Pete Drake born Roddis Franklin Drake, was a major Nashville

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

, Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

-based record producer

Record producer

A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

 and pedal steel guitar

Pedal steel guitar

The pedal steel guitar is a type of electric guitar that uses a metal bar to "fret" or shorten the length of the strings, rather than fingers on strings as with a conventional guitar. Unlike other types of steel guitar, it also uses pedals and knee levers to affect the pitch, hence the name "pedal"...

 player.

One of the most sought-after backup musician

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

s of the 1960s, Drake played on such hits as Lynn Anderson

Lynn Anderson

Lynn Rene Anderson is an American country music singer and equestrian known for a string of hits throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, most notably her Grammy Award-winning, worldwide mega-hit, " Rose Garden." Helped by her regular exposure on national television, Anderson was one of the most...

's "Rose Garden

Rose Garden (Lynn Anderson album)

Rose Garden was an album released in 1971 by country singer Lynn Anderson. The album was the same name as the single she released in late 1970. The song went on to top the country charts, where it stayed at the #1 position for five weeks, and reached #3 on the pop charts in 1971. Anderson received...

", Charlie Rich

Charlie Rich

Charles Rich was an American country music singer and musician. A Grammy Award winner, his eclectic-style of music was often hard to classify in a single genre, playing in the rockabilly, jazz, blues, country, and gospel genres.In the latter part of his life, Rich acquired the nickname The Silver...

's "Behind Closed Doors

Behind Closed Doors (Charlie Rich song)

"Behind Closed Doors" is a country song written by Kenny O'Dell and first recorded by Charlie Rich for his 1973 album Behind Closed Doors. The single became Rich's first number-one hit on the country charts, spent 20 weeks on this chart, and also became a crossover hit on the pop charts...

"' Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

's "Lay Lady Lay

Lay Lady Lay

"Lay Lady Lay" is a song written by Bob Dylan and originally released in 1969 on his Nashville Skyline album. Like many of the tracks on the album, Dylan sings the song in a low croon, rather than in the high nasal singing style associated with his earlier recordings...

"' and Tammy Wynette

Tammy Wynette

Virginia Wynette Pugh, known professionally as Tammy Wynette , was an American country music singer-songwriter and one of the genre's best-known artists and biggest-selling female vocalists....

's "Stand by Your Man

Stand By Your Man

"Stand by Your Man" is a song co-written by Tammy Wynette and Billy Sherrill and originally recorded by Tammy Wynette, released as a single in September 1968 in the USA...

". (Drake's work on this last tune is debatable, in that some sources claim Sonny Curtis

Sonny Curtis

Sonny Curtis is an American singer and songwriter. Most of his work falls into the Pop and Country genres. He was a teenage pal and band member with Buddy Holly in Lubbock, Texas...

 to be the steel guitar player on that record.) However, most of the evidence points to Drake being the steel player on Wynette's huge hit.

Career

Drake was born in Augusta

Augusta, Georgia

Augusta is a consolidated city in the U.S. state of Georgia, located along the Savannah River. As of the 2010 census, the Augusta–Richmond County population was 195,844 not counting the unconsolidated cities of Hephzibah and Blythe.Augusta is the principal city of the Augusta-Richmond County...

, Georgia

Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

, the son of a Pentecostal preacher

Preacher

Preacher is a term for someone who preaches sermons or gives homilies. A preacher is distinct from a theologian by focusing on the communication rather than the development of doctrine. Others see preaching and theology as being intertwined...

, in 1932. In 1950, he drove to Nashville, heard Jerry Byrd on the Grand Ole Opry

Grand Ole Opry

The Grand Ole Opry is a weekly country music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee, that has presented the biggest stars of that genre since 1925. It is also among the longest-running broadcasts in history since its beginnings as a one-hour radio "barn dance" on WSM-AM...

, and was inspired to buy a steel guitar. He organized a band

Band (music)

In music, a musical ensemble or band is a group of musicians that works together to perform music. The following articles concern types of musical bands:* All-female band* Big band* Boy band* Christian band* Church band* Concert band* Cover band...

, Sons of the South, in Atlanta in the 1950s, which included future country

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 stars

Celebrity

A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...

 like Jerry Reed

Jerry Reed

Jerry Reed Hubbard , known professionally as Jerry Reed, was an American country music singer, innovative guitarist, songwriter, and actor who appeared in more than a dozen films...

, Doug Kershaw

Doug Kershaw

Doug Kershaw, born January 24, 1936, is an American fiddle player, singer and songwriter from Louisiana. Active since 1949, Kershaw has recorded fifteen albums and charted on the Hot Country Songs charts.- Early life :...

, Roger Miller

Roger Miller

Roger Dean Miller was an American singer, songwriter, musician and actor, best known for his honky tonk-influenced novelty songs...

, Jack Greene

Jack Greene

Jack Greene is an American country musician nicknamed the "Jolly Green Giant" and well known for his 1966 hit "There Goes My Everything."-Early career:...

, and Joe South

Joe South

Joe South is a multi-talented American singer-songwriter and guitarist.-Career:...

.

In 1959 he moved to Nashville and went on the road as a backup musician for Don Gibson

Don Gibson

Donald Eugene "Don" Gibson was an American songwriter and country musician. A Country Music Hall of Fame inductee, Gibson penned such country standards as "Sweet Dreams" and "I Can't Stop Loving You", and enjoyed a string of country hits from 1957 into the early 1970s.-Biography:Don Gibson was...

, Marty Robbins

Marty Robbins

Martin David Robinson , known professionally as Marty Robbins, was an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist...

 and others. In 1964 he had an international hit on Smash Records

Smash Records

Smash Records is an American record label. It was founded in 1961 as a subsidiary of Mercury Records by Mercury executive Shelby Singleton and run by Singleton with Charlie Fach. Fach took over after Singleton left Mercury in 1966...

 with his "talking steel guitar" playing on the album Forever. The resultant single

Single (music)

In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

, "Forever," reached #22 in the Billboard Hot 100

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

, eventually sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc

Music recording sales certification

Music recording sales certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped or sold a certain number of copies, where the threshold quantity varies by type and by nation or territory .Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories,...

. His innovative use of what would be called the talk box

Talk box

A talk box is an effects unit that allows a musician to modify the sound of a musical instrument. The musician controls the modification by lip syncing, or by changing the shape of the mouth...

, later used by Peter Frampton

Peter Frampton

Peter Kenneth Frampton is an English musician, singer, producer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. He was previously associated with the bands Humble Pie and The Herd. Frampton's international breakthrough album was his live release, Frampton Comes Alive!. The album sold over 6 million copies...

, Joe Walsh

Joe Walsh

Joseph Fidler "Joe" Walsh is an American musician, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He has been a member of three commercially successful bands, the James Gang, Barnstorm, and the Eagles, and has experienced notable success as a solo artist and prolific session musician, especially with B.B...

 and Jeff Beck

Jeff Beck

Geoffrey Arnold "Jeff" Beck is an English rock guitarist. He is one of three noted guitarists to have played with The Yardbirds...

, 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

Alvino Rey

Alvin McBurney , known by his stage name Alvino Rey, was an American swing era musician and pioneer, often credited as the father of the pedal steel guitar...

 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:

"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

Sound recording and reproduction

Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...

.

Drake played on Bob Dylan's three Nashville-recorded album

Album

An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...

s, including Nashville Skyline

Nashville Skyline

Nashville Skyline is singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's ninth studio album, released by Columbia Records in April 1969.The album marked a dramatic departure for Dylan, previously known for his groundbreaking, poetic folk music and rock and roll...

, and on Joan Baez

Joan Baez

Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....

's David's Album

David's Album

David's Album was a 1969 album by Joan Baez, recorded in Nashville. It was Baez' eleventh album to date. It peaked at number 36 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart.-History:...

. He also worked with George Harrison

George Harrison

George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...

  on All Things Must Pass

All Things Must Pass

All Things Must Pass is a triple album by George Harrison, recorded and released in 1970. The original vinyl release featured two LPs of rock songs as well as Apple Jam, a third LP of informal jams...

, and produced Ringo Starr

Ringo Starr

Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...

 on Beaucoups of Blues

Beaucoups of Blues

Beaucoups of Blues is the second album by former Beatles member Ringo Starr, and also his second full-length release in 1970, coming after his debut Sentimental Journey...

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 and into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 2010.

Death

Developing emphysema

Emphysema

Emphysema is a long-term, progressive disease of the lungs that primarily causes shortness of breath. In people with emphysema, the tissues necessary to support the physical shape and function of the lungs are destroyed. It is included in a group of diseases called chronic obstructive pulmonary...

 after 40 years of smoking, Drake's health started declining in 1985. The Drakes built a recording studio in their home in Brentwood, Tennessee, where he continued to work every day until he lost his long battle on July 29, 1988, at the age of 55.
He is buried in Spring Hill Cemetery in Nashville with an inscription that reads "His Courage, His Smile, His Talent and His Love, Warms Our Hearts" and "For Pete's Sake."

External links

• PeteDrakeMusic.com — Official web site, including bio, credits, timeline, photos, videos, and store
• Pete Drake - It Shore Ain't No Vocoder - Pete Drake on Record Robot
• Davies, Phil. Pete Drake
• First Generation Records @ CountryRecords.com
• [ Pete Drake Biography] by Craig Harris @ Allmusic
• Old video of talking electric guitar
• Pete Drake at findagrave.com