"I had already recorded...some straight steel things...but I went ahead and cut a song called "Forever" on the talking thing. It came out, and for about two months didn't do a thing; then, all of a sudden, it cut loose and sold a million. So then I was known as the 'Talking Steel Guitar Man...'"
PETE DRAKE
FOREVER TALK BOX
The unique sound of the talk box with a steel guitar was very new in the 1960s. It produced the sounds of vocalizing in combination with the guitar's normal sound. Drake's device consisted of an 8-inch paper-cone, speaker driver, attached to a funnel from which a clear tube brought the sound to the performer's mouth. It was only loud enough to be useful in the recording studio.
According to an interview with Drake,
"You play the notes on the guitar and it goes through the amplifier. I have a driver system so that you disconnect the speakers and the sound goes through the driver into a plastic tube. You put the tube in the side of your mouth then form the words with your mouth as you play them. You don't actually say a word: The guitar is your vocal cords, and your mouth is the amplifier. It's amplified by a microphone."
Drake's Top 30 "talking steel guitar" hit, 'Forever,' on Smash Records (1964), took the pedal steel guitar to a new level, and insured his place as one of the most recorded musicians in the world.
Pete Drake is recognized as one of the truly innovative geniuses of the Nashville Sound. His sweetening of Chet Atkins' already sweet Countrypolitanism assured his A-team status. Like so many of those who achieved success in Music City, Pete Drake's career in Nashville began at the Grand Ole Opry, America's greatest Country Music institution.
Pete was born in Georgia, but it wasn't until he was eighteen that he began playing steel guitar. Drake was inspired by the sounds of Grand Ole Opry star, Jerry Byrd, enough to save $38.00 after spotting a lap steel in an Atlanta pawn shop.
He played on such seminal recordings as Lynn Anderson’s “(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden,” Charlie Rich’s “Behind Closed Doors,” and Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man.”
Not only has he been the man behind hundreds of country music hits, but his recordings with Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis (How Great Thou Art, Double Trouble, Clambake, Speedway), introduced him to the Rock cognoscenti.
Featured on Dylan’s Nashville albums, Drake also produced and assembled the band for Ringo Starr’s country album, and played on George Harrison’s solo debut.
He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame's Walkway of Stars in 1970 and the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 1987, as well as the Atlanta Music Hall of Fame and Musicians Hall of Fame.
Pete Drake passed away of natural causes
on July 29, 1988.
Pete Drake (born Roddis Franklin Drake, 8 October 1932, Augusta, Georgia - died 29 July 1988, Nashville, Tennessee), was a major Nashville based record producer and steel guitar player.
One of the most sought-after backup musicians of the 1960s, Drake played on such hits as Lynn Anderson's "Rose Garden," Charlie Rich's "Behind Closed Doors," Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay," and Tammy Wynette's "Stand by Your Man."
The son of a Pentecostal preacher, he drove to Nashville in 1950, heard Jerry Byrd on the Grand Ole Opry, and was inspired to buy a steel guitar. He organized a band, Sons of the South, in Atlanta in the 1950s, which included future country stars like Jerry Reed, Doug Kershaw, Roger Miller, Jack Greene, and Joe South.
In 1959 he moved to Nashville and went on the road as a backup musician for Don Gibson, Marty Robbins and others. In 1964 he had an international hit on Smash Records with his "talking steel guitar" playing on the album Forever. His innovative use of what would be called the "talk box", which would be also used by Peter Frampton, Joe Walsh, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck, took the pedal steel guitar to a new level. The album Pete Drake and His Talking Steel Guitar, harkened back to the sounds of Alvino Rey, who originally used the talk box when Alvino Rey was with the King Family. The unique sound of the talk box with a steel guitar was very new in the 1960s, and it made the sounds of vocalizing along with the strings of the steel guitar. According to an interview with Drake, by Douglas Green called"Pete Drake: everyone's favorite" at Steel Guitar Stories:
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"You play the notes on the guitar and it goes through the amplifier. I have a driver system so that you disconnect the speakers and the sound goes through the driver into a plastic tube. You put the tube in the side of your mouth then form the words with your mouth as you play them. You don't actually say a word: The guitar is your vocal cords, and your mouth is the amplifier. It's amplified by a microphone."
Drake played on Bob Dylan's three Nashville-recorded albums, including Nashville Skyline, and on Joan Baez's David's Album. He also worked with George Harrison of The Beatles on All Things Must Pass, and with Ringo Starr on Beaucoups of Blues in 1970.
Drake produced albums for many other musicians, and founded Stop Records and First Generation Records. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame's Walkway of Stars in 1970 and the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 1987.
Talking steel guitar
"You play the notes on the guitar and it goes through the amplifier. I have a driver system so that you disconnect the speakers and the sound goes through the driver into a plastic tube. You put the tube in the side of your mouth then form the words with your mouth as you play them. You don't actually say a word: The guitar is your vocal cords, and your mouth is the amplifier. It's amplified by a microphone."
Pete Drake, a Nashville mainstay on the pedal steel guitar, used talk box on his 1964Forever, in what came to be called his "talking steel guitar." The following year Gallant released three albums with the box, Pete Drake & His Talking Guitar, Talking Steel and Singing Strings, and Talking Steel Guitar.
Drake's device consisted of an 8-inch paper cone speaker driver attached to a funnel from which a clear tube brought the sound to the performer's mouth. It was only loud enough to be useful in the recording studio.[4] album
Talk box controversy
There is controversy over who invented the talk box. Bob Heil has claimed he invented the talk box but there is clearly prior art in the form of the Kustom Electronics device, "The Bag",[6] which is the same concept housed in a decorative bag slung over the shoulder like a wine bottle and sold in 1969, two years before Heil's Talk Box. The Bag is claimed to have been designed by Doug Forbes, who states that the exact same concept (horn driver attached to a plastic tube and inserted into the mouth) had previously been patented as an artificial larynx.
In 1973, Heil gave his talk box to Peter Frampton as a Christmas present. Frampton first heard the talk box when Stevie Wonder was using it for his upcoming album Music of My Mind. Then when he was playing guitar on George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, he saw Pete Drake using it with a pedal steel guitar. Frampton used it on his album Frampton Comes Alive! Due to the success of the album, and particularly the hit singles "Do You Feel Like We Do" and "Show Me the Way", Frampton has become somewhat synonymous with the talk box.
In 1988, Heil sold the manufacturing rights to Dunlop Manufacturing, Inc. who currently builds the Heil Talk Box to the exact standards that Bob Heil designed in 1973. Peter Frampton also now sells his own line of custom designed "Framptone" products, including a talk box.
What is a Talkbox?
A talkbox is a device that produces the classic "talking guitar sound". With it, the musician is able to produce vowel-like sounds, as well as consonants, words and/or phrases. It is not a vocorder (a unit that electronically blends speech with a musical instrument synthesizer), but achieves a similar effect via a much simpler and direct method.The talkbox works on the principle of reproducing sound from an amplifier and directing it into the mouth of the performer. The performer's lips and vocal cavities (mouth, throat, and larynx) further modulate and shape the sound. The resulting "talking guitar" output is then fed through a microphone and from there is amplified through the PA system or sent to the recording console of the studio.
The next section provides downloadable examples of talkbox sounds.
Example Sounds
A talkbox can sound like a wah-wah pedal, a triggered Y-filter, a flanger, a phaser, a vocorder, a robotic voice like that used in old sci-fi movies, or any combination of the above. What makes the sound so cool is that it adds another dimension to the guitarist's arsenal of riffs. And it sure looks cool on stage when you use it! Audiences love showmanship, and the talkbox is about as showy as you can get.
The sample sounds below are in mp3 format, recorded in mono and sampled at 32KHz to keep the file sizes reasonable for download purposes. You can play them with the free Windows Media Player from Microsoft or other utility. Incidentally, the sound files were converted from WAV to mp3 by the free Blade Encoder, which you can find at http://bladeenc.mp3.no/.
- funk.mp3 (55K) - Funky rhythm with lead. Note the wah-like comping at the beginning and the ow-ow-ow ending that is easily done with the talkbox. If done with a wah pedal, your ankle would be pretty sore after that one!
- slow.mp3 (100K) - The talkbox lends a moody sound to arpeggios. This effect sounds like a cross between a wah and a flanger.
- prayer.mp3 (18K) - This is reminiscent of the intro to a particular Bon Jovi song. You can only get this particular effect with a talkbox.
- tapping.mp3 (40K) - The talkbox lends extra texture when finger tapping.
- thatsall.mp3 (14K) - "That's all" using double stops (B and high-E strings).
- ending.mp3 (17K) - The talkbox adds a little extra modulation to a well-traveled ending riff. Of course, the lead vocalist yells out "good night!" after the riff. This is almost guaranteed to get you an encore.
Pete Drake is still recognized as one of the truly innovative geniuses of the Nashville Sound, A-team studio musician, voted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame, Atlanta Music Hall of Fame and Musicians Hall of Fame. Like so many of those who achieved success in Music City, Pete Drake's career in Nashville began at the Grand Ole Opry, America's greatest Country Music institution. He accompanied a wide range of artists on the Opry while establishing himself as one of the leading steel guitarists in all genres of the music business.As Drake's career grew to encompass production, publishing, and a highly successful studio, his heart still remained with the Grand Ole Opry members. When Ernest Tubb left MCA Records after a thirty-five year affiliation, Drake jumped at the opportunity to fulfill a life long dream to produce Tubb. After Tubb was turned down by all the major labels in Nashville, Pete and Rose Drake created First Generation Records and Ernest signed with the new label. The Drakes envisioned a label dedicated to the recording and promotion of the true legends of the music business.This pairing of artist and producer gave birth to the classic album Ernest Tubb: The Legend and the Legacy. Drake cut twenty of Tubb's greatest hits. As a special surprise, when the Texas Troubadour was on the road, Drake invited Willie Nelson to sing and play on the album. Willie brought along Waylon Jennings and Johnny Paycheck who also lent their talents to the album. Soon Charlie Daniel, Conway Twitty, Marty Robbins, Loretta Lynn, Charlie Rich, Vem Gosdin, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and many other artists and musicians were invited to join in, resulting in one of the greatest musical tributes ever recorded. This project was presented to Ernest Tubb for his sixty-fifth birthday.The success First Generation enjoyed with Ernest Tubb led The Drakes to expand the label's roster. Pete produced "The Stars of the Grand Ole Opry Series". This series featuring Justin Tubb, Billy Walker, Jan Howard, Stonewall Jackson, Ray Pillow, Vic Willis Trio, Jean Shepard, The Wilburn Brothers, Charlie Louvin, Lonzo & Oscar and Ferlin Husky were recordings of their giant hits as well as new material.First Generation presented Slide, featuring the steel guitar sounds of Jimmie Crawford, Paul Franklin, Lloyd Green, Weldon Myrick, Hal Rugg, Bill West, John Hughey, Doyle Grisham, Jeff Newman, and Larry Sasser. Each steel guitarist chose their favorite classic songs to be played with the harmonies and sounds of other steel guitars creating a truly steel guitar classic sound.Other unique offerings from First Generation include Ernest Tubb - Live from the Lonestar Cafe, recorded in New York City in 1978. Ernest Tubb - The Last Sessions - All Time Greatest Hits, a total of 47 songs, all Tubb's last studio recordings. Just You and Me Daddy is a collection of the only father/son duets by Ernest and Justin Tubb which ended up being a posthumous release from both legendary Opry stars. Justin Tubb had just finished the project using modern technology to fulfill his lifelong dream of recording duets with his father (by adding his vocal tracks to some of Ernest's recordings) when he passed away unexpectedly in early 1998.Cal Smith, Tubb's Texas Troubadour and CMA's Artist of the Year recorded hits, Country Bumpkin, Drinking Champagne, The Lord Knows I'm Drinking as well new songs in Cal Smith's great traditional country style. First Generation Records will continue to make available the trailblazers of traditional country music
Pete Drake
When rock artists, including Bob Dylan and members of the Beatles, began to record in Nashville, Pete Drake [at left in photo with George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Billy Preston and Peter Frampton, apparently on the day Drake gave Peter Frampton his famous "talking guitar." Check out the video below to hear how it was originally done!] was the natural choice as steel guitarist. Although he had a Top 30 hit, “Talking Steel,” in 1964, Drake recorded very little on his own. Instead, he used the trademark mellow tone of his steel guitar to strengthen albums by other artists. In addition to working with country artists, including Marty Robbins, Bobby Bare, Johnny Cash, the Louvin Brothers, Dolly Parton, and Ernest Tubb, he pioneered the use of the steel guitar in rock, performing on recordings by Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley. He played on such seminal recordings as Lynn Anderson’s “(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden,” Charlie Rich’s “Behind Closed Doors,” and Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man.” Featured on Dylan’s albums John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, and Self Portrait, Drake also produced and assembled the band for Ringo Starr’s country album, Beaucoups of Blues, and played on George Harrison’s solo debut, All Things Must Pass. The son of a Pentecostal minister, Drake began his career with a group, the Drake Brothers, that he shared with his brothers, one of whom, Jack, went on to play with Ernest Tubb’s Texas Troubadors for nearly a quarter of a century. Drake’s melodic steel guitar playing made him one of Atlanta’s top young instrumentalists. He joined with future country music superstars Jerry Reed, Doug Kershaw, Roger Miller, and Joe South in a mid-’50s band. Although this group failed to record, it provided Drake with the impetus to move to Nashville in 1959. Drake’s involvement with Elvis Presley, which began in May 1966 when he played on Presley’s How Great Thou Art album, lasted for more than a year and included appearances on the soundtracks of Presley’s films Double Trouble, Clambake, and Speedway. Launching his own record label, First Generation, in the late ’70s, Drake signed Ernest Tubb, who had left MCA after 35 years, and released an album, The Legend and the Legacy, in 1977. Comprised of reworkings of Tubb’s greatest hits, the album included guest appearances by Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Paycheck, Charlie Daniels, Conway Twitty, Marty Robbins, Loretta Lynn, Vern Gosdin, George Jones, Merle Haggard, and Johnny Cash. Drake occasionally stepped into the spotlight, releasing solo album of pop-gospel standards, Steel Away, and a eponymously titled album that included steel guitar interpretations of Dylan and Beatles tune. - Craig Harris
Pete Drake passed away
of natural causes
July 29, 1988.
Pete Drake:
everyone's favorite
Nashville pedal steel guitarist Pete Drake is truly a phenomenon. Not only has he been the man behind hundreds of country music hits, but through his recordings with Elvis Presley, George Harrison and Bob Dylan, is evenhandedly responsible for opening the entire pop and rock field to the sounds of the pedal steel.
Pete was born in Georgia forty years ago, but it wasn't until he was eighteen that he began playing steel guitar. Like so many before and since, Drake was inspired by the sounds of Jerry Byrd at the Grand Ole Opry. Pete then spotted a lap steel guitar in an Atlanta pawn shop, saved his money and bought it for the vast sum of $38.00.
What kind was it?A Supro; a little, single-neck like you hold in your lap. I tried to play like Jerry Byrd. I guess most of the steel players today started off the same way. He has really been fantastically influential. So I fooled around with that thing for six months or a year, and got a chance to do a couple of fill-in things on an Atlanta TV station when somebody'd be sick.
Did you have any formal training on steel?
I took one lesson, but I'd get records and sit around playing to them. That's how I really got started. This was around '49 or '50. Then when Bud Isaacs came out with a pedal guitar on "Slowly" by Webb Pierce, that shocked everybody, wondering how he got that sound. I guess I was the first one around Atlanta to get a pedal guitar: I had one pedal on a four-neck steel. It really looked funny. I made it myself, and it was huge, really too big to carry on the road or anything. I was playing in clubs all around Atlanta, then right after that I formed my first band.
What kind of group was that?
I had some pretty big stars working with me back then: Jerry Reed, Joe South, Doug Kershaw was playing fiddle, Roger Miller was playing fiddle with me, and country singer Jack Greene was playing drums. And we got fired because we weren't any good! I was on television in Atlanta for three and a half years, but we kind of wore ourselves out, so I decided to move to Nashville.
Why Nashville?
Roger Miller had come on to Nashville, and I had a brother there, Jack, who played bass with Ernest Tubb for 24 years. Jack died last year. At first Jack didn't want me to come, because the steel guitar was kind of dead then, in 1959. Everybody was trying to go pop. They was putting strings and horns on Webb Pierce records, and nobody was using steel guitar. So I starved to death the first year and a half. Then I worked with Don Gibson a while, then Marty Robbins.
When did you begin getting record session work?
I guess what really got me in was the "Pete Drake style" on the C6th tuning. When I first came up here everybody thought it was square, so I quit playing like that and started playing like everybody else. Then one night on the Opry, just for kicks, I went back to my own style for one tune behind Carl and Pearl Butler. Roy Drusky was on Decca then, and he come up to me and said, "Hey, you've come up with a new style. I'm recording tomorrow, and I want you with me." So I cut this session with him, and the word kind of got out that I had this new style (actually, it was the same thing I'd been playing for years in Atlanta, but it was new in Nashville). That month I did 24 sessions, and it's been like that ever since. That was in the middle of 1960, and that first record was "I Don't Believe You Love Me Any More," a number one record. Then I recorded "Before This Day Ends" with George Hamilton, and it, too, became number one. I just couldn't do anything wrong there for a long time.
How did your "Talking Guitar" thing come about?
Well, everybody wanted this style of mine, but I sort of got tired of it. I'd say, "Hey, let me try and come up with something new," and they'd say, "Naw, I want you to do what you did on So-and-so's record." Now, I'd been trying to make something for people who couldn't talk, who'd lost their voice. I had some neighbors who were deaf and dumb, and I thought it would be nice if they could talk. So I saw this old Kay Kayser movie, and Alvino Rey was playing the talking guitar. I thought, "Man, if he can make a guitar talk, surely I can make people talk." So I worked on it for about five years, and it was so simple that I went all around it, you know, like we usually do.
How did the talking guitar work?
You play the notes on the guitar and it goes through the amplifier. I have a driver system so that you disconnect the speakers and the sound goes through the driver into a plastic tube. You put the tube in the side of your mouth then form the words with your mouth as you play them. You don't actually say a word: The guitar is your vocal chords, and your mouth is the amplifier. It's amplified by a microphone.
When did you first use it on records?
With Roger Miller. He had a record called "Lock, Stock And Teardrops," on RCA Victor, but it didn't hit. Then I used it on Jim Reeves' "I've Enjoyed As Much Of This As I Can Stand." I really thought I'd used the gimmick up by the time Shelby Singleton and Jerry Kennedy of Mercury Records wanted to record me.I had already recorded for Starday [a Mercury label] some straight steel things like "For Pete's Sake," but I went ahead and cut a song called "Forever" on the talking thing. It came out, and for about two months didn't do a thing; then, all of a sudden, it cut loose and sold a million. So then I was known as the "Talking Steel Guitar Man," and did several albums for Smash, which is a subsidiary of Mercury.
Do you still use the Talking Guitar?
Now I'm back into producing a lot of records, and not using it much. I've been so busy recording everybody else, I haven't had time to record myself.
Tell us about your experiences getting into the pop field with the pedal steel.
You know, the steel wasn't accepted in pop music until I had cut with people like Elvis Presley and Joan Baez. But the kids, themselves, didn't accept it until I cut with Bob Dylan. After that I guess they figured steel was all right. I did the John Wesley Harding album, then Nashville Skyline and Self Portrait. Bob Dylan really helped me an awful lot. I mean, by having me play on those records he just opened the door for the pedal steel guitar, because then everybody wanted to use one. I was getting calls from all over the world. One day my secretary buzzed me and said, "George Harrison wants you on the phone." And I said, "Well, where's he from?" She said, "London." And I said,. "Well, what company's he with?" She said, "The Beatles." The name, you know, just didn't ring any bells-well, I'm just a hillbilly, you know (laughter). Anyway, I ended up going to London for a week where we did the album All Things Must Pass.
Is that how Ringo came into it?
Ringo Starr asked me to produce him, so I told him I would if he'd come to Nashville, so he did and cut a country album which was really fantastic. It was good for Nashville, and, you know, I really wanted Nashville to get credit for it. Those guys, Ringo and George Harrison, really dig country music. And they're fine people, too, just out of sight.
What kind of instrument do you play now?
Since I came to Nashville I have been playing Sho-Bud guitars and Standel amplifiers. I have some Sho-Bud amps, too. I've got four different guitars that I use with different artists. I try to change my sound around so it doesn't seem like the same musicians on each record. I was looking in the trades the other day, and found that I was on 59 of the top 75 records in "Billboard."
How about different tunings?
Yeah, I change a little. All my guitars have a little bit different pedals, enough to keep me confused. I, and just about everybody in Nashville, use basically the E9th with the chromatic strings and the C6th with a high G string. But everybody has their own pedal setups. I've got one pedal I call my Tammy Wynette pedal that I use with her; and I cut a hit with Johnny Rodriguez recently, "Pass Me By," so I got me a Johnny Rodriguez pedal, too (laughter). If something hits big I try to save that for that particular artist.
Is your equipment modified?
My amps are just stock. As for my steels, I get Shot Jackson [of Sho-Bud in Nashville] to fix them up for me. If I want to raise or lower a string, I'll go to him and say, "Can you do this?," and he'll say, "No," then go ahead and do it. We did my Tammy Wynette pedal that way: I showed him how we could make it work with open strings, so he fixed it, and it was the most beautiful sound I every heard. So the next day we cut "I Don't Wanna Play House" with Tammy, and it became a number one record.
You mentioned Jerry Byrd as a great inspiration, Whom else do you enjoy?
Well, there's so many of them now, Lordy. I look at it kind of differently: There's the recording musician and the everyday picker. They're really not the same. A guy that's really great on a show may not be any good at all on a session, or vice versa. For recording, I think Lloyd Green, Weldon Myrick, Bill West and Ben Kieth are fantastic. They know how to come up with that little extra lick that you need to make a song. Hal Rugg is also a good recording steel man. For really technical playing, Buddy Emmons is a fantastic musician. Curley Chalker is my favorite jazz steel player, but in the studio I'd have to go with the commercial thing because I'm trying to make a dollar. You know, you can play over country people's heads, and I don't think they're ready for the jazz thing. I mean I like to listen to it, but it's "musicians' music," and musicians don't buy records (laughter).What do you think is the future of the steel guitar and country music?
Right now something is happening that I've wanted to happen for a long time: Music's coming together. It's not country music, it's not pop music, it's music. Somebody said there's only two kinds of music-good and bad.
I like a little bit of it all.