![\"Sneaky](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Sneaky-Pete-Kleinow-The-indelible-bridge-between-Gram-Parsons-and-Gremlins-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpeg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Gram Parsons \/ Album Cover \/ \tWarner Bros.)<\/p>\n
Sat 7 February 2026 23:30, UK <\/p>\n
During my senior year of college, my roommate and I decided to adopt a pet tortoise to serve as our apartment\u2019s resident mascot. <\/p>\n
With little discussion, we dubbed the little guy \u2018Sneaky Pete\u2019 \u2013 not just because it\u2019s an undeniably appropriate name for a turtle, but because we knew it would give us some opportunities to tell people about the man to whom we were paying homage: the country rock<\/a> legend Sneaky Pete Kleinow. <\/p>\n Probably best known as a member of the fabled Flying Burrito Brothers alongside ex-Byrds Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons, Kleinow was a master of the pedal steel guitar and one of the most trusted session players in Los Angeles through the 1970s, recording with everyone from Joni Mitchell and John Lennon to Frank Zappa, Stevie Wonder, Fleetwood Mac, and Leonard Cohen.<\/p>\n When Kleinow died in 2007 at the age of 72 after a battle with Alzheimer\u2019s, you would certainly assume that every obituary would begin by listing off that same powerhouse CV, but incredibly enough, music was just one of Sneaky Pete\u2019s creative endeavours, and maybe not even his most accomplished one.<\/p>\n In the 1960s<\/a>, before joining the Burrito Brothers, the Indiana-born Kleinow was spending most of his time in LA working in television, specifically as a visual effects artist. This included a stint on the crew of the cult sci-fi series The Outer Limits, as well as a prominent role as a stop-motion animator on two of the biggest children\u2019s programmes of the era, Davey & Goliath and Gumby. Being a musician in his spare time, he also wrote the Gumby theme music.<\/p>\n If his special effects career had ended there, it would still be a fun footnote, but Kleinow never really gave it up, even when he was the most in-demand steel guitarist in Southern California.<\/p>\n In the mid \u201870s, Kleinow would spend his daylight hours animating dinosaurs for the TV series Land of the Lost, then head over to the studio to lay down some sweet country steel for a new Harry Nilsson or Carly Simon track. Somehow, neither aspect of his work was negatively impacted by the other, and by the \u201880s, Sneaky Pete was part of the effects team on some of the biggest movies of the era: The Empire Strikes Back, The Terminator, Gremlins<\/a>, and Army of Darkness, among them. He even won an Emmy for Special Visual Effects in 1983 for his work on the TV movie The Winds of War. <\/p>\n Kleinow\u2019s parallel lives didn\u2019t necessarily have a lot in common creatively, except for his own consistent status behind the scenes\u2014a vital contributor but never a household name, outside of certain university flats with tortoise mascots.<\/p>\n As a steel guitar player, Kleinow was one of the undeniable pioneers of country-rock. While his Burrito-mate Gram Parsons developed a considerably larger cult following off the strength of heartfelt classics like \u2018Sin City\u2019 and \u2018Hot Burrito #1\u2019, Kleinow helped give those songs a lot of their texture and mood. On many tracks, he experimented with channelling the steel guitar through fuzzboxes and Hammond Leslie amps, giving the traditionally weepy instrument an edgier, more dynamic sound. <\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/The-Gumby-Show-1956-Art-Clokey-Far-Out-Magazine-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a>The Gumby Show, 1956. (Credits: Far Out \/ Fox Entertainment)<\/p>\n