Peter Frampton
| Peter Frampton | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Peter Kenneth Frampton |
| Born | 22 April 1950 Beckenham, Kent, England |
| Genre(s) | Rock, Hard rock, Pop rock, Blues |
| Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter, musician |
| Instrument(s) | Vocals, guitar, piano |
| Years active | 1966 – present |
| Label(s) | A&M |
| Associated acts | Humble Pie, The Herd |
| Notable instrument(s) | |
| Peter Frampton Signature model Les Paul | |
Peter Kenneth Frampton (born 22 April 1950 in Beckenham, Kent[1]) is an English musician, best known today for his solo work in the mid-1970s and as one of the original members of the band Humble Pie. His solo album Frampton Comes Alive! is one of the best selling live albums of all time.
Contents |
Career
Frampton first became interested in music when he was only seven years old. He discovered his grandmother's banjolele (a banjo-shaped ukulele) in the attic.[2] Teaching himself to play, he became near-obsessed, and upon receiving a guitar and piano, from his parents, taught himself those instruments as well. At age eight he got a guitar and started taking classical music lessons.[3][4]
Early influences were Cliff Richard & The Shadows, (featuring guitarist Hank Marvin) and American rockers Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran, and then the Ventures and the Beatles. His father introduced him to Belgian gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt.[2][5]
Early bands
By the age of ten, Frampton played in a band called The Little Ravens. Both he and David Bowie were pupils at Bromley Technical School where Frampton's father, Owen Frampton, was an art teacher and head of the Art department. The Little Ravens played on the same bill at school as Bowie's band, George and the Dragons.[3] Peter and David would spend time together at lunch breaks, playing Buddy Holly songs.[3][6]
At the age of 11, Peter was playing with a band called The Trubeats followed by a band called The Preachers, produced and managed by Bill Wyman of The Rolling Stones.[3]
In 1966, he became a member of The Herd. He was the lead guitarist and singer, scoring a handful of British teenybopper hits. Frampton was named "The Face of 1968" by the UK press.[3][5][7]
In early 1969, when Frampton was 18 years old, he joined with Steve Marriott of The Small Faces to form Humble Pie.[3][7]
While playing with Humble Pie, Frampton also did session recording with other artists, including: Harry Nilsson, Jim Price, Jerry Lee Lewis, as well as George Harrison's solo "All Things Must Pass", in 1971, and John Entwistle's "Whistle Rymes", in 1972.[7] During the Harrison session he was introduced to the 'talk box' that has become his trademark guitar sound.[8][9][10]
Solo
After five albums with Humble Pie, Frampton left the band and went solo in 1971, just in time to see Rockin' The Fillmore rise up the US charts.[3] He remained with Dee Anthony, the same personal manager that Humble Pie had used.[11]
His debut was 1972's Wind of Change, with guest artists Ringo Starr and Billy Preston.[5][7] This album was followed by Frampton's Camel in 1973, which featured Frampton working within a group project. In 1974, Frampton released Somethin's Happening. Frampton toured extensively to support his solo career. In 1975, the Frampton album was released. The album went to #32 in the US charts, and is certified Gold by the RIAA.[3]
Peter Frampton had minimal commercial success with his early albums. This changed with Frampton's breakthrough best-selling live album, Frampton Comes Alive!, in 1976. "Baby, I Love Your Way" and "Show Me the Way" were singles. "Do You Feel Like We Do", despite its length, was also popular. The latter two tracks also featured his use of the talk box guitar effect. Recorded mainly in San Francisco, California, where Humble Pie enjoyed a good following, at Winterland in 1975. Released in early January, it debuted on the charts on 14 February at number 191. It stayed at the top of the charts, at number one, for 10 weeks, in the Billboard's Top 40 album chart for 55 weeks, and stayed on the Billboard 200 charts in total for 97 Weeks. It was the top selling album of 1976, beating Fleetwood Mac's Fleetwood Mac for the top spot, and was the 14th best seller of 1977. The album became the biggest selling live album at the time of its release and sold over 6 million copies in the US, 16 million worldwide. It has since dropped to fourth all-time, after The Garth Brooks album Double Live, which at 20 times platinum is the best selling live album of all time at present. Bruce Springsteen is next at 13 times with Bruce Springsteen & E Street Band Live 1975 - '85 and The Eagles come in next with Eagles Live at 7 times platinum. Frampton Comes Alive! is 6 times platinum.[4][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]
The success of Frampton Comes Alive! put him on the cover of Rolling Stone, in a famous shirtless photo by Francesco Scavullo. In late 1976, he and manager Dee Anthony visited the White House at the invitation of Steve Ford, the president's son.[20] And the album put Frampton in a position to be offered, and then accept, a co-starring role with The Bee Gees in director Robert Stigwood's poorly received Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Frampton's career seemed to be falling as quickly as it had risen.[3][5]
His following album, I'm in You (1977) contained the hit title single and went platinum, but fell well short of expectations compared to Frampton Comes Alive!.[3]
In June 1978, he was involved in a near fatal car accident in the Bahamas, he had multiple broken bones, sustained a concussion, and had muscle damage. Dealing with the pain of the accident would lead him into a brief problem of drug abuse.[3][4]
In 1979, Frampton returned to recording. Past band members included Stanley Sheldon (bass), Bob Mayo (keyboards/guitar/vocals), Chad Cromwell (drums), and John Siomos (drums/vocals). The album, Where I Should Be (1979) was the first album recorded after his car accident.[3][4]
In 1980, his following album Rise Up was released to promote his tour in Brazil. The album eventually turned into Breaking All The Rules, released the next year in 1981. These albums were the first he recorded almost completely live.[21]
Frampton continued to record throughout the 1980s, although his albums generally met with little commercial success. However, he did achieve a brief, moderate comeback of sorts in 1986 with the release of his Premonition album, and the single "Lying," which became a big hit on the Mainstream Rock charts. Most notably, he also united with old friend David Bowie, and both worked together to make albums. Frampton played on Bowie's 1987 album Never Let Me Down and the world tour to promote the Glass Spider album, which he also played on.[4][5][21]
In the late 1990s, he starred in an infomercial plugging the internationally successful eMedia Guitar Method, a piece of instructional software represented as an alternative to taking actual guitar lessons. He claimed in the infomercial that the software was the best way to learn guitar.[22]
In 1995, Frampton released Frampton Comes Alive! II which contained live versions of many of the songs from his 1980s and 1990s solo albums. Although there was a large amount of marketing for the album, it did not sell well.[22] After Frampton Comes Alive! II, he recorded and toured with Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings and Ringo Starr's All-Starr Band[4], where he and Jack Bruce did an impressive version of Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love".
In 2003, he released the album Now, and embarked on a tour with Styx to support it. He also toured with The Elms. He appeared in 2006 on the FOX Broadcasting variety show Celebrity Duets, paired with Chris Jericho of WWE fame. They were the first pair voted out.
On 12 September 2006, Frampton released his newest album, an instrumental work titled Fingerprints. His band consists of drummer Shawn Fichter, guitarist Audley Freed, bassist John Regan (Frampton's life long best friend,[2]), and keyboardist/guitarist Rob Arthur, and guest artists such as members of Pearl Jam, Hank Marvin, and his bassist on Frampton Comes Alive!, Stanley Sheldon.
On 11 February 2007, Fingerprints was awarded the 2007 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Album. In February 2007, he also appeared on the Chicago based PBS television show Soundstage.
Personal life
Frampton has lived in London, New York (Westchester), Los Angeles, and Nashville. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Frampton decided to become a United States citizen.[23][24] He moved to Indian Hill, a suburb east of Cincinnati, Ohio, in June 2000, the birthplace of his wife Tina Elfers and the city in which they were married in 1996. They chose to live there to be closer to Tina's family. They still reside there today.[5]
Frampton has been married three times. His wives have been: Mary Lovett (1971–1973); Barbara Gold (1983–1993), with whom he had two children, Jade and Julian; and Tina Elfers (13 January 1996 – present), with whom he has one child, named Mia Frampton.[5] Jade Frampton earned a degree in fashion merchandising from Kent State University in 2005.[25]
Also in 2000, Frampton served as a technical advisor for Cameron Crowe's autobiographical film Almost Famous. He also appears briefly in the film as 'Reg', a road manager for Humble Pie, Frampton's real-life former band.[5]
Television appearances
- Frampton's first appearance on television, was his role as an Australian coast watcher named Peter Buckley in the 1970s program Baa Baa Black Sheep Frampton supposedly offered to cut his long hair to appear in the episode, but the producers let him keep it under the storyline that his character would have been in the jungle for a long time anyway.
- Frampton appeared on an episode of The Mike Douglas Show in the 1970s, with Roger Moore as the week's co-host. Tony Randall was a guest, and noticing Frampton's open shirt, which exposed much of his bare chest, said, "Can we take up a collection to buy this young man some underwear?" Moore replied that Frampton had just sold millions of records, and said to Frampton, "We're taking up a collection to buy Tony Randall some underwear." Randall then objected to Frampton's smoking.
- Peter Frampton appears in the Family Guy episode Death Lives, in which he plays himself and is threatened by Death in order to persuade him to perform for Lois and Peter on their anniversary.
- On 20 December 2006, Frampton appeared on The Colbert Report, filling in for Stephen Colbert in a guitar battle against Chris Funk.[26]
- In November 2007, Frampton stars as himself in a GEICO "celebrity translator" commercial, where he "translated" an insurance customer's brief monologue using his trademark talk box.[27]
- In 1996, Frampton guest-voiced on The Simpsons (episode: Homerpalooza), playing himself, and he's seen playing "Do You Feel Like We Do" after which he tries to shoot Pink Floyd's inflatable pig out in the air, but it's been wasted by Homer.
- In an episode of The Drew Carey Show, Frampton performed the song "You Had To Be There".
Frampton in popular culture
- In the 1993 comedy Wayne's World 2, Cassandra shows Wayne the Frampton Comes Alive! album and asks if he has ever seen it before, to which Wayne (Mike Myers) replies "Everybody in the world has Frampton Comes Alive! If you lived in the suburbs, you were issued it. It came in the mail with samples of Tide."
- Mitch Hedberg once talked about smoking fake pot with Frampton in Almost Famous on his second CD Mitch All Together saying "But I got to smoke fake pot with Peter Frampton. That's a cool story. It's as cool as smoking real pot with a guy who looks like Peter Frampton. I've done that way more."
- Billabong created a bikini with Peter Frampton's likeness and the phrase "Baby, I love your waves" (similar to "Baby, I Love Your Way") on the back without permission, subsequently litigation was enacted.[28]
- In an episode of Family Guy, after Peter Griffin steals a flu shot from an elderly woman, she calls him a monster, he replies "You know what was a monster? Frampton Comes Alive! 1976 Is there anyone you knew who didn't have that record?".
- In another episode of Family Guy titled Death Lives, Peter Griffin realizes that he has not appreciated his wife as much recently and asks Death to pay a visit to Peter Frampton. When Death arrives at Frampton's house to persuade him to visit the golf course, Frampton protests, saying that Death should be "at Keith Richards' house" (a joke Frampton himself pitched, according to the DVD commentary). Death also asks Frampton to bring "the thing that makes your guitar go ‘wah wah wah'" (referencing Frampton's famous use of a talk box to make his guitar "talk"). Lois Griffin discovers Peter Griffin at the golf course and prepares to confront him, but Frampton appears, playing "Baby, I Love Your Way", which is "their" song.
- On the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Atlantis SquarePantis", Patchy the Pirate's 8-track cassette of Frampton Comes Alive! breaks while he waits in rush hour traffic.
- The Half Man Half Biscuit song Third Track Main Camera Four Minutes (from the album Trouble Over Bridgwater) contains the line: 'If ever there was an album title in dire need of an exclamation mark, it surely had to be... Frampton Comes Alive!
- In the 1994 comedy Reality Bites, Michael Grates, played by Ben Stiller canoodles with Leliana Price, played by Winona Ryder, in his convertible while Love Your Way plays in the background. Michael comments that Frampton Comes Alive changed his life.
- In the first season of The Whitest Kids U' Know, A skit depicting Indiana Jones at a Rock N' Roll hall of fame auction auction references to Peter Frampton while one of his guitars was on the block with Jones saying "That guitar belongs to Peter Frampton!" The auctioneer replies that Peter Frampton is dead and so are all of his children are too and tells Jones to sit down.
Discography
- Wind of Change (1972)
- Frampton's Camel (1973)
- Somethin's Happening (1974)
- Frampton (1975)
- Frampton Comes Alive! (1976)
- I'm in You (1977)
- Where I Should Be (1979)
- Rise Up (1980)
- Breaking All The Rules (1981)
- The Art of Control (1982)
- Premonition (1986)
- When All the Pieces Fit (1989)
- Peter Frampton (1994)
- Frampton Comes Alive! II (1995)
- Live in Detroit (2000)
- Now (2003)
- Live in San Francisco March 24, 1975 (2004)
- 2004 Summer Tour (2004)*
- Fingerprints (2006)
Singles
| Year | Song | US Hot 100 |
US MSR |
US A.C. |
UK singles |
Album |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1972 | "Wind of Change" | 118 | - | - | Wind of Change | |
| 1972 | "Jumpin' Jack Flash" | - | - | Wind of Change | ||
| 1972 | "It's a Plain Shame" | - | - | Wind of Change | ||
| 1972 | "All I Wanna Be (Is by Your Side)" | - | - | Wind of Change | ||
| 1973 | "I Got My Eyes on You" | - | - | Frampton's Camel | ||
| 1973 | "All Night Long" | - | - | Frampton's Camel | ||
| 1973 | "Lines on My Face" | - | - | Frampton's Camel | ||
| 1973 | "Just the Time of Year" | - | - | Frampton's Camel | ||
| 1974 | "Doobie Wah" | - | - | Somethin's Happening | ||
| 1974 | "Baby (Somethin's Happening)" | - | - | Somethin's Happening | ||
| 1974 | "I Wanna Go to the Sun" | - | - | Somethin's Happening | ||
| 1974 | "Sail Away" | - | - | Somethin's Happening | ||
| 1975 | "Show Me the Way" | - | - | Frampton | ||
| 1975 | "Baby, I Love Your Way" | - | - | Frampton | ||
| 1976 | "Show Me the Way" | 6 | - | 10 | Frampton Comes Alive! | |
| 1976 | "Baby, I Love Your Way" | 12 | - | 43 | Frampton Comes Alive! | |
| 1976 | "Do You Feel Like We Do" | 10 | - | 39 | Frampton Comes Alive! | |
| 1977 | "I'm in You" | 2 | - | 41 | I'm in You | |
| 1977 | "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours" | 18 | - | - | I'm in You | |
| 1978 | "Tried to Love" | 41 | - | - | I'm in You | |
| 1979 | "I Can't Stand It No More" | 14 | - | - | Where I Should Be | |
| 1981 | "Breaking All the Rules" | - | 12 | - | - | Breaking All the Rules |
| 1986 | "Lying" | 74 | 4 | - | - | Premonition |
| 1989 | "Holding on to You" | - | 27 | - | - | When All the Pieces Fit |
| 1994 | "Day in the Sun" | - | 9 | - | - | Peter Frampton |
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Filmography
- Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as Billy Shears
- Baa Baa Black Sheep as Peter Buckley (One episode)
- Almost Famous as Reg
References
- ↑ "Feel one with Frampton", The Hindu (2004-05-18). Retrieved on 2008-11-03.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Interview with Kyra Phillips: - "Frampton: 'It's been a journey'". - CNN - Friday, 9 April 2004
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 60's/70's. - Frampton.com
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Huey, Steve. - Peter Frampton. - Allmusic
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 Nager, Larry. - "No fade in Frampton's future". - Cincinnati Enquirer. - 4 February 2001
- ↑ Buxton, John. - "Answers to Correspondents". - London Daily Mail - p.64. - 19 August 2006
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 "50 years of Peter Frampton". - Cincinnati Enquirer. - 4 February 2001
- ↑ "THE TALKBOX - what the heck IS that?!!". - Frampton.com
- ↑ Lux, Joanna. and David Dayen. - "Peter Frampton: More Alive Than Ever". - G4 Media. - 13 June 2002
- ↑ Lovelady, Nicholas. - "Frampton and the Talkbox". - University of Central Florida
- ↑ Crowe, Cameron. - "Frampton: Rock Star of the Year". - Rolling Stone. - 10 February 1977. - RS232.
- ↑ Top 100 Albums - RIAA
- ↑ Peter Frampton. - Legacy Recordings - a Sony BMG Music Entertainment company
- ↑ Peter Frampton. - MTV.com
- ↑ Bull, Roger. - "Peter Frampton: Still a guitar man". - Florida Times-Union. - (c/o Jacksonville.com). - 13 October 2006
- ↑ Eder, Bruce. - Frampton Comes Alive!. - Allmusic.
- ↑ Search Highlights for Frampton Comes Alive!. - Billboard.com
- ↑ Top Pop Albums of 1976. - Billboard.biz
- ↑ Top Pop Albums of 1977. - Billboard.biz
- ↑ "Random Notes". - Rolling Stone. - 16 December 1976. - RS228.
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 80's. - Frampton.com
- ↑ 22.0 22.1 90's. - Frampton.com
- ↑ "Frampton comes alive for benefit". - CNN. - 27 November 2001
- ↑ NewsTrack - Entertainment - "Peter Frampton plays for Kerry fund-raiser". - United Press International. - July. 16, 2004
- ↑ Alumni List. - Fashion School. - Kent State University
- ↑ (2006-12-20). Peter Frampton. Comedy Central. Retrieved on 2008-11-28.
- ↑ "Geico's Translator's in Encore Performance". - Adweek.
- ↑ "Frampton's fury at Billabong's ways". - Sydney Morning Herald. - 22 July 2004