DaShawn Hickman-Sacred Steel

203 S. Meeting St.,Statesville NC 28677

19 November, 2022

Description

One of today’s foremost Sacred Steel players, DaShawn Hickman channels the blues-gospel traditions of Pentecostal Holiness churches. The pedal steel was front and center, taking the lead instead of the organ, in the House of God church his family attended in Mt. Airy, NC. DaShawn Hickman grew up hearing his mom sing. She’d walk around the house and sing to the rhythm of the daily routine, loud enough for 8-year-old Hickman to catch the lines and play along on lap steel from his room down the hall. Sometimes, he’d ask her to sing it again until he got the line right. She’d self-rehearse to lead songs for the Sunday service at the House of God in Mount Airy, and he took lap steel lessons on the side. In the Hickman house, you learned the song first, before you start riffing around on the guitar. For many, pedal steel guitar is synonymous with country music. The instrument’s sinuous string bending and crying sound has long distinguished many of the songs coming out of Nashville and Bakersfield from pop, rockabilly, and blues. Sacred Steel brings the music back home to its roots.