Multi-Instrumentalist James Pennebaker started his professional career
in the Fort Worth/Dallas, TX area primarily as a fiddler and guitarist.
While still a teenager, he was playing fiddle and guitar with Texas Music
legends including Delbert McClinton and former Bob Wills frontman Leon
Rausch, as well as recording an album with Freddy Fender, all before he was
20 years old.

During the late 1970's, he worked as a fiddler and guitarist at the famous
Dewey Groom's Longhorn Ballroom in Dallas, TX, before once again joining
McClinton's band, playing guitar through most of the 1980s. He took up the
pedal steel guitar primarily as a hobby in the early 1980s, but what started
out as a hobby soon became part of his occupation.

After playing pedal steel guitar on Texas singer/songwriter Jimmie Dale
Gilmore's "After Awhile" CD on the Electra/Nonesuch label in 1991, James
moved to Nashville to join fellow Texan Lee Roy Parnell who was having a
string of hits on the Country charts. James played pedal steel guitar,
electric guitar, fiddle and mandolin on the road with Parnell as well as
recording 5 albums with him. James has worked as a "utility man" with many
other artists and continues to tour and do session work in Nashville.

He has played pedal steel on recordings by Delbert McClinton, T. Graham
Brown, Lee Roy Parnell, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and more. James is currently
touring, playing steel guitar, fiddle and banjo with multi-platinum artists
"Big & Rich".