Joe Walsh

Walsh was gifted the original by inventor Bill West, later making his own and using it on "Rocky Mountain Way", as related to M: Music & Musicians in 2012. The account was transcribed in this September 2013 Vintage Guitar article and this January 7, 2013 Gibson article, while it is mentioned to be the inspiration for the Heil Talk Box in this 2006 Musician's Friend interview with Bob Heil.

Vintage Guitar

Meanwhile, Bill West’s original talk box found its way into rock and roller Joe Walsh’s rig. As Walsh explained to M: Music & Musicians in 2012, “The James Gang used to play in Nashville, and I became good friends with Dottie West, the famous classic country singer. We would go to her house and people would come over, and we would sit around with an acoustic guitar and pass it around. That could be anybody – Chet Atkins, Glen Campbell, Roger Miller – whoever was in town. Dottie’s husband, Bill, was a pedal-steel player. He actually invented the talk box that was used on Pete Drake’s album. One day, while I was at Dottie’s house, Bill went out to the garage and got it and gave it to me. He said, ‘Here, you plug this end into your mouth. You’ll figure it out.’

“After I got the hang of it, I then figured out how it was built. I went to a hardware store and got some parts and made one for myself. ‘Rocky Mountain Way’ [from 1972] was the first time I used it on record.”

Musician's Friend, 2006

Joe Walsh had recorded "Rocky Mountain Way" using an 8" speaker and a funnel, a device used in Nashville by the steel guitar players. Well, it wasn't very loud so you couldn't use it live. So here we are, two ham radio operators on a Sunday afternoon out in my plant. We grabbed a 250-watt JBL, built a low-pass filter, got all the plumbing together, and voila—the Talk Box. That's how it started. After that tour, everybody's going nuts! "What's this thing he's got?" So I put together a commercial unit called the Heil Talk Box. Then Peter Frampton's girlfriend Penny called me wanting a Christmas present for Peter. So I sent a Talk Box. The rest of the story writes itself from there.

The first 50 were done in fiberglass, and Peter still carries his fiberglass one today. When you see him, somewhere in his gig box is that original Heil Talk Box. I have serial number 1 that will go in the Rock Hall with Peter and Joe's signatures.

Joe Walsh used a Maestro Echoplex during the recording of "Hotel California," as confirmed by Bill Worrell on reverb.com in the article "The Gear of The Eagles' Guitarists."