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Topic: Alvino Ray St Louis Blues |
AJ Azure
From:
Massachusetts, USA * R.I.P.
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Steve Cunningham
From:
Atlanta, GA
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George Keoki Lake
From:
Edmonton, AB., Canada
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Posted 21 Aug 2008 9:07 pm |
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Firstly, his name was ALVINO REY, (not Ray). Anyway, the doll is in the shape of a guitar.
His fame came with the "talking guitar" routine.
I was never sure as to just how he did it...
I heard he had an electronic gadget attached to
his neck going through the guitar to the amp and
it was his electronic voice combined with the steel guitar which gave the effect of talking. However in this clip I cannot see how this could be happening
so the mystery remains. I'm sure someone out there knows the secret of the TALKING GUITAR OF ALVINO REY...? |
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Eddie Cunningham
From:
Massachusetts, USA
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Posted 21 Aug 2008 9:37 pm Alvinos & Pete Drakes Talking Steel !!
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| George, As I understand it Alvino used small speakers held to the throats of either the King Sisters or some man off stage and the steel sound was piped through the speakers into the throat and "shaped" by their tongue and mouth and then miked!! Pete Drake used speaker drivers that put the steel sound into a small flexible hose that went in your mouth and was "shaped" and then picked up by a mike !! I had one and used it back in the 60s, was quite effective !! Alvino was the first to do this !! It's the same principal as used by people who have lost their vocal cords thru cancer and talk using a vibrating tube that generates sound thru your throat into your mouth !! Hope this info helps !!! Eddie "C" ( the old non-pedal geezer ) |
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George Keoki Lake
From:
Edmonton, AB., Canada
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Posted 21 Aug 2008 9:51 pm
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| Thanks Eddie...sounds logical. I have never heard PETE DRAKE doing the talking routine. At any rate, Alvino's act was very clever.....agree ? |
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Fred Kinbom
From:
Berlin, Germany, via Stockholm, Sweden.
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Doug Beaumier
From:
Northampton, MA
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Posted 21 Aug 2008 10:42 pm
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Pete Drake had a hit record back in 1964 called "Forever" that featured his "talking steel guitar". You can hear it Here. Drake's "talk box" was later used on hit records by Peter Frampton and other rock guitarists.
Alvino Rey was way ahead of the curve with the talking steel guitar in the late 1930s. He didn't use the tube in his mouth like Pete did. Like Eddie said, Alvino would have his wife, Louise, modulate the signal from a throat mic, according to what I have read.
It's a shame that so many of the awesome techniques displayed by Alvino, Speedy West, and other steel players of yesteryear are nearly a lost art today. Bar crashes, chord chimes, boo-wah tone knob tricks, and other wacky techniques added so much energy and personality to the music.
Here's a later clip of Alvino playing what looks like a Fender 1000 pedal steel, doing what he does best! Click
_________________
My Site / My YouTube Channel
25 Songs C6 Lap Steel / 25 MORE Songs C6 Lap Steel / 16 Songs, C6, A6, B11 / 60 Popular Melodies E9 Pedal Steel |
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AJ Azure
From:
Massachusetts, USA * R.I.P.
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Posted 22 Aug 2008 10:17 am
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| was there something up with his left hand or was that just his grip? |
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Doug Freeman
From:
Los Angeles, CA
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Posted 22 Aug 2008 11:08 am
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| Oh, man, I miss the Lawrence Welk show—seriously. So many great players and guests. Was Alvino using only a thumbpick on that clip? On the King Sisters clip I love the way the tenor player's sitting there looking at him like he's a total goofball. I see he used full fingerpicks on that one. |
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Doug Beaumier
From:
Northampton, MA
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Posted 22 Aug 2008 11:10 am
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| Quote: |
| was there something up with his left hand or was that just his grip? |
He seems to have a very tight grip on the bar, with his little finger tucked under the bar. Maybe that's because he lifts the bar up off the strings so much, as part of his technique. In the first 54 seconds of that Lawrence Welk Show clip Alvino lifts the bar off the strings over 50 times!
Steel players who came up during the Swing era, 1930s, 40s, early 50s learned some interesting techniques IMO because the music called for those sounds... Swing is all about punchy rhythms and accents, and improvisation.
Speaking of bar technique and bar slams... I once heard Jeff Newman say that a steel player should never pick the bar up off the strings. He said "the only time you should take the bar off the strings is at the end of a set when the band takes a break". Oh, how times have changed! and styles have changed! In fairness to Jeff, he was speaking to a group of students and teaching them how to get a smooth sound.
_________________
My Site / My YouTube Channel
25 Songs C6 Lap Steel / 25 MORE Songs C6 Lap Steel / 16 Songs, C6, A6, B11 / 60 Popular Melodies E9 Pedal Steel
Last edited by Doug Beaumier on 22 Aug 2008 2:48 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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George Keoki Lake
From:
Edmonton, AB., Canada
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Posted 22 Aug 2008 11:40 am
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Hey Doug...did I miss something ? I didn't find the link on your thread re: ALVINO and the 1000 ??? Thanx.  |
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George Keoki Lake
From:
Edmonton, AB., Canada
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Posted 22 Aug 2008 11:42 am
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| bump. Sorry...I didn't notice the word "CLICK" |
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Bill Hatcher
From:
Atlanta Ga. USA
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Posted 22 Aug 2008 11:43 am
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| George. Look at the end and click on the word "CLICK". |
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Ray Montee
From:
Portland, Oregon (deceased)
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Posted 25 Aug 2008 2:38 pm Just watched the great videos....................
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Are you meaning to say.........
Is what we're supposed to understand is........
Has this all been a hoax........
WHERE WAS THE "CUT-OFF" Switch we've been hearing so much about? It's been discussed here on the FORUM so much.
Do you suppose Speedy West developed his affect by watching Alvino? |
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Doug Beaumier
From:
Northampton, MA
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Ray Montee
From:
Portland, Oregon (deceased)
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Posted 25 Aug 2008 3:18 pm Great video..................
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This was probably the very best of many examples I've seen, of a player smacking the bar up and down on the strings........ Nor real problem getting the job done. Nice and clean affect......
BUT.... WHERE is the infamous CUT-OFF Switch? The one Joaquin Murphy supposedly had on the right hand end of his BIGSBY in an earlier post.
The one someone posted an example of on an early day
BIGSBY........was it or something else, I'm not sure. |
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Doug Beaumier
From:
Northampton, MA
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Ray Montee
From:
Portland, Oregon (deceased)
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Posted 25 Aug 2008 4:06 pm Such an eloquent conversationalist.................
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Doug........ I THINK I understood what you may have said and I'm pretty sure I agree with you; but then again, I could be in error. Just remember, GOD is watching you and if you keep trying to mess with an elderly person's mind he WILL GET YOU!
ALso, as you pointed out, his use of the TONE CONTROL eliminates entirely the notion that one has to have one of those monotanous DOO-WAH foot pedals. |
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Jim Davies
From:
Charlottesville VA
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Posted 25 Aug 2008 4:53 pm
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Ray You definitely don't need one of those monotanous
pedals to get a DOO-WAH,but is'nt that one under your
BIGSBY ? |
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Ray Montee
From:
Portland, Oregon (deceased)
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Posted 25 Aug 2008 5:55 pm Doo-Wah.................I don't think so
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THAT, is a Bigsby, vertical VOLUME CONTROL
and......
A Left to Right, Base to treble, TONE CONTROL. |
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Jim Davies
From:
Charlottesville VA
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Posted 25 Aug 2008 6:18 pm
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| TONE CONTROL bass to treble back to bass real fast=DOO-WAH |
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Doug Beaumier
From:
Northampton, MA
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Alan Brookes
From:
Brummy living in Southern California
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Posted 25 Aug 2008 8:58 pm
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| That talking steel sound is done to good effect on Jim Reeves's "I've Enjoyed As Much of This As I Can Stand." I don't know who the steel guitarist was, though. |
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Phill Martin
From:
Whitewater Kansas, USA
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Posted 25 Aug 2008 9:06 pm mind bender and Jeff Beck
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Didn't someone do a song about a guitar that the line went my mama was a Gibson and my Daddy was a Fender and they call me the mind bender that used a voice box? and if I remember right Jeff Beck used the tube thing a few times too.
my 2 cents worth |
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Craig Prior
From:
National City, California, USA
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Posted 25 Aug 2008 9:16 pm
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Not a "biggie" but I was playing my Sunday brunch gig at the Catamaran a few weeks back and I met a family who live in the house next door to where Alvino lived in Salt Lake City.
They of course held Alvino in the highest esteem, said he had been a real gentleman. They said the son still lives in the house. Alvino had shown them the basement that apparently was a complete recording studio... and a lot of other interesting things ... I got the impression Alvino was a real class act. |
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