Listen Great Country Narrations and Truck Driving Songs

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Grateful Dude

TMMAC Addict
May 30, 2016
8,925
14,261
I’m going to wander off from the truckin’ theme of the thread again, but I think this is where this will be appreciated. I recently found some of the earliest uses of the sonovox (or talk box).

megatherium @Megaterio Llamas have you heard of Alvino Rey or Pete Drake? (I’m guessing you have, you’re a tough one to stump with my discoveries ;)). Yossarian @Yossarian i think you may like this as well.

As far back as 1939, Alvino Rey was the first person known to modulate musical sounds using a voice. He would use a pilot-style carbon throat mic and run it through the amplifier for his pedal steel. His wife would sometimes help with the voice part while he played, and the result would be making his pedal steel sound like it was “talking/singing”.

A later variation of the throat mic became known as the “sonovox”. This was also used to create talking cartoony effects in several movies in the 40s, Dumbo being one of them.

In the 60s, Pete Drake, who was also a pedal steel player, modified the device by using a speaker in a separate box and a length of surgical tubing to run the sound into his mouth.

In the 70s a high powered talk box was made. Since then performers like joe Walsh and Peter Frampton have used them in concert and on records.

That’s the brief history....I’m off to YouTube to gather some videos for y’all.
 

Grateful Dude

TMMAC Addict
May 30, 2016
8,925
14,261
Here is Alvino Rey. If you watch/listen closely, you can see that the voice parts are going along with what he’s playing on the pedal stee (music starts about 40 sec in)l. The singing puppet-guitar thingy is TRIPPY lol

At about 3:00 he does a cool solo where he also does some effects using his volume knobs. At about 3:40 there is a cool call and response type solo where he’s using the sonovox. Way cool, i think this is awesome.


View: https://youtu.be/jPd9cxqKCVg
 

Yossarian

TMMAC Addict
Oct 25, 2015
13,489
19,127
I’m going to wander off from the truckin’ theme of the thread again, but I think this is where this will be appreciated. I recently found some of the earliest uses of the sonovox (or talk box).

megatherium @Megaterio Llamas have you heard of Alvino Rey or Pete Drake? (I’m guessing you have, you’re a tough one to stump with my discoveries ;)). Yossarian @Yossarian i think you may like this as well.

As far back as 1939, Alvino Rey was the first person known to modulate musical sounds using a voice. He would use a pilot-style carbon throat mic and run it through the amplifier for his pedal steel. His wife would sometimes help with the voice part while he played, and the result would be making his pedal steel sound like it was “talking/singing”.

A later variation of the throat mic became known as the “sonovox”. This was also used to create talking cartoony effects in several movies in the 40s, Dumbo being one of them.

In the 60s, Pete Drake, who was also a pedal steel player, modified the device by using a speaker in a separate box and a length of surgical tubing to run the sound into his mouth.

In the 70s a high powered talk box was made. Since then performers like joe Walsh and Peter Frampton have used them in concert and on records.

That’s the brief history....I’m off to YouTube to gather some videos for y’all.
Pretty cool man. I didn't know the history of the talk box was as extensive. Figured it was limited and brought to the public by Joe Walsh and Frampton in the seventies.
 

Grateful Dude

TMMAC Addict
May 30, 2016
8,925
14,261
Pretty cool man. I didn't know the history of the talk box was as extensive. Figured it was limited and brought to the public by Joe Walsh and Frampton in the seventies.
Yeah, I didn't really know the history either. I had always assumed it was a 70s thing. I think it's pretty wild that out of all instruments, those guys were running it through a pedal steel. Good stuff.