs around therelike the V.F.W and The Sportsman Club and eventually we hooked up with Commander Cody. Ray had seen them come through his college and they were real inspirational and we played some gigs with them in Washington. They invited us out to California and Van Morrison heard us and recommended us to a record company and it was all down hill from there,” said Lucky.

“The rest was blistery,” Lucky joked, some oblique reference to his – œlove’ of cowboy boots and his wide feet. Things are a bit crazy out there in W.A.! Yes, those heady days of the 70s were just that with long sets of country and swing and people dancing for two sets a night. My memories of seeing both The Wheel and Commander Cody were of sometimes sparkling musicianship to ram shackling shows filled with insanity and people fuelled up with whatever came to hand. But as Billy C. Farlow sang back then…”there’s a whole lotta things that I never done, I ain’t never had too mch fun’! That was truly what it was about when you were at one of these shows.

Lucky has recorded a smorgasbord of steel playing on – œSecret Steel’, released on Head Records in 2005. Check out the review on this website when you get a moment. It is a very smooth recording and has some stellar playing from lucky and his mates.
(http://www.fasterlouder.com.au/reviews/music/3765/Lucky-Oceans-Secret-Steel.htm)
Besides that record he has released a couple of records with his band The Zydecats, who you can catch at Clancy’s in Fremantle every Sunday until further notice. So get down there on Sunday, have some fish and a beer and watch those crazy felines!

What does the near future hold for Mr.Oceans?

“Well I will be doing some emceeing at the Adelaide Festival. And I hope to be making a record with Dave Brewer who played on Secret Steel and who also used to play with the Mighty Reapers. The last release covered a lot of the fields with a Cajun track, a blues track and the like. With a new release I’d like to try and invent a new field or sound for the pedal steel,” said Lucky.

Maybe Lucky will be the man to take the pedal steel out of the honky tonk or the church, if you know Sacred Steel music, but whatever he does, I am sure it will be filled with the influences of music he has absorbed through the years. Keep your ears out for something new from the West of Australia and check out all things Lucky on his My Space page or the various websites linked at the bottom of this article.

Don’t forget to check out Lucky on Radio National daily presenting The Planet!