Pete Drake (8 October 1932 – 29 July 1988), born
Roddis Franklin Drake, was a major Nashville
, Tennessee
-based record
producer and pedal 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". (Drake's work on this
last tune is debatable, in that some sources claim
Sonny Curtis to be the steel guitar player on
that record.)
Career
Drake was
born in Augusta
, Georgia
, the son of a Pentecostal preacher, in
1932. In 1950, he drove to Nashville, 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", later used by
Peter Frampton,
Joe
Walsh and
Jeff Beck, added novel
effects to the pedal steel guitar. The album
Pete Drake and His
Talking Steel Guitar, harkened back to the sounds of
Alvino Rey and his wife Luise King, who first
modulated a guitar tone with the signal from a throat microphone in
1939. The unique sound of the talk box with a steel guitar was new
in the 1960s, and it made the sounds of vocalizing along with the
strings of the steel guitar. According to an interview of
Drake:Green, Douglas.
"Pete
Drake: everyone's favorite" - Steel Guitar Stories @
Calsharp.com
- :"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."
The equipment was only loud enough to be useful in the studio for
recordings.
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 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.
Death
Drake died of
lung cancer in 1988 at the
age of 55. He is buried in Spring Hill Cemetery, Tennessee,
inscription reads "His Courage, His Smile, His Talent and His Love,
Warms Our Hearts." His headstone is inscribed "For Pete's
Sake."
References
- Pete Drake Bio @ Augusta.com
- ProSoundWeb. Forum: Recording Engineering &
Production. Thread: JUNE is "Ask Bob Heil" Month! Message:
347458. Bob Heil responds about the origin of the Talk Box. Posted
June 6, 2008
- Review: Shultz, Gary. Beaucoups Of Blues - June 9, 1999
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