Peter Frampton Recalls Origins of His Talking Guitar

When you can make your guitar "talk" like Peter Frampton did during the sweet jam of 'Do You Feel Like We Do?' on his blockbuster 1976 album 'Frampton Comes Alive,' you've pretty much carved out a place in rock history. Still, this move might have been pretty risky back in the day because, let's face it, telling someone you think guitars "talking" is a logical career move might get you some strange looks.

But for Frampton, two events stick out in his head in terms of convincing him this was the direction he needed. As a young lad, he picked up on the effect after hearing it used as a station ID on a Radio Luxembourg broadcast that the BBC would air on Sunday nights. "We had one channel, and they hardly played any rock music at all," Frampton tells Spinner. "Then at night we had a show called Radio Luxembourg, 208 on your dial, and they would broadcast from seven o'clock 'til midnight with an English speaking DJ. It was illegal but we picked it up. But their call letters, 208 were done with the predecessor to the talk box. I'd heard this sound, and I thought 'That is so incredible.'"

The sound came back to Frampton when he was invited to sit in on sessions for George Harrison's landmark solo album, 1970's 'All Things Must Pass.' He joined pedal guitar steel player Pete Drake, who'd recorded with Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, along with a decade's worth of his own releases throughout the 1960s, including an album called 'Pete Drake & His Talking Guitar.'

"He was setting up his pedal steel right in front of me and got out this little box. I didn't know what was doing," Frampton recalls. "He had a pipe and plugged this in here and that in there, stuck the pipe in his mouth, started playing the pedal steel and it started coming out of his mouth. The pedal steel was singing to me, talking to me. That's when my jaw dropped, and I said, 'There it is. I've got to get that.' The power of that, just everyone in the room had a big smile and said, 'What is that?' I had no reservations that if I could get one and learn how to use it, it would be a great thing to have in the act."

And thanks to Pete Drake and pirate radio, the rest is history.