At the age of 10, Maness's father bought him a lap steel guitar and, after taking 12 of 13 classes, he emerged with a working knowledge of the instrument. On the California folk and country scene of the early 1960s, he played with a number of local acts, including Eddy Drake, Gene Davis and Norm Forrest, and found work as an in-demand session musician in the Los Angeles area. In the summer and autumn of 1967, he was one of the three session musicians that recorded with Gram Parsons' short-lived International Submarine Band. He first recorded with the band on a pair of singles before contributing to the group's sole album, Safe at Home. After the demise of the International Submarine Band, Maness joined the Byrds in the studio in early 1968 and played on their seminal Sweetheart of the Rodeo album, contributing pedal steel guitar on four of the album's 11 tracks: "The Christian Life", "You Don’t Miss Your Water", "You're Still on My Mind", and "Life in Prison". Maness toured with the Byrds in California, while the album was in post-production and, with the departure from the band of Parsons in August of 1968, his tenure with the Byrds ended. Maness next played with Buck Owens, who he stayed with for about 18 months. During this time the band had two No. 1 songs on the Billboard country music charts in 1969 and recorded two live albums.
The 1970s and 1980s
In 1970 Maness joined Tony Booth, who was then leading the house band at L.A.'s Palomino Club. He recorded with Booth on several of his early '70s Capitol albums, including The Key's in the Mailbox and Lonesome 7-7203. Maness has become a much in-demand session musician, recording or touring with Barbra Streisand, Vince Gill, Michael Nesmith, and Ray Price among others. According to musician Ray Stevens, one of Maness's most recognizable pedal steel solos occurred during a 1975 recording of Errol Garner and Johnny Burke's "Misty", while jamming in the studio with fellow musicians, which Stevens describes as "an accident... one of life's little bonuses." The track, which was recorded in two takes, and featured Maness's 20-second solo, won a Grammy Award for best arrangement of 1975 and became the title track of Stevens' Misty album of the same year.
In 1985, Maness became one of the founding members of country rock outfit the Desert Rose Band, with fellow ex-Byrd Chris Hillman and John Jorgenson, Herb Pedersen, Steve Duncan and Bill Bryson. He left the band in 1990, but returned to it in 1998 and has remained part of the line-up since then. Maness's acclaimed bridge solo on Eric Clapton's 1992 hit "Tears in Heaven" was, according to the musician, another piece of recording luck that came out of the blue for him:
"Eric Clapton is another long story. I went to the studio , got all my stuff loaded in, got inside and somebody told me 'Eric isn't feeling well and isn't going to show up today. Can you come back tomorrow?' So tomorrow comes, and Eric is there, feeling better. We took all day to do that one song. When he finally got the take that he wanted, I thought I was finished - I was unloading and putting stuff away. Eric says 'Wait, wait, I want you to do the solo on this record,' and we stayed, just the two of us, and finished. And the rest is history! It really became a good record for him. And I got a platinum record of that one on my wall, Eric signed it and gave it to me."
In 2018, Lloyd Green and Maness teamed up on the 50th anniversary of Sweetheart of the Rodeo to record Journey to the Beginning: A Steel Guitar Tribute to the Byrds at Cinderella Sound in Nashville for Coastal Bend Music. The album is an instrumental tribute to Sweetheart of the Rodeo, and opens with a recording of "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere" featuring guest vocalists Jeff Hanna, Herb Pedersen, Richie Furay, and Jim Lauderdale.
Awards
Maness has won the ACM award for steel guitar on 18 occasions.
