Sunday Music – Show Me The Way

Today’s music video is ‘Show Me The Way’ from Peter Frampton.

This video was posted to You Tube by oxon68

Peter Frampton had long career already before his ‘monster’ smash album of 1976, ‘Frampton Comes Alive’. Prior to this, he was one of the founding members of the huge band Humble Pie. Leaving that band, he pursued a solo career, and had three albums on his own, and these releases met with some moderate success. He was also a sought after ’session’ musician, recording with numerous artists, Harry Nillson, John Entwistle from the Who, Jerry Lee Lewis and others. During the recording one of these albums, the George Harrison album, ‘All Things Must Pass’, he was introduced to the ‘talk box’, which became his trade mark after his smash album.

That album, ‘Frampton Comes Alive’ was a double album and had three singles lifted from it, all of which became huge hits. This song ‘Show Me The Way’ was one of those and is probably his best known song. After the release of this album, it became the biggest selling live album of all time, selling 6 million copies in the U.S. and 16 million copies World Wide. It stayed on the Billboard 200 charts for 97 weeks, 55 of them in the Top 40 for Albums, and with 10 weeks at Number One. The album has since dropped to the 4th best selling position, but still remains popular to this day.

He has released 9 studio albums since this big one, none repeating the success of that album, however winning a Grammy Award for his 2006 album ‘Fingerprints’.

The ‘talk box’ itself is an interesting device that needs some explanation. You can see it shown in the clip of this song. It sits at the base of the Mike stand there. Basically, the pickup from the electric guitar goes through a switching device in the form of one of the many pedals guitarists have at their feet. The pickup then goes to the Amplifier, and from there to the speakers. When the switch on the pedal is pushed, the guitar pickup is then routed to a small airtight box. Inside that box is a small speaker. From the box then comes a plastic tube routed up the mike stand to the top alongside the mike. When the guitarist wants that different sound synonymous with the ‘talk box’ he places his mouth over the tube and uses the shape of his mouth, his tongue, and the natural chamber inside his mouth to form the sound that makes the guitar sound like it’s actually singing. The sound then comes from his mouth, into the mike and then that is amplified.  Frampton did not invent the ‘talk box’, but he is the one credited with making it famous. He also experimented with the sound by forming words in the same manner as singing. The play of the sound then makes it sound like the guitar is actually doing the singing.

It has fallen out of favour recently, as advances in technology made the sound available without having it playing inside your mouth. The problem with that was it tended to badly affect the user’s voice box with amplified guitar music playing inside your mouth. After Frampton used it to such wonderful effect, a lot of other guitarists used the effect, but Frampton is the one most remembered for this clever little device.

Also of note from this 1976 clip from ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’ is the big hair and flared trousers