Biller & Wakefield sound like a modern-day Speedy West & Jimmy Bryant on 1999 album, The Hot Guitars.of Biller & Wakefield:
“Martian Guts” Biller & Wakefield 1999
Coincidentally or not, 1999 would also be the year SpongeBob Squarepants would make its television debut. And just as Los Straitjackets would spearhead a movement to revitalize the instrumental, Jeremy Wakefield – virtuoso musician – would similarly use Nickelodeon’s broad commercial platform to reintroduce the gloriously warm sound of the (pre-pedal) steel guitar to the millennial generation and beyond. Wakefield, along with the other musicians and SpongeBob Music Director, Andy Paley, have done an outstanding job of incorporating western swing, hillbilly boogie, surf & spy guitar, Hawaiian steel music, and Hot Club-era gypsy jazz into the show’s soundtrack in all manner of ways.
1999 would also find Jeremy Wakefield and Dave Biller playing their respective guitars on Wayne Hancock’s Wild, Free & Reckless album, while Wakefield would peel off that same year to play steel guitar with Smith’s Ranch Boys on More Barnyard Favorites. The year prior, Wakefield would also play his Bigsby steel guitar on (future Los Straitjackets collaborator) Deke Dickerson & the Ecco-Fonics’ Number One Hit Record!
Wakefield’s musical contributions to the SpongeBob television show have earned him a reputation for upholding an older analog “vintage” sound, thus it is especially intriguing to learn that some of Wakefield’s earliest album credits would include digital keyboard sequencing for The Style Council, of all people, on 1985’s “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” EP. Wakefield would continue to work with The Style Council over the next 20 years or so.
other Albums on which Jeremy Wakefield plays steel guitar
- Wayne Hancock A-Town Blues 2001
- The Lucky Stars Stay Out with The Lucky Stars 2005
- The Bonebrake Syncopators That Da Da Strain 2008
Tracks on which Jeremy Wakefield plays steel guitar
- “Feathered Friends” from Hot Charity Rocket from the Crypt 1995
- “Sweet Jennie Lee!” from Swingin’ Stampede The Hot Club of Cowtown 1998
- “Took Hold of a Gypsy” from In the Land of Dreams Stanley Smith 2002
“Hawaiian Blues” music used in 2 episodes “Jellyfish Jam” & “SB-129”
Link to incidental SpongeBob steel guitar music clip posted on YouTube.