Known for its portamento capabilities, gliding smoothly over every pitch between notes, the instrument can produce a sinuous crying sound and deep vibrato emulating the human singing voice.

The idea of creating music with a slide of some type has been traced back to early African instruments, but the modern steel guitar was conceived and popularized in the Hawaiian Islands.

The Hawaiians began playing a conventional guitar in a horizontal position across the knees instead of flat against the body, using the bar instead of fingers.

In the late 19th century, European sailors and Portuguese vaqueros, hired by Hawaii's king to work cattle ranches, introduced Spanish guitars in the Hawaiian Islands.

[6] To change chords, they used some smooth object, usually a piece of pipe or metal, sliding it over the strings to the fourth or fifth position, easily playing a three-chord song.

[2] Oahu-born Joseph Kekuku became proficient in this style of playing around the end of the 19th century and popularized it—some sources say he invented the steel guitar.

The Hawaiian style of playing spread to America and became popular during the first half of the 20th century; noted players of the era were Frank Ferera, Sam Ku West, "King" Bennie Nawahi and Sol Hoʻopiʻi.

[15] In 1915, a world's fair called the Panama–Pacific International Exposition was held in San Francisco to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal and over a nine-month period introduced the Hawaiian style of guitar playing to millions of visitors.

[23] The Mississippi Delta was the home of Robert Johnson, Son House, Charlie Patton and other blues pioneers, who used a prominent tubular slide on a finger.

[23][29] The earliest record of a Hawaiian guitar used in country music is believed to be in the early 1920s when cowboy movie star Hoot Gibson brought Sol Hoʻopiʻi to Los Angeles to perform in his band.

[9] Jimmie Rodgers featured an acoustic steel guitar on his song "Tuck Away My Lonesome Blues" released on January 3, 1930.

[30] In the early 1930s, acoustic lap steel guitars were not loud enough to compete with other instruments, a problem that many inventors were trying to remedy.

[33] According to music writer Michael Ross, the first electrified stringed instrument on a commercial recording was a steel guitar played by Bob Dunn on a Western swing tune in 1935.

[36] In the 1930s, Leon McAuliffe advanced steel guitar technique while playing in the western swing band Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys.

[38] The added bulk meant that the instrument could no longer be managed on the player's lap and required placement in a frame with legs and marketed as a "console" steel guitar.

Honky-tonk singers who used a lap steel guitar in their musical arrangements included Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell and Webb Pierce.

[42] In 1953, musician Bud Isaacs used Bigsby's invention to change the pitch of only two of the strings, and was the first to push the pedal while notes were still sounding.

[10] It was the birth of a new sound that was particularly embraced by fans of country and western music, and it caused a virtual revolution among steel players who wanted to duplicate it.

[36] Even though pedal steel guitars had been available for over a decade before this recording, the instrument emerged as a crucial element in country music after the success of this song.

The congregation of the House of God, a branch of an African-American Pentecostal denomination, based primarily in Nashville and Indianapolis, embraced the lap steel guitar.

[46] In the 1980s, a minister's son named Robert Randolph took up the pedal steel as a teenager, popularized it in this genre and received critical acclaim as a musician.

[47] Neil Strauss, writing in The New York Times, called Randolph "one of the most original and talented pedal steel guitarists of his generation".

[48] The steel guitar's popularity in India began with a Hawaiian immigrant who settled in Calcutta in the 1940s named Tau Moe (pronounced mo-ay).

After the electric pickup was invented, lap steels no longer needed any resonant chamber, thus newer designs began to resemble the traditional guitar shape less and less.

George Beauchamp's invention, which he nicknamed the "Frying Pan", was officially called the "Rickenbacker Electro A–22", an electric lap steel guitar produced from 1931 to 1939.

Bluegrass dobro players often use a "Stevens bar" which has a deep groove in it to allow the steel to be grasped more firmly so it can be lifted and angled vertically downward slightly for playing single notes.