Wah. Wah-wah wah-wah wha. Wah wah-wah-wha wah wah…
As 2000 Man wrote in his suggestion to conduct this discussion, “It was cool to talk through your guitar way before it was cool to Auto Tune!”
The Talk Box, I was amazed to learn, is almost as old as your youthful-looking Moderator (“But you don’t look a day over 47!” a colleague recently told me). Pedal-steel guitarist Pete Drake introduced this effects box that does stuff those of you more technically minded will better understand if you read about it for yourself, here. Such effects go back to the ’30s, which you can also read about on the effects’ Wikipedia page. Fascinating stuff that will go on my long list of “Things I Couldn’t Have Invented If I Had a Million Years to Think About Them.”
The Talk Box came into my world—and likely yours—in the 1970s, that glorious decade of extraneous technological developments. There are probably a dozen strong candidates for the Best Use of the Guitar Talk Box that I am forgetting, so you may write-in an “Other” candidate. The nominees and the RTH People’s Poll follow…after the jump!
Peter Frampton, “Do You Feel Like We Do” (go to 1:50 mark)
Peter Frampton, “Show Me the Way”
Joe Perry, in Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion”
Ritchie Sambora, on Bon Jovi’s “We Got It Goin’ On!”
Joe Walsh, “Rocky Mountain Way”
Rufus, “Tell Me Something Good” (no sign of a Talk Box in sight in this live clip, but Wikipedia says one was used on the record, and who can resist the opportunity to post this clip and revel in the glory of this song?)
Pete Drake, “Forever” (we’ve got to include the originator of the box in this contest, and this performance is otherworldly!)
Other, which I will add in the Comments section for this thread
What's the Best Use of the Guitar Talk Box?
- Joe Walsh, "Rocky Mountain Way" (46%, 19 Votes)
- Peter Frampton, "Show Me the Way" (15%, 6 Votes)
- Rufus, "Tell Me Something Good" (12%, 5 Votes)
- Other, which I will add in the Comments section for this thread (10%, 4 Votes)
- Peter Frampton, "Do You Feel Like We Do" (7%, 3 Votes)
- Joe Perry, in Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion" (5%, 2 Votes)
- Pete Drake, "Forever" (5%, 2 Votes)
- Ritchie Sambora, on Bon Jovi's "We Got It Goin' On!" (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 41
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Boy, it’s about time we discussed something important around here. I’m sure that this will spark the Rock HOF to do a special exhibit on this as soon as the U23D exhibit runs its course. I hope Cleveland has enough hotel rooms.
I’m going to have to think real hard before I cast my vote!
Ah-oo-bap-bow, ah-oo-bap-bow, ah-oo-ba-ba-baah-ba-bow. Joe Walsh in a cakewalk.
That Pete Drake song is cool. I never heard that before.
Steely Dan’s Haitian Divorce is another good example, but not really better than what’s already on offer here.
I’m going with Show Me The Way because it it used less as a novelty and more as just a way of getting an interesting sound for the lead.
How could you?
You missed Stringy the Talking Steel Guitar from 1939:
http://youtu.be/jPd9cxqKCVg
Complete with bonus drum solo!
I am pretty sure the first time I heard the talk box was in that Rufus song — which is spectacular.
But my vote goes to Joe Perry — Sweet Emotion was the first 45 I ever had. I won it in radio station call in at a time when buying music seemed so wasteful, when I could just tape the stuff I liked off top 40 radio with my dad’s Panasonic top-loader cassettee deck. This was my revolutionary piece of equipment
http://tinyurl.com/c3z9jm8
I’ve got to go Rocky Mountain Way. I’m thinnking any song that requires the tube to be removed from the mouth, and then reinserted a verse later is just gross. Waiting several songs in a concert is disgusting! Besides, Joe seems like he’s screwing around with it as much as anything.
Leave it to Jeff Beck to make all the other voting options look like amateurs: http://youtu.be/cmHoiAPym_M
I gotta admit, that live clip of Joe Walsh is pretty smokin’. Enjoyed that a lot. And “Sweet Emotion” will always kick ass, that crappy ’94 live version notwithstanding. But I have to go with Frampton, “Show Me the Way,” for sentimental reasons I can’t fully articulate.
Gots to give it up for Pete Drake & His Talking Steel Guitar. David Lynch must have heard that at an impressionable age.
Ugh. I finally watched most of those videos and if I never see anyone play those things again, it will be too soon. I don’t even know where to start with Pete Drake, though. I wish I’d have been able to watch that in a different frame of mind a long time ago.
Yeah, the love for “Rocky Mountain Way” baffles me a bit. One of the classic rock standbys that seems to go on for two hours. But it’s a very effective warning of the dangers of cocaine use.
Amen. I can only ignore how annoying Joe Walsh is for the duration of one James Gang song.
I nominate Roger Miller’s Lock, Stock and Teardrops which features Pete Drake’s guitar speaking the phrase “scooby- do”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No7asZj5esY&edufilter=8Fgp0EfoQura8l48YfL_rA
If you mean by guitar talk box making the guitar sound like its talking, communicating words I would say Peter Frampton’s debut album.
That Pete Drake clip is something else. Is he the guy I remember doing this on Ed Sullivan? Or was it Lawrence Welk?
My answer: there is no good use of the talk box. “Rocky Mountain Way” commits the double sin of having both the talk box and the most overused of all guitar riffs. I can’t define in words just how much I hate that song.
I doubt anybody here has played much Guitar Hero but “Do You Feel Like We Do” is on there, complete with colored-button-pressing talk box solo. One of the more fun ones, IMHO.