Pedal steel guitarist, composer and improviser Susan Alcorn exhibited artistic mastery in the truest sense. Alcorn, who died last month at the age of 71, demonstrated not only an outrageous amount of musical skill and knowledge of craft, but also a constant restlessness, an acknowledgment that while mastery of an instrument may be possible, it is never complete.

“I always had the feeling with her that she was never completely satisfied with what she did, never completely satisfied with the work,” bassist Michael Formanek, a longtime Alcorn collaborator, told CapitalBop over FaceTime recently, even as he marveled at the intricate virtuosity of her playing.

After cutting her teeth playing the instrument in country and western bands — its natural habitat — and having grown up with a mother who played piano with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, Alcorn dedicated her life to pushing the pedal steel guitar toward new sonic horizons. On the pedal steel guitar, she could conjure the harmonic power of a church organ in one moment and leap in the next into plucking and sliding on individual strings, creating twinkling notes, landing between sci-fi and pure feeling. She could make the instrument shriek with mirth or sing clearly, perfectly channeling the high-lonesome, western sound that the pedal steel is traditionally associated with in popular music. 

Alcorn settled in Baltimore in 2007 and for the last two decades of her life became deeply intertwined with the creative music communities of Baltimore and D.C. Quietly, she helped foster creativity in these cities and mentored like-minded musicians, whether they were established veterans like Formanek or burgeoning forces like cellist Janel Leppin. 

We asked a few of Alcorn’s close collaborators to recall her wonder in their own words, as we remember the art and life of Susan Alcorn.

MARY HALVORSON

GUITARIST

Susan was a special musician: an innovator of the pedal steel guitar, and a master improviser. Her sound was instantly identifiable, and there was a certain electricity and beauty that ran through it all: wild and unpredictable, soulful and melodic. She elevated any project she was a part of.

I’ve never had anyone work as hard on my music as Susan did when she was learning my octet music. Initially we had a lot of back and forth about how I should approach writing for the pedal steel, which for me was and is a very daunting instrument with so many knee levers, foot pedals, strings, etc. Susan was so gracious in showing me how the instrument worked, and what it was and wasn’t possible to play.

Once she had my final compositions, she transcribed each piece into her own pedal steel notation, which made it easier for her to read: I remember seeing these large score-like pages with all kinds of notes and symbols and highlights — for each piece, maybe 11 or 12 pages. I wish I had these to look at now. It was very cumbersome with the page turns, and after doing all that she decided to just memorize all the complicated pieces of music because it was easier than reading. So, in the end she memorized the entire book of music; all this must have taken months of her time.

The dedication and intensity she put into each musical endeavor was quite striking. And she instinctively knew how to play on and off the page, in a way that would transform a piece of music differently each time. Susan’s playing was like electricity. She would start to play what was written, and then there were these beautiful moments where she would just soar into improvisation, occasionally abruptly but usually gradually, getting off the page and elevating the music and the energy of the entire ensemble. What was most incredible to me was that this never happened the same way twice. It brought a level of unpredictability and magic to the music and I loved that about her playing. 

SIMONE BARON

ACCORDIONIST

Susan was so much more than people realize. Sometimes I think that if we had her for another five to 10 years, she might have either blown up or continued in obscurity, probably because she just didn’t really have an ego or a pretentious bone in her body. This to me is both beautiful and infuriating. I’m sad that at the end of her life, even when she was a name people knew, she was still playing for little more than gas money, yet now people are coming out of the woodwork to call her a luminary. Lots of strong feelings about that.

Susan was so down-to-earth, she always made time for everyone. After shows, even when I was annoyed or exhausted, she’d still engage people with kindness and openness and a generosity of attention that I admired her capacity for. It didn’t matter to her how “prestigious” a gig was; if she was on it, she’d give the same amount of care, attention and thoughtfulness to a setlist and would listen/mix/post recordings afterwards if she liked it.  

One of my strongest memories is playing [a certain gig] with her. The drive up and down was a hang I’ll never forget, and there was an incredible rainbow right before the show that we both enjoyed. But … my accordion reed block fell out towards the beginning and I had to fix it onstage, and she wasn’t totally happy either. But she was a trooper, cracking jokes. At the end, I thought, “Let’s unleash all rage, go weird and intense, make all the noise.” She started playing – sometimes she’d drop into her tunes, like “Mercedes Sosa” from one of her last albums, Canto, or fragments of things we played together. Then she started playing Pablo Casals’ “Song of the Birds.”

I knew the gig was ending, and I was kind of annoyed – we hadn’t even gotten to be as weird as we wanted…. But on the drive back, I bit my tongue. We talked about it a little, and she said, “We have to think about the audience.” It wasn’t about making people happy or pleasing them; it was about what was right, what was needed in the energy after everything that had happened. And she felt that was it.

MICHAEL FORMANEK

BASSIST

At first, I think with Susan, you’re … blown away with what you’re hearing — just the sounds you’re hearing — and how there’s a cognitive dissonance between what you heard that instrument do in the past and then what she’s doing at any given moment. 

Also, we started to talk a little bit early on and she started to explain certain things about the instrument and about writing for the instrument and how different it really was. I didn’t really understand it; I think I was probably more exposed to slide guitar and lap steel and things like that. In my musical world, pedal steel didn’t exist that much, although I knew it from all those great introductions from country songs. Every time I would see her or hear her play, I was … blown away, not even totally understanding how she’s doing what she’s doing….

It was a couple of years before we got much into playing her music or music she had arranged, like … the Piazzolla…. I know I played at least two or three concerts with a lot of Astor Piazzolla music, and at least one of those, it was mixed with some of her music. It was unbelievable what she did with that music. I didn’t know Astor Piazzolla’s music very well or tango very well, but she would come up with these great pieces and say, “Oh, here’s a recording of this one. Here’s a recording of this one.” … Playing them with her was very special, very unique. 

Her pieces were always an adventure for me. They were really beautiful. They made perfect sense musically when she’d explain them and when you’d hear her play them…. Whatever the music was, she had it so completely dedicated to memory and her internal self that she could just go back and say, “Here it is,” and play it over and over and over again. 

To see her play something … an Olivier Messiaen piece, and the intricacy of what she was doing and how she’d figured out how to get those intervals on that instrument – it was just complete mystery….

I’d like to think I play a lot of music that is totally without genre or style or anything like that … anything you could fall into a comfort zone with. Hers really was completely a thing unto itself. The melodies are really strong, recognizable and personal. The sound with which she executed it was like that. I always felt like I had this responsibility to find the right voice to accompany it — and I never felt like I would find it. She would also let you know if things weren’t going the right way, but she would still leave it up to me to figure it out…. Improvising with her always felt very connected and personal.

JANEL LEPPIN

CELLIST

I knew I wanted Susan to be my mentor when I saw her play for the first time in 2008, where we were both performing at High Zero festival in Baltimore. Every time I play, I hear Susan’s voice in my head. We wove in and out of each other’s lives over those many years and had profound experiences both onstage and off, as friends and in our teacher-student relationship. She had high expectations of me and for that I am forever grateful. The lyrics I wrote to her piece “Suite for AHL” sum up how I feel about the legend Susan Alcorn. May she forever be remembered as a deeply committed musician, a fighter against injustice and fascism, and a beautiful human being.

“Aunque su música no tiene palabras
podemos sentir su compassivo
amoroso corazón 
Maestra de las artes
una leyenda una curandera
Trabajando, siempre trabajando
Sin goce de sueldo.
Luchando por lo que el mundo 
de huy considera que es nada
Desplazarse mas allá de las limitaciones
brutales de la tradición.
Aquí, me siento libre. Cuando los instrumentos
débiles del hombre negarme me centro de tránsito
de la imaginación en el infinito y sin 
embargo descubrir mundos sonados.”

“Although her music has no words
we can feel your compassionate
loving heart.
Master of the arts, a legend, a healer.
Working, always working without pay.
Fighting for what the world 
considers to be nothing.
Moving beyond limitations
and the brutalities of tradition.
Here, I feel free. 
When the instruments of man deny me, I focus transit of the imagination on infinity and discover worlds yet dreamed of.”

-Lyrics by Janel Leppin (“The Heart Sutra Ideologic Organ”)

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