Pete Drake

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please help improve this article or replace this tag with a more specific message. This article has been tagged since June 2006. (help, talk)

Pete Drake was a major Nashville record producer and steel guitar player. His innovative use of what would be called the "talk box", which would be also used by Joe Walsh and Jimmy Page, 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. In other words, it sounded as if the guitar sang. This is according to an interview with Pete Drake:

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 cords, and your mouth is the amplifier. It's amplified by a microphone.

Pete Drake has also played for George Harrison and Ringo Starr after the breakup of The Beatles. Here is a link to an interview where he talked about working with George and Ringo: http://www.calsharp.com/music/Pete.html