<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There was an 18 month stretch beginning in 1976 when Peter Frampton could do no wrong.\u00a0 He released the iconic <\/span>Frampton Comes Alive<\/span><\/i> album and was sky rocketed to heights his career had never known.\u00a0 Frampton credits the emotional chemistry he had with Bob Mayo (keyboards and guitar), Stanly Sheldon (bass), and John Siomos (drums) for his big breakthrough.\u00a0 Says Frampton 46 years on, \u201cIt was the best band I\u2019d ever had.\u00a0 That line-up came together in 1975, so it was a new band, but it gelled so quickly that it took us to a WNL – whole \u2018nother level.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This was the same line-up I was fortunate to see at Northern Michigan University\u2019s Hedgecock Field- house as the <\/span>Come Alive<\/span><\/i> album was climbing the charts.\u00a0 They were so tight that even with Mayo missing the gig (his absence was never explained – perhaps he was ill?), the trio missed nary a beat.\u00a0 I remember thinking Frampton had the skinniest legs I had ever seen, but that did not stop me from scoring the <\/span>Alive <\/span><\/i>album ASAP.\u00a0 As far as one can tell, the only mistake Pete made was agreeing to appear in Robert Stigwood\u2019s monumental movie flop <\/span>Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band <\/span><\/i>that was filmed late in 1977.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve seen it, you know why.\u00a0 If you have not seen it, don\u2019t bother.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0On the eve of his final live appearances in the United Kingdom, Frampton sat down and held an extensive zoom interview for <\/span>Classic Rock Magazine<\/span><\/i> with Bill DeMain (Issue 306, October 2022).\u00a0 It was supposed to be a face-to-face session at Peter\u2019s studio in Nashville\u2019s Berryhill neighborhood, but one of his studio assistants tested positive for COVID the night before.\u00a0 The decision to err on the side of caution was made with a mind toward the safety of his daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter who were staying with him for a month.\u00a0 DeMain described Frampton\u2019s six decade career in a nutshell:\u00a0 \u201cPeter Frampton has lived the rock life to its fullest playing many parts – prodigy, teen idol, guitar hero, global superstar, forgotten man, comeback kid, survivor.\u00a0 Through it all, he\u2019s returned to one defining thought:\u00a0 \u2018I\u2019m a musician, first and foremost.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 Indeed, Peter says he really has only two regrets:\u00a0 One is the aforementioned movie and the other was rushing out his <\/span>I\u2019m In You<\/span><\/i> album to soon after <\/span>Comes Alive.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i>With his 2017 diagnosis of inclusion body myositis (IBM), Frampton announced he would undertake a farewell tour in 2019 before his condition dulled his ability to perform.\u00a0 IBM is a painless but progressive degenerative disorder that weakens the legs, arms, wrists, and fingers which pretty much sums up the toolbox a guitarist needs to play.\u00a0 Halfway through his final jaunt, COVID shut down the music industry and disrupted his plans.\u00a0 In the interval, his condition has slowly worsened to the point where he doesn\u2019t trust his legs enough to play standing up.\u00a0 When the final leg of his farewell gears up, he will play seated but he told DeMain, \u201cI am anxious about it.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t played over there in so long, and I have progressed in my disease.\u00a0 It has started to affect my hands, but not enough yet, so I can still play a good lick.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Peter Frampton picked up the guitar at a young age and surprised his parents with the speed at which he mastered the instrument.\u00a0 His father Owen was an art teacher and he encouraged his son and another student of his named David Jones (later, Bowie) to bring their guitars to school so they could play during lunch hour.\u00a0 Seeing Jones perform with his early band the Kon Rads\u00a0 spurred young Peter to pursue a career in music. By the age thirteen, he was playing professional gigs and was being mentored by future Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman.\u00a0 Wyman recalls, \u201cPete and I go back to when he was about 14 and used to come round to my house.\u00a0 He had this little band at that time.\u00a0 I\u2019m like his mentor, his confidante.\u00a0 I helped get him into the studio for the first time.\u00a0 After I joined the Stones in December of 1962, my former drummer Tony Chapman bought my old equipment and formed The Preachers.\u00a0 When their guitar player was killed in a car accident in \u201864, he was replaced by Peter Frampton.\u00a0 So you can trace him back to my original band.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Frampton\u2019s first brush with fame came when he joined The Herd.\u00a0 They were a solid pop band but the press and the girls became fixated on \u2018The Face\u2019, as he would soon be called.\u00a0 The rest of the band wasn\u2019t happy about it and Frampton himself found the extra attention annoying.\u00a0 When it became clear that it was the look and not the music that was selling, he set off to find a band where he could just be a guitar player.\u00a0 Enter Steve Marrriott of The Faces.\u00a0 Marriot had also tired of being a teen idol and with Frampton, drummer Jerry Shirley, and bassist Greg Ridley, the band Humble Pie was born.\u00a0 With their hard driving sound and Marriott\u2019s soulful voice, they made a name for themselves as a live act.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The first time the Pie played at Madison Square Garden, they opened for Grand Funk Railroad.\u00a0 Offered time to do a sound check (something opening acts are not always given time to do), Frampton strapped on his guitar and filled the 22,000 seat arena with a thunderous E chord, followed by E-minor, G, and then an A chord.\u00a0 What happened next was typical Humble Pie magic as Peter recalled it to <\/span>CRM:<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 \u201cJerry yelled, \u2018One-two-three-four\u2019 and he was in.\u00a0 Greg fell in.\u00a0 Steve was at the mixing console a mile away, and I saw him sprinting full-speed towards the stage.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t even pick up a guitar.\u00a0 He gets to the mic and yells, \u2018Hold it on the E! and starts to sing; <\/span>I don\u2019t need no doctor!\u2019\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>And that was that.\u00a0 Steve picked up a guitar, then we did it again, we arranged it, rehearsed it, and it became the last number of our set that night.\u00a0 It tore the place apart.\u00a0 We saw the power of the song, and it became our closer of every show we ever did.\u00a0 That was Humble Pie – all we needed was a riff and we were off.\u00a0 And that was one hell of a riff.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The record that broke them big in America was a double live album recorded in New York City on May 28-29, 1971 (<\/span>Performance Rockin\u2019 the Fillmore – <\/span><\/i>released in November 1971).\u00a0 Still hailed as one of the greatest live albums ever made, it proved to be Frampton\u2019s swan song with the band.\u00a0 He and Marriott were beginning to have creative differences as the album was peaking.\u00a0 Marriott\u2019s increasing drug use was probably the wedge that pushed Peter to leave the Pie to try his hand at a solo career first as Frampton\u2019s Camel, then under his own name.\u00a0 It was all ground work leading up to the massive success of <\/span>Frampton Comes Alive.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The last attempt at a Humble Pie reunion began in the 1990s when the two former bandmates met up in England and wrote a song called <\/span>The Bigger They Come<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 Encouraged by their collaboration, Frampton invited Marriott to Los Angeles on one condition;\u00a0 he had to be sober.\u00a0 Marriott said, \u201cAll right mate,\u201d and they had a pretty productive two week stretch working at Peter\u2019s makeshift studio in North Hollywood.\u00a0 When Steve\u2019s voice started to slur, Frampton realized the ever present Perrier bottle Marriott was toting around was filled with wine, not spring water.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They still attempted to get a label deal as \u2018Marriott-Frampton\u2019 but the suits wanted to make it a Humble Pie project.\u00a0 \u201cThat was the past,\u201d they told the label and stuck to their guns.\u00a0 As these negotiations dragged on and Marriott\u2019s drinking continued, Frampton told him. \u201cSteve, I\u2019m sorry, this is not going to work for me.\u00a0 Steve said, \u201cAll right, mate, I understand,\u201d and he decamped back to England.\u00a0 Peter thought he would go home and think it over and call him to give it another go, however, fate had other plans.\u00a0 Frampton sadly recalls, \u201cThe day Steve got home, he fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand.\u00a0 And the rest is history, unfortunately.\u201d\u00a0 Marriott died in the resultant fire that swept through his home in Arkesden, Essex on April 20, 1991.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Frampton\u2019s <\/span>Comes Alive<\/span><\/i> album marked his high point and everyone knows there are valleys between the peaks.\u00a0 Peter\u2019s valley was much deeper than one would expect, but the slide to the bottom was gradual.\u00a0 He got to be great friends with George Harrison after John Lennon\u2019s personal assistant Terry Doran invited Peter to \u2018meet Geoffrey\u2019 (George\u2019s Beatle code name).\u00a0 They walked into Trident Studios, George said, \u201cHello, Pete.\u00a0 Nice to meet you man.\u00a0 Do you want to play?\u201d\u00a0 Frampton was surprised a Beatle even knew who he was and the next thing he knew, he was playing Harrison\u2019s red Les Paul guitar nicknamed \u2018Lucy\u2019 on a track George had written for Doris Troy called <\/span>Ain\u2019t That Cute?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 As he strummed rhythm guitar to the chord pattern Harrison showed him, he noticed Stephen Stills sitting there to his right as George stopped the tape and said, \u201cNo, I want you to play lead.\u201d\u00a0 Frampton then laid down the lead fills in the intro for the song that was soon released as a single.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A few weeks later, George called him up and said, \u201cPete, I\u2019m making my own album with Phil Spector.\u00a0 Would you come and play some acoustic?\u00a0 Phil wants, like, nineteen of everything.\u201d\u00a0 Frampton ended up playing on <\/span>If Not For You, Behind the Locked Door, and My Sweet Lord <\/span><\/i>plus a few other tracks.\u00a0 The pattern would repeat as Phil \u2018Mr Wall of Sound\u2019 Spector kept adding more guitars to the tracks.\u00a0 Pete says, \u201cIt was just me and George sitting on two stools in front of the glass at Abbey Road, and there\u2019s Phil Spector [in the booth].\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how many songs I played on, but if you hear an acoustic guitar, I\u2019m probably on it.\u201d\u00a0 As I recall, there are alot of acoustic guitar parts spread across George\u2019s masterwork <\/span>All Things Must Pass.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0To add insult to the <\/span>Sgt. Pepper <\/span><\/i>movie debacle, Frampton was in a serious car crash the weekend it opened.\u00a0 It was the third \u2018bad luck\u2019 thing in the dreaded \u2018bad things happen in threes\u2019 meme.\u00a0 The first was a photo of a shirtless Peter Frampton that appeared on the cover of <\/span>Rolling Stone<\/span><\/i> magazine.\u00a0 It returned him to his unfortunate past as a teen idol and the haters out there branded him \u2018just another pretty face pop star\u2019 regardless of his obvious talents on stage.\u00a0 The second in his line of bad luck combined the aforementioned movie and his rushed out <\/span>I\u2019m In You<\/span><\/i> album into a monumental round of \u2018career bashing\u2019 by the press.\u00a0 By the time the car crash in the Bahamas brought him to his knees, he was already doubting his own talent and career.\u00a0 As if he needed more to burden his soul, he began mulling his career while recovering from his multiple broken bones and finally realized that his manager was a crook.\u00a0 His songwriting royalties and massive album sales were nonexistent prompting Frampton to start legal proceedings to break his contract.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0By 1986, he hit his lowest point and he knew it – he walked out after the sessions for his latest LP <\/span>Premonition<\/span><\/i> and let someone else mix the tracks.\u00a0 Frampton was at the bottom of a career swallowing hole looking at an even deeper abyss of failure when he was rescued by his old guitar strumming school chum.\u00a0 David Bowie called to compliment his playing on <\/span>Premonition <\/span><\/i>(not necessarily the album itself) and asked. \u201cCould you come do that for me?\u201d\u00a0 Later came an offer to tour with Bowie which Frampton says, \u201cMy credibility was in the toilet.\u00a0 The gift David gave me was just wonderful.\u00a0 He knew what I was going through and that I\u2019d lost my cred.\u00a0 He single handedly gave it back to me.\u00a0 And I could never thank him enough.\u00a0 He could have had any guitarist, but he chose me.\u201d\u00a0 The renewed Peter Frampton would later tour as part of Ringo Starr\u2019s All Star Band (with Jack Bruce and Joe Walsh) and serve as a consultant, songwriter, and player on the movie <\/span>Almost Famous.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There is one other aspect about Frampton\u2019s career that has never been fully explained.\u00a0 His use of a talk-box became an iconic part of his sound as heard on the <\/span>Comes Alive <\/span><\/i>record.\u00a0 Peter told DeMain how it came to be and how it almost got him sued by the makers of <\/span>Star Wars:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u201cLet me give you the background first.\u00a0 When I was a kid, I would listen to a DJ on Radio Luxembourg named Kid Jensen.\u00a0 Their call numbers were \u2018208\u2019 and they had this robot voice that would say \u2018the Fabulous 2-0-8\u2019 and it was a cool computerized sound.\u00a0 I would think, \u2018How do they do that?\u2019\u00a0 Many years go by and I\u2019m with George Harrison at Abbey Road and I meet Pete Drake from Nashville.\u00a0 Pete showed me this talk-box.\u00a0 When his pedal steel guitar started talking to me, I said, \u201cEureka!\u00a0 Fabulous 2-0-8!\u2019\u00a0 I asked where I could get one and Pete said, \u2018I made this one myself.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cPete lent the talk-box to Joe Walsh who famously used it on <\/span>Rocky Mountain Way.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Walsh told his audio engineer Bob Heil, \u2018Hey Bob, I got this from Pete Drake but it isn\u2019t loud enough.\u00a0 Can you make it louder?\u2019\u00a0 I knew Bob, and he gave one to my girlfriend to give to me for Christmas.\u00a0 I locked myself away for a couple of weeks and learned how to talk with it.\u00a0 I thought:\u00a0 \u2018Wouldn\u2019t it be great if I could say hello to the audience through this talk-box?\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Frampton first used the talk-box on stage in 1974 on the song <\/span>Do You Feel:\u00a0 \u201c<\/span><\/i>It was insane.\u00a0 It felt like the whole audience moved a foot forward towards the stage. \u00a0 It was a jolt where you felt them saying, \u2018What is that sound?\u2019\u00a0 The more I would talk and ask them questions, it just kept getting crazier.\u00a0 The ultimate moment was me just saying, \u2018Do you feel?\u2019 \u2018Oh my god, yes, yes, waaaaaaah we do!\u2019\u00a0 It exceeded my wildest dreams.\u00a0 Then we introduced it to <\/span>Show Me The Way, <\/span><\/i>and the rest is, as they say, history.\u201d\u00a0 And as Paul Harvey often times said, \u2018And now, you know the rest of the story.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As for being sued by the <\/span>Star Wars<\/span><\/i> people, Peter said for a while they had a full size R2D2 Droid deliver his guitar to him on stage.\u00a0 That brought a quick \u2018cease and desist\u2019 letter from the lawyers and that was that.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Check out Frampton\u2019s <\/span>Comes Alive! <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Comes Alive II! <\/span><\/i>(<\/span>II<\/span><\/i> was released in October of 1995) and you can hear a healthy dose of his signature talk-box guitar.\u00a0 You can also be sure you will hear plenty of Frampton\u2019s work on WOAS-FM in the days after this article goes to print.\u00a0 So long, Peter Frampton, we are grateful we will still have your music even after you begin your well earned (if not untimely) retirement from the road.<\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 Frampton in the Pie days doing\u00a0I Don’t Need No Doctor\u00a0<\/em>Live at the Forum in LA in 1973.\u00a0 It certainly is a monstrous riff Frampton came up with on the spot years earlier at Madison Square Garden!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There was an 18 month stretch beginning in 1976 when Peter Frampton could do no wrong.\u00a0 He released the iconic Frampton Comes Alive album and was sky rocketed to heights his career had never known.\u00a0 Frampton credits the emotional chemistry he had with Bob Mayo (keyboards and guitar), Stanly Sheldon (bass), and John Siomos […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-from-the-vaults","category-new-music","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2756"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2759,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2756\/revisions\/2759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}