Steel Guitar Hall of Famer Tommy Detamore Dies at 70, Country Music World Mourns

Tommy Detamore, the pedal steel guitarist, record producer, and sound engineer whose fingerprints are on hundreds of country and Americana albums, died Wednesday, August 5, at the age of 70. His wife of 41 years, Sandra Detamore, confirmed the news. No cause of death has been publicly disclosed. Detamore was born September 8, 1955, in Charlottesville, Virginia, and had made his home in Floresville, Texas, for decades.

A Career Built in the Background

Detamore was the kind of musician whose name took time to learn. He rarely chased the spotlight, preferring to shape other people’s records rather than lead his own. But anyone who has followed country music closely knows his sound. He picked up guitar as a teenager in Virginia, took up pedal steel in 1976 while studying under steel guitar legend Buddy Charleton, and moved to Texas in 1981 to play with Darrell McCall. A year later, he joined Moe Bandy’s touring band, where he stayed for seven years. That stretch took him across the United States and Europe, and onto the stages of the Grand Ole Opry, Hee Haw, and Nashville Now.

Cherry Ridge Studio

In 1991, Detamore opened Cherry Ridge Studio in Floresville, Texas, and it became the center of his life for the next three decades. The studio attracted everyone from Texas country legends to newer acts looking for a producer who understood the genre at its roots. Over the years, he worked with Ray Price, Ronnie Milsap, Johnny Bush, Jim Lauderdale, Doug Sahm, The Texas Tornados, Robert Earl Keen, and Sunny Sweeney, among many others. In 2001, he engineered and performed on Bill Kirchen’s album Poultry in Motion, which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Country Instrumental Performance. In 2008, the Academy of Western Artists honored him with the Will Rogers Award for Record Producer of the Year. His most recent credit was serving as master engineer on Ty Myers’ 2025 debut album The Select, which went platinum.
From 2009 to 2012, he also performed regularly in the classic country revue San Antonio Rose Live at San Antonio’s historic Aztec Theatre. He was a member of the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame. Outside of music, Detamore was active in his faith community, playing guitar and steel guitar at Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio, serving as Pastor of Music at Oak Hills Baptist Church in Floresville, and playing at First Baptist Church in Floresville and Life Church in La Vernia.

Tributes

Sandra Detamore shared a tribute online describing her husband as a respected musician, producer, collaborator, mentor, and creative force in country music. She wrote that she hears his impact not on anniversaries or in old photographs, but in the everyday sound of country radio itself. She added that just recently, the family had been celebrating another project he produced and played on that went platinum.
Singer Sunny Sweeney, whose debut album Detamore produced, called his death an irreplaceable loss. Jim Lauderdale posted a tribute calling Detamore one of the finest musicians and producers he had ever worked with. Tracy Pitcox, who worked with Detamore extensively in Texas country circles, remembered him as someone who always knew exactly what a song needed and how to get it there.
Source:

• Saving Country

• Music

• That Eric

• Alper