<\/p>\n
Accomplished steel guitar player and producer Robby Turner, who has played with artists including Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, The Highwaymen and Chris Stapleton, died Thursday, Sept. 4, at age 63.<\/p>\n
Turner\u2019s son Bobby Turner confirmed the passing of his father on social media, writing<\/a>, \u201cWe\u2019re sad, but we know he\u2019s walking without any help, and he\u2019s no longer in pain.\u201d<\/p>\n More from Billboard<\/strong><\/p>\n Known as the \u201cMan of Steel,\u201d Turner played on projects including the 1976 album Wanted! The Outlaws, from Jennings, Nelson, Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser, which spawned the Jennings\/Nelson hit \u201cGood Hearted Woman\u201d and became the first country album to become certified<\/a> platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.<\/p>\n Turner also recorded and toured with country supergroup The Highwaymen (Jennings, Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash) and contributed to the group\u2019s 1990 project The Highwayman 2 and their 1995 album The Road Goes On Forever. He contributed to several of Jennings\u2019 albums and became the Country Music Hall of Famer\u2019s primary steel guitar player until Jennings\u2019 death in 2002.<\/p>\n In 2019, Turner was honored<\/a> as part of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum\u2019s Nashville Cats series. During his interview for the series, he said of working with Jennings, \u201cWaylon never really told us what to do\u2026we just played until he smiled.\u201d<\/p>\n Turner contributed to albums by Tanya Tucker, Randy Travis, John Prine, Marty Stuart, Jim Lauderdale, Loretta Lynn, Travis Tritt, The Oak Ridge Boys, and more recently, projects from Chris Stapleton, Sturgill Simpson and Colter Wall, playing on Stapleton\u2019s CMA Awards album of the year-winning projects Traveller and From A Room: Volume 1, Simpson\u2019s High Top Mountain, and Wall\u2019s self-titled album. He also performed with artists including Johnny Paycheck and The Chicks.<\/p>\n Turner was surrounded by music from an early age; his parents Doyle and Bernice Turner were part of Hank Williams Sr.\u2019s Drifting Cowboys<\/a> from 1946-1948.<\/p>\n During the Nashville Cats series, Turner also spoke of why he loved both recording steel guitar in the studio and also playing onstage. \u201cIt was part of my learning process,\u201d he said. \u201cI had to. I wasn\u2019t going to just fall right into the studio. [Steel guitar player, known for his work with George Jones, Tammy Wynette and others] Pete Drake, my mother would take me by there and drop me off at Pete\u2019s place\u2026when I was younger, [steel guitarist, known for work with artists including Dolly Parton and Charley Pride] Lloyd Green and Pete Drake owned the radio\u2026Pete asked me when I was 12, \u2018What do you want to be? A session player or a road guy, play with artists live?\u2019\u2026I thought about it and the next couple of months when I was down there\u2026I said, \u2018I want to be able to do both. I want to play on records and I want to produce records\u2026I\u2019ve had recording equipment since I was nine years old\u2026I want to do both, but I really want to concentrate on studio stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n Of performing with The Highwaymen, Turner said, \u201cThat was the greatest band that you could ever ask to play with\u2026the American rhythm section and those four guys. Sometimes I would literally pinch myself, it was like a dream\u2026it was one of the highlights of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n Along the way, Turner also released his own projects, including 1996\u2019s Man of Steel and 1998\u2019s Steel Country.<\/p>\n Jennings\u2019 son, musician\/producer Shooter Jennings, wrote<\/a> in tribute to Turner on X, \u201cSo sad to hear about Robby Turner. A once in a lifetime talent and the funniest guy I ever met. What a player. Was lucky to have toured and recorded with him many times. Rest in Peace, Robby.\u201d<\/p>\n Best of Billboard<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Billboard’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Accomplished steel guitar player and producer Robby Turner, who has played with artists including Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, The Highwaymen and Chris Stapleton, died Thursday, Sept. 4, at age 63. Turner\u2019s son Bobby Turner confirmed the passing of his father on social media, writing, \u201cWe\u2019re sad, but we know he\u2019s walking without any help, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2008790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[364020,364019,307956,364021,363701,339645,366962,363700,22640],"class_list":["post-2008789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-bernice-turner","tag-bobby-turner","tag-chris-stapleton","tag-jessi-colter","tag-robby-turner","tag-shooter-jennings","tag-the-highwaymen","tag-waylon-jennings","tag-willie-nelson"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Steel-Guitar-Player-Robby-Turner-Known-as-\u2018Man-of-Steel.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2008789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2008789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2008789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2008790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2008789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2008789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2008789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}