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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If you are of a certain age, you have seen it.\u00a0 The ubiquitous album cover for his groundbreaking double live album <\/span>Frampton Comes Alive!<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 The cover is festooned with an impossibly young looking Peter Frampton, signature black Gibson Les Paul in his hands, his curly halo of hair and gleaming smile beaming out over his audience.\u00a0 In the days before music videos forced bands to project an image so they had a chance of standing out from the sea of other bands doing the same, it was the album cover that sold a lot of records.\u00a0 <\/span>Frampton Comes Alive! <\/span><\/i>also became a favorite of station programmers who picked which eight or ten songs would be put into heavy rotation on FM radio.\u00a0 \u2018Heavy rotation\u2019 simply meant you would hear the hottest hits of the day at least once per hour, and in some cases, every half an hour.\u00a0 The listening public was more or less force fed a steady diet of songs by certain artists guaranteeing that A) they would indeed sell a lot of records and B) make everyone sick of certain songs when their time in heavy rotation was done.\u00a0 If the tag \u2018Stereo 100\u2019 resonates in ones head, one knows the format well.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A school chum of Davy Jones (the one who would go on to become David Bowie, not the one in the Monkees), Frampton remembered playing guitar with Jones\/Bowie during lunch breaks at school\u00a0 (Frampton\u2019s father was their art teacher). Knocking about in various bands as all wanna-be rockers tend to do, Frampton first gained some amount of fame in The Herd. They were modestly successful, but he grew increasingly uncomfortable as the press spent more and more time talking about his pretty boy looks and not so much about his music.\u00a0 In a calculated move, he left The Herd and recruited Steve Marriott to form Humble Pie in 1968 (see <\/span>FTV:\u00a0 Jerry Shirley <\/span><\/i>1-16-19 for the full story of how The Pie came together).\u00a0 Marriott was also growing tired of being a pop idol in The Small Faces, so he jumped at the chance to form a band with a harder edge.\u00a0 Steve Marriott was a true musical force of nature so naturally, people assumed that Frampton had joined his band, and not the other way around.\u00a0 By the time the album that truly broke the band in America came out (<\/span>Performance:\u00a0 Rockin\u2019 the Fillmore<\/span><\/i> – 1971), Frampton had left the band to forge a solo career.\u00a0 Modest sales of his first three solo albums (<\/span>Winds of Change – 1972, Frampton\u2019s Camel – 1973, <\/span><\/i>and<\/span> Frampton – 1975<\/span><\/i>) made him think that he had made the biggest mistake of his career.\u00a0 Frampton remembered thinking at the time, \u201cI\u2019ve been lucky so far, I\u2019ve made the right decisions, and now I\u2019ve messed it up.\u00a0 [But] that period was my coming of age as a writer and a player. Because I didn\u2019t know anything and I was just shooting in the dark.\u00a0 I was always in the moment. Y\u2019know: \u2018Maybe this album will make a little bit more noise\u2019.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Recorded in San Francisco and New York, <\/span>Frampton Comes Alive!<\/span><\/i> Made more than \u2018a little bit more noise\u2019 and since it was released in 1976, it has racked up platinum album sales (actually,\u00a0 eight-times platinum level sales!). As he remembered the album for Henry Yates in <\/span>Classic Rock Magazine <\/span><\/i>(<\/span>CRM # 263 – June 2019<\/span><\/i>):\u00a0 \u201cThat album is very special to me.\u00a0 It was a spectacular moment in time that we actually recorded.\u00a0 You only have to listen to the audience – and that\u2019s not fake. With that kind of an audience, why wouldn\u2019t you play great?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I was fortunate enough to see Frampton play at the Hedgecock Field House at Northern Michigan University before I <\/span>FCA! <\/span><\/i>was released.\u00a0 When I finally got the album, I realized why it sounded very familiar.\u00a0 When I saw him, he wasn\u2019t just touring in support of the album. Frampton was on the same tour that is documented on <\/span>FCA!<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 Viewing the cover today, my first recollection of seeing him live was, \u201cMy God, that is the skinniest human being I have ever seen!\u201d\u00a0 One could almost imagine Franpton turning his guitar sideways and hiding behind it. Unlike the proverbial \u2018elephant hiding in a bamboo forest\u2019, he might have actually disappeared behind the neck of his Les Paul.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Success can do funny things to those on the receiving end.\u00a0 Even as he was riding the crest of the wave with his massive album sales and sold out shows, doubt crept into Frampton\u2019s mind:\u00a0 \u201c[I would think] If it hadn\u2019t been for my looks, [maybe] people would have accepted it on a different level. Maybe it wouldn\u2019t have been so big.\u00a0 How many people bought it for the way I looked, as opposed to the way it sounded? I don\u2019t know.\u201d Frampton also found that once you get to the Moon, eventually you must come down:\u00a0 \u201cIt felt like I\u2019d come from nowhere. Then this phenomenon happens. Then I came to ground again. You don\u2019t make the best decisions in your mid-twenties. So, it was pretty hellish, a \u2018one-thing-after-another period.\u00a0 I can blame a lot of things, but it was my decision to drink.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Whether the over the top success fueled the drinking or the drinking contributed to the sinking album sales, Peter Frampton remembers the post <\/span>FCA! <\/span><\/i>period with a clear eye today:\u00a0 \u201cI was around people who were doing a lot of it.\u00a0 I am a very small guy and it doesn\u2019t take much to get me loaded.\u00a0 I guess I could feel it all slipping away.<\/span> I\u2019m In You (1977)<\/span><\/i> wasn\u2019t the success everyone hoped for.\u00a0 The [<\/span>Sgt. Pepper<\/span><\/i>] film was a disaster.\u00a0 There\u2019s a certain amount of embarrassment that sets in, where you are up there one day and then the next day, it falls apart.\u201d\u00a0 If Frampton thought he was on a downward slope in 1977, nothing could have prepared him for the horrific car crash he barely survived the next year in the Bahamas.\u00a0 Frampton says, \u201cI was loaded. I was drunk. So I didn\u2019t feel anything. I passed out while driving and crashed into a wall and then into a tree.\u201d As mentally damaged as he was at that point, the physical damage had the potential to end his guitar playing career:\u00a0 \u201cI broke quite a few bones in my body. My right arm was a compound fracture. I broke both feet. Both hands. And six or seven ribs. I had a cut above my right eye to the center of my head. See, actually, I have had plastic surgery! But just to cover up the scar.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0No surgeon could cover up what was broken musically and the four albums he recorded between 1979 and 1982 were lackluster at best.\u00a0 <\/span>Art of Control <\/span><\/i>(1982) was made during a period when Frampton was anything but in control.\u00a0 As a perfectionist who in his own words \u2018wants to be involved one hundred percent\u2019 in any project he is working on, he was anything but during this period.\u00a0 \u201cI felt like I was going through the motions,\u201d he told Yates, \u201c[during <\/span>Art of Control<\/span><\/i>] I was absent, I wasn\u2019t in the room for the final mix, so I didn\u2019t have the final say.\u00a0 I guess I didn\u2019t care. That was my lowest point.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In 1985, his old chum Bowie gave him what he now calls \u2018an incredible gift\u2019.\u00a0 Bowie invited Frampton to come to Switzerland to play on the sessions for what would be Bowie\u2019s 1987 <\/span>Never Let Me Down<\/span><\/i> album.\u00a0 He then asked if Frampton would be available to play guitar on his upcoming Glass Spider tour that was in production.\u00a0 \u201cHe could have had anyone on guitar he wanted,\u201d says Frampton, \u201cI think he knew it had all gone wrong for me. He basically gave me this gift of going around the world again, reintroducing me as a guitar player.\u00a0 That really changed everything for me. When I got back I started touring again. The Glass Spider tour, that is when things started to turn around.\u201d Finally sober, he and Marriott tried to reignite the magic they had conjured up\u00a0 in the Humble Pie days. At age 42, Frampton explained to Marriott that they could make an album but only if they did it together (and sober). It never happened. Even with all of the gears meshed for one last go at recording together, Marriott checked out for good in a tragic house fire in 1991, just before the project could be moved forward.\u00a0 Frampton was forced to move on alone.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Frampton\u2019s career was on the rise again.\u00a0 A 2006 Grammy award for his instrumental <\/span>Fingerprints<\/span><\/i> album was not only validation for what he was doing, it was a complete shock.\u00a0 The gift Bowie had given him was the start of his ascent, but as he says now, \u201cThe Grammy kicked things into seventh gear.\u201d\u00a0 He returned to singing on 2010\u2019s <\/span>Thank You Mr. Chruchill<\/span><\/i> while espousing the twin themes of pacifism and tolerance.\u00a0 He would be tempted to write a more politically charged album today (\u201cWe got a mess in the U.S. because we have a messy President.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to talk about him because I just get nauseous!\u201d) but he has bigger fish to fry. Frampton has mounted what will probably be his last tour that will end where he recorded both <\/span>FCA! <\/span><\/i>and\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Frampton Comes Alive II! – <\/span><\/i>San Francisco:\u00a0 \u201cMy family will be there.\u00a0 That\u2019ll be an emotional last date, for sure.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Why is Peter Frampton pulling the plug on his career?\u00a0 As he tells it, \u201cFour year ago, we were playing an outdoor concert, and I kicked a beach ball out into the audience and fell over backwards.\u00a0 So we all laughed it off and I got up, I was fine, it was a good joke. Two weeks later, I did the same thing only just with my guitar getting in the way.\u201d\u00a0 During a break in the tour, he visited a neurologist who told him he has a nero-muscular disorder known as IBM. Inclusion Body Myositis is a degenerative condition that leads to weakening of the limbs, loss of balance and grip strength.\u00a0 \u201cIt was a shocking, sobering diagnosis,\u201d Frampton told Yates, \u201cbut I have come to grips with it. IBM is life-changing, but isn\u2019t life-ending.\u201d The perfectionist in Frampton will not let him take the stage and fake his way through a show:\u00a0 \u201cThat would be soul destroying for me, knowing that I couldn\u2019t do what I have always done. Up until this time [my playing] has been getting better and better. Even at this late stage of my career. And I just want to go out knowing I\u2019ve given it my best.\u00a0 I made the decision to make [this summer] a farewell tour, because I didn\u2019t want to miss the goodbye, coming around and doing it one more time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As for his good looks, Frampton claims he was almost happy when he began to lose his hair.\u00a0 His close cropped head no longer resembles the good looking lad with the ringlet curls from the days gone by.\u00a0 He told <\/span>CRM<\/span><\/i>:\u00a0 \u201cIt didn\u2019t upset me.\u00a0 It is like what is going on now.\u00a0 You have to accept the cards you are dealt.\u00a0 I found it funny and ironic, that here is a guy that has this huge hair and is famous for it, and all of a sudden, he\u2019s got no hair. \u00a0 Not much, anyway. This is how I am. Accept me and I will accept myself, too.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I find myself relistening to the songs from <\/span>FCA! <\/span><\/i>now that Frampton is winding down his career.\u00a0 Even the ones that I couldn\u2019t stand to hear during the years of radio overplay sound fresh again.\u00a0 We may not see Frampton on tour any more, but we will always have his music. After navigating so many hills and valleys, it is good to see him closing out his musical career with a smooth patch of road and a positive attitude about life without touring. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video: Frampton\u00a0comes alive, indeed!\u00a0 Basically the band I saw only the keyboardist at the time (Bob Mayo) was AWOL for some reason that night – I got to see FCA!<\/em> done as a trio!<\/p>\n \n