Over 40 years after setting the rock world on fire with his hit-making use of the talk-box, Peter Frampton is on the road this summer playing his Frampton Comes Alive! classics night after night.  Frampton, who’s currently criss-crossing North America as part of a double bill with old friend Steve Miller, recalled to TheDay.com that he first became aware of the sound of the talk-box from radio stations that used it to announced its call letters, a few years later, I heard Music Of My Mind by Stevie Wonder and went, ‘There’s it is again! What IS that?!’

“Then, in 1970, ’71, I was in the studio with George Harrison for All Things Must Pass, and (pedal steel wizard) Pete Drake came over from Nashville and set up his stuff. Suddenly, he put this tube in his mouth and started playing, and I almost fell over. ‘This is it!’. . . Joe Walsh‘s use on ‘Rocky Mountain Way’ is the ultimate, period. Forget ‘Do You Feel.”

Frampton went on to recall that when Humble Pie sound man Bob Heil started a talk box company, he gave one to Frampton, who laughed when recalling the gift, “Well, clearly, all that was left was for me to learn how to use it.”

Peter Frampton and the Steve Miller Band play RiverEdge Park on July 20 in Aurora, IL.