Steve Dawson is a Nashville-based pedal steel, slide, and fingerstyle guitarist, as well as a producer and recording engineer, whose work lives at the intersection of song, sound, and musicianship. Originally from Canada, he first came to prominence with the Juno Award-winning instrumental duo Zubot & Dawson, and has since spent more than two decades collaborating with artists and songwriters in studios and on stages around the world. In the years leading up to the pandemic, he was on the road playing guitar and pedal steel with Allison Russell’s band Birds of Chicago and Canadian powerhouse Matt Andersen.

At the core of Dawson’s work is a belief in live performance, feel, and musical conversation over perfection for its own sake. Whether producing, playing, or engineering, he’s drawn to records that sound human - shaped in the room, in real time. Pedal steel and slide guitar are central voices in his work, alongside acoustic, electric, and fingerstyle guitar.

Steve currently records and produces out of his Henhouse Studio in East Nashville, plays sessions remotely and in person, and tours regularly as a solo artist and with a band.

He is not the Steve Dawson from Chicago (Dolly Varden founder), or the one who slays the bass in Saxon.

Read the full bio→