Talking Steel Guitar

Don Kona Woods · Post by **Don Kona Woods** » 7 Sep 2011 9:36 pm

I found the following video interesting because of the novelty of it.

Peter Drake and His talking steel guitar. The mechanism used to produce the effect is a talk box.

Aloha,

Don

Tom Pettingill · Post by **Tom Pettingill** » 7 Sep 2011 9:57 pm

Cool find, its the earliest example of a talk box I've seen.

Steve Ahola · Post by **Steve Ahola** » 7 Sep 2011 11:00 pm

Alvino Rey plays "St. Louis Blues" with Stringy the talking steel guitar (from 1944)!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPd9cxqKCVg

It was Les Paul who invented the Talk Box in the 50's. He made 3 of them, one of them going to Pete Drake. When Pete started using it Chet Atkins' brother would hide behind the curtains on the stage doing the vocalizing, which baffled the audience. "How does he do that??"

Steve Ahola

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 8 Sep 2011 3:51 am

I have a talk box that I bought for steel guitar, but it is hard to get it right. I've been messing with it a little more in an effort to sound like Joe Zawinul (who used a vocoder and created his own language) than Pete Drake. I have one of the good ones, too: an early Dean Markley with an Altec driver.

Frank James Pracher · Post by **Frank James Pracher** » 8 Sep 2011 5:07 am

Pete Drake is great.

Andy Sandoval · Post by **Andy Sandoval** » 8 Sep 2011 6:29 am

Peter Frampton had the most commercial success with the talk box I think.

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 8 Sep 2011 6:42 am

The greatest talk box artist of all-time was Roger Troutman. I don't think anyone could touch him, but he used a keyboard. I got a chance to see him play a few months before he died, at the World Trade Center of all places.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKD-v7P314s

Bill Creller · Post by **Bill Creller** » 8 Sep 2011 8:24 am

Peter Frampton was was good with it alright. Still have some old tape albums from those days....

Stephen Abruzzo · Post by **Stephen Abruzzo** » 8 Sep 2011 9:19 am

Andy Sandoval wrote:Peter Frampton had the most commercial success with the talk box I think.

The first time I remember a talk-box being used was Joe Walsh........"Rocky Mountain Way". Great tune by one of the under-rated guitarists of all time.

Post by **Brad Bechtel** » 8 Sep 2011 9:27 am

Moved to Steel Players from Steel Without Pedals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_box has some more information on this effect.

Tim Heidner · Post by **Tim Heidner** » 8 Sep 2011 11:32 am

Mike Neer wrote:I have a talk box that I bought for steel guitar, but it is hard to get it right. I've been messing with it a little more in an effort to sound like Joe Zawinul (who used a vocoder and created his own language) than Pete Drake. I have one of the good ones, too: an early Dean Markley with an Altec driver.

Hey Mike, have you seen that youtube of Zawinul and John McLaughlin? Nice vocoder(?I guess) work in that one.

Steve Ahola · Post by **Steve Ahola** » 8 Sep 2011 11:49 am

"I'm Blue" has been my favorite Pete Drake Talking Steel Guitar song for 40 years- mainly because he gets such a nasty blues tone with the talk box. And most of it is him just playing rather than trying to mimic words:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIR7Z46M9j4

Here are Sides One and Two of the "Talking Steel Guitar" LP on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90bZu1If7xU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XqIwRO7DMg

All 12 songs! (I had the 99 cent version on Pickwick Records which only had 10 of the songs.)

Steve Ahola

P.S. I noticed a LOT more Pete Drake uploads on YouTube since I last checked. Jeff Beck was another guitarist who popularized the talk box in the 70's (although I think his might have been the bota bag style). As for the Joe Walsh song I just checked with Mr. Wiki and he suspects that the talk box was reinforced by other instruments- "mouth organ, synthesizer and a harmonium".

Justin Jacobson · Post by **Justin Jacobson** » 8 Sep 2011 12:06 pm

My band and I have become obsessed with Pete Drake recently. We are actually working up a cover of "Forever"

We play more of a dream pop style of music, which I think Mr. Drake inadvertently invented a good 30 years before dream pop existed.

The jump from this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dTFajHVyHo

to things like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UtQe0JOCnM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Br46D-yR ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqEYJnIW ... re=related

is not that far off in my book.

A very unique sound in the steel world. He was mentioned breifly in this thread about unique places for steel. But I don't think he was touched on enough.

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... sc&start=0

I just love the sound of the songs as a whole, they are so dreamy.

Larry Hutchison · Post by **Larry Hutchison** » 8 Sep 2011 1:57 pm

I have a talking unit for the steelguitar, made by the great "Whitey Cutcher". Whitey made it for me in the early 70's..I believe he only made 2 of them..One of our forum members has the other..R.I.P. Whitey.

Eric Stumpf · Post by **Eric Stumpf** » 8 Sep 2011 2:55 pm

Since there are recordings from the early 40's using the original talk box "The
Sonovox", I doubt that Les Paul can be given credit for its invention. He also didn't invent the solid body electric guitar or multi-track recording but was, of course, a great developmental force in those fields.

chris ivey · Post by **chris ivey** » 8 Sep 2011 4:31 pm

the talk box thing is really dumb and anybody using one should get a ticket!

Elton Smith · Post by **Elton Smith** » 8 Sep 2011 6:04 pm

I agree Chris, just ain't my bag.But it is different.

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