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‘I Felt Like I Had Lost Before I Started the Next Part of My Career’: An Exclusive Oral History of ‘Frampton Comes Alive!’

Peter Frampton and the musicians and execs who were involved with the making of the classic 'Frampton Comes Alive!' retell the story of how it became a worldwide phenomenon -- and how life changed…

By Michael Walker

Michael Walker

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In 1975, a year before the release of Frampton Comes Alive! , Peter Frampton ’s manager, Dee Anthony, made a fateful proposal to his 25-year-old client. Anthony also managed Humble Pie and had broken that band with the 1971 live album, Performance: Rockin’ the Fillmore , shortly after Frampton left the group. Now Anthony — with the blessing of A&M Records co-founder Jerry Moss and Frank Barsalona, a powerful booking agent who guided Frampton’s career in lockstep with his management — wanted to try the concept again. 

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Peter Frampton Reflects on ‘Frampton Comes Alive!’ 40 Years Later: ‘I Went From Musician to Pop Star Overnight’

FRAMPTON : Dee Anthony, Frank Barsalona had great success with live albums. We just went, “Look what we did with Humble Pie, should we go there again? Should we try it?” And we followed the template, basically. We said, “The audience wants the show? Let’s give them the show.”

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New York promoter Ron Delsener presented Frampton concerts at Madison Square Garden .

DELSENER : [Barsalona] was the biggest guy in the agency business at the time. He zeroed in on the Engish invasion — he coveted those guys. 

Jerry Moss signed Frampton to A&M when he was 19. 

MOSS Peter had paid his dues. He was with Humble Pie, he put out his own albums. So it wasn’t like this was a new guy.

FRAMPTON : The old adage, which is still true today, “Get in front of as many people as quick as possible and the word of mouth will spread,” well, that’s turned into the Internet now. But, in those days you physically had to go around the country, around the world, and build that following person by person. I literally did what you do on social media, I did it physically. By just never stopping touring for, what was it? Five years. 

Bob Garcia was A&M’s director of artist releations. 

GARCIA   By virtue of playing every podunk city and venue across the States, he was building a base.

MOSS : San Francisco and Detroit, which is where he was really successful as a live performer, those are like beacon cities. They were rooting for him and wanting him to be successful. 

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Shortly before Frampton embarked on the 1975 U.S. tour that would yield the concerts recorded for Frampton Comes Alive!, he replaced two members of his touring band:  Bob Mayo (imortalized by Frampton’s “Bob Mayo on the keyboards” during “Do You Feel Like We Do?”) was hired after Frampton stumbled upon his old acquaintance playing a Holiday Inn in Mt. Kisco, N.Y. Bassist Stanley Sheldon had three weeks to learn Frampton’s repertoire after auditioning on the recommendation of Frampton’s first choice, Kenny Passarelli. Only John Siomos, Frampton’s longtime drummer and an ace New York sessionman ( Todd Rundgren ’s “Hello, It’s Me”), renowned for his feel and technique, remained from the previous lineup.

FRAMPTON We had the A Team, all of a sudden, the most powerful band, right there.

SHELDON We rehearsed for a week and then we hit the road. I remember that Boise, Idaho, was the very first gig, opening for Black Oak Arkansas. We blew them away, so we knew we were on to something.

Three weeks later, the band arrived in San Francisco to record what would be the heart of Frampton Comes Alive! The show at Winterland was coincidentally Frampton’s first headlining gig in San Francisco.

SHELDON   It captured the freshness of the new band. We were all just at the top of our game. Man, it was a special night.

FRAMPTON We were so hot, we were so well-oiled. We had that show down. We came off stage and that’s where you usually go, ‘Wow, I wish we’d recorded that.’ And then we said, ‘Oh my God, we recorded this.’

SHELDON I remember the four of us going out to Wally Heider’s remote unit that they’d pulled up behind Winterland after the show to listen. We heard the first bars of “Somethin’s Happening,” and we looked at each other with just the hugest smiles on our faces. We knew right then and there we had something.

FRAMPTON Me, Bob Mayo and Stanley just sort of got knocked backwards as soon as it came on, because the energy that came from the tape just leapt out of the speakers. I started laughing. I just said, “Oh my God, we’re good!”

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In December, 1975 Frampton and engineer Chris Kimsey played the sequenced, mixed-down tapes of the completed album for Moss at Electric Lady Studios in New York. 

FRAMPTON I think there were three tracks on one side, and two tracks the other — “Lines On My Face” and  “Do You Feel.” Because of the time constraints, that’s all we could do. Jerry Moss came to Electric Lady and sat down at the console. And we played him the whole single album, both sides. I remember he stood up and said, “Where’s the rest?” I’ll never forget that. So, that was it — it was a personal decision by Jerry Moss.

MOSS : They had enough good material to make another record. He had left out some really good songs. So I wanted to do more. 

With only weeks remaining before the album’s release, a remote recording truck was dispatched to capture Frampton concerts in Commack, on Long Island, and Plattsburgh, New York. The additional material included what would become two of the album’s enduring hits, “Show Me the Way” and “Baby I Love Your Way.”  Eddie Kramer, who’d engineered the studio album Frampton’s Camel , recorded the Commack concert. 

KRAMER The intensity of the playing and the way the audience was reacting was just spectacular. I mean, I have done a lot of live recordings [Kramer recorded the 1969 Woodstock Festival] but these were so animated, the audience was so tuned in it was magnificent. And Peter’s playing just soared. It seemed as if the band could hardly put a foot wrong or play a note wrong, and even if they did, so what?

MOSS I think every artist has their moment when they just hit a brilliance that’s unexplainable. The audience and the sounds and the music sort of come together into a thrilling combination. And that album had that.

KIMSEY It must have been nerve-wracking for Peter because this really was when it was make or break for him.

MOSS You put out records that sold 200,000 or 300,000 and then you’d try to stretch it out and do some more. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t.

GARCIA   A&M at that time was small enough and snappy enough to be able to just jump into the breach and kill for that album and that artist. So much groundwork had been laid, Peter had been going all over the place gladhanding our reps, meeting retail, just doing everything he could for the release of this record. But if it wasn’t in the grooves, so to speak, it wouldn’t have happened.

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Lenny Bronstein was A&M’s director of radio promotion and had worked Frampton’s previous album, Frampton, released in 1975

BRONSTEIN I told [San Franscisco FM rock station] KSAN, “I’m going to give you the world premiere at 10 o’clock. I’m going to have Peter call you at 1 in the morning [from New York].”

MOSS The jocks always loved him. 

GARCIA  Peter was so well-liked. This was not an abrasive rock star. He was always a very friendly guy in whatever he did and whoever he had to engage. I think everybody wanted to return his graciousness and it came back in spades.

BRONSTEIN Frampton was No 1 on West Coast rock radio for 11 months starting in ’75. We launched [ Frampton Comes Alive!]  right on the heels of Frampton still being an active record, We had built this incredible base and it was being played to death at album stations.

Radio consultant Lee Abrams pioneered the Album Oriented Rock format. 

ABRAMS  [ Frampton Comes Alive! ] defined AOR during that period, which was anchored by being as commercial as possible without losing its progressive identity, and deeper tracks, which is what the A in AOR was all about. The album had a wide range of styles and was tied together with great melodic songs and a minimum of indulgence, making it easy to program on a mass-appeal station.

FRAMPTON  [New York’s WNEW-FM] had always been right on the case but not pop radio. Now it was like wall to wall, it was a noticeable change.

BRONSTEIN   We were lucky enough that in the mid-’70s you could still get rock records on top 40. We were very active at promoting to radio that we would have never had a chance.

Frampton’s core audience, curated from a thousand-and-one gigs and assiduously courted hip FM radio programmers, now included millions of teenage girls.  

Chip Rachlin was a top concert booking agent.

RACHLIN That was an audience, for lack of a better term, losing their musical virginity. You had 13, 14, 15-year-old girls and this was their first brush at having their own idol. Frampton was an idol.

FRAMPTON Now it’s on the radio, but it almost didn’t seem to matter at that point. I think that the album coming out on top of all the preparation we’d done, the word-of-mouth by playing everywhere 19,000 times — we’d built such a following that this is the one they were waiting for.

MOSS I thought this could be something and happily it was. We were achieving this moment, and he had this in him all the time. It was just the right time to bring it out, and it worked.

As the stadium tour supporting Frampton Comes Alive! wound down in late 1976 with the album still in the top 10, Frampton was beginning to show the strain of his sudden superstardom. 

MOSS He became Mr. 1976. I saw him at different times during that year, because we were pretty close at the time, and you could see the ebullience, and the beginning of the exhaustion. He got tired. The last two shows of that year, they were not great shows, because he’d given it all up.

FRAMPTON Everyone was saying, “Oh man, this is so good. You must feel so great.” Yeah I do, but I’ve got tomorrow to deal with. Hell, I’ve got to do a studio record to follow this up. And in my mind I’m not proven in the studio, like I am now. I’m stamped “The Live Guy.” So I felt like I had lost before I started the next part of my career. Before there was nothing to compete with. Now, I felt, I’m competing with “Peter Frampton.”

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Frampton began recording I’m in You , the follow up to Frampton Comes Alive! , in 1977.

FRAMPTON That was probably the least favorite period of my life. The pressure was so great. There was absolutley no need to do I’m in You then and there. The biggest mistake was just not shutting down at that point. I had so much out there, the world was going crazy about Comes Alive! I didn’t need to go and rush into something else. You’re only as good as your last record, so don’t put one out for a while.

SHELDON Peter was feeling intense pressure from Dee Anthnoy when he really should have just been taking a break. We had a lockout at Electric Lady and Peter would write the songs right there in the studio.

MOSS He was perhaps victim to that thing where you make a huge record and you think of following it up. Michael Jackson had the same thing after Thriller , and it ended up, well, maybe killing him. Because they feel that unless they sell more millions of records, they’re disappointing their fans, they’re disappointing themselves. I always tell people: It’s a career, man. One record will sell 6 million, the next record will sell 2 million, what’s the difference? You’re playing the same guitar, you’re coming up with songs, what’s wrong with that? But everybody has that feeling like they want to top it. 

Frampton was drinking heavily throughout the recording of I’m in You .

SHELDON He just kind of had to numb himself up to get through it.

FRAMPTON I remember coming in to the office when it needed to be handed in. I took the master tapes and threw them across the room. They landed on the couch and I said, “There it is. I’m out of here.”

Released in June, 1977, I’m in You went plantinum and the title track hit No. 2, but compared to Frampton Comes Alive! the album was considered a failure.

SHELDON I played on most of it. I think it’s a good record, it’s a better record than the press it got.

KIMSEY He should’ve had a break. But this always happens when you get an artist who suddenly hits it big and the manager wants more, more, more.

I’m in You’ s pin-up style cover depicting an open-shirted Frampton, plus the sentimental title ballad, alienated Frampton’s hardcore fans and his supporters at hip FM radio. 

RACHLIN That’s when there began to be some distance from FM radio — when the idol and the teen pop star and Seventeen  magazine and all that took over. Younger kids want to be like their older brothers and sisters. Older brothers and sisters don’t reach down and see what their 14-year-old sister likes and that’s when Frampton crested, before that audience separated. 

ABRAMS Those things positioned him as a pretty boy, not a rocker. He could have been the Bon Jovi of that era in that he was “cute” but also could play.

GARCIA I don’t remember one promotion man or sales rep saying, “Oh my god he’s betrayed his rock roots!” Nobody even thought about that. They thought they could coast to another mega album after the success of Frampton Comes Alive! , and believe me, the door was open: Peter probably could have made the worst album of his life, within reason, and the door would have remained open.

MOSS He’s got to play what he’s famous for and maybe he wasn’t doing that anymore. I think Dee was taking more charge of what his career was. God bless him, he did what he thought was right for the kid. 

At the height of Frampton Comes Alive! ’s popularity, Anthony had arranged for Frampton to star with the Bee Gees in a movie based on the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. 

FRAMPTON I remember Dee came to me, he had two things for me that day. He said, “Here’s your very first American Express card, because now you have credit. And here’s a contract for this movie I think you should do. They’re going to pay you this amount of zeros.” 

DELSENER Dee got a three-picture deal — he was walking around with these treatments. I was in one of the last scenes of that stupid film, with Tina Turner . It was just a clusterfuck.” 

Released in 1978, Sgt. Pepper was savaged by critics and failed at the box office. It also further maimed Frampton’s credibility as a rock star.

?RACHLIN It killed the fuckin’ guy.

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Frampton continued releasing albums throughout the ‘70s with diminshing returns before A&M, in what Moss characterizes was a “very difficult” decision, dropped him from the label.

MOSS He worked with a number of producers and most of them kept coming back and saying, “I’m not getting anything,” And we thought he’d be better off with somebody else, because we tried everything.

GARCIA There was a pall [at the label]. It was almost an embarrassment.

After a five-year hiatus, Frampton signed with Atlantic Records and in 1986 released Premonition , a return to form that delivered his first hit in years, “Lying.” David Bowie , a childhood friend, heard the album and invited Frampton to play lead guitar on his 1987 album Never Let Me Down and Glass Spider tour.

FRAMPTON He reintroduced me in an arena that I couldn’t fill throughout the world anymore. He reintroduced me as the musician, the guitar player. And I can never, ever, thank him enough. And after that, I started hitting the boards again.

Frampton revived his career as he had built it: by touring, first with Ringo Starr and then on his own, with a new band. His 2006 album Fingerprints , produced by Chris Kimsey, won a Grammy for best pop instrumental album. Frampton kicks off a tour March 9 in Tucson, Ariz., in support of his just-released Acoustic Classics , which features unplugged versions of “Do You Feel Like We Do?” and other songs from Frampton Comes Alive!.

KIMSEY He’s enjoying himself immensely — he discovered himself again. So that was quite lovely for me to be back in his life after that whole thing. I saw the Peter I knew when I was 19.

FRAMPTON I never gave up. I’m a fighter. You can’t change anything in the past, nor would I wish to, because I wouldn’t be the person I am today if I hadn’t been through all this. I believe I’m an artist that just shines live — it’s just something that happens. And my belief is that when you sit down, or you’re in your car, and [ Frampton Comes Alive! ] comes on, whatever track it is…you smile. You don’t know why you smile — there’s obviously Frampton Comes Alive! haters out there that shoot the radio, I’m sure, like Elvis shooting his TV. But there’s that indefinable thing — I don’t want to say “magic” — but there’s something there.

Click here to read more about the industry reaction to  Frampton Comes Alive!  in this Billboard story in this companion piece here.

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How Peter Frampton Finally Hit the Big Time With ‘Frampton Comes Alive!’

The '70s were the era of the live album. Don't misunderstand: Live recordings predate the Me Decade and plenty have been released since, but the '70s were the live album's golden age.

The gauntlet was thrown down in May 1970 by a pair of future live classics released only a week apart. The Who 's Live at Leeds and the triple-album Woodstock soundtrack brought the show into kids' bedrooms better than anything that had come before, and both were rewarded with stellar sales and critical praise. A format that was once reserved for contractual filler or stopgap releases was suddenly fashionable. Before the year ended, the Rolling Stones released Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!; before the decade ended, we had live releases from Elvis Presley , the Beatles , Led Zeppelin , Ted Nugent and Aerosmith . It was a status symbol, an indicator of commercial clout: The bigger you were, the more likely your discography sported a live album.

In the middle of the decade, another pair of live albums changed the paradigm. Both featured artists whose recording careers were floundering but who did well on the road. Both were hail Mary passes -- one last chance to catch on with the record buying public. The first was the September 1975 release of  Kiss Alive! Three months later (and also sporting an exclamation point), A&M Records released former Humble Pie guitarist Peter Frampton 's concert masterpiece,  Frampton Comes Alive!

Frampton was a prodigy who counted David Bowie among his childhood friends. By age 18, he'd already tasted success with the Herd and had formed Humble Pie with Steve Marriott . Together, they would record four studio albums before jumping on the '70s live LP bandwagon with Performance Rockin' the Fillmore at the end of 1971. It would be Humble Pie's most successful album, but the band's hotshot guitarist was gone before it came out.

At the tender age of 21, Frampton had two successful bands in his rear-view mirror and a limitless road ahead of him. His first solo album, 1972's Wind of Change,  eschewed the muscular boogie of Humble Pie for a more acoustic, singer-songwriter vibe akin to James Taylor . Songs like the album's title cut introduced the new, mellow Frampton while "It's a Plain Shame" and a cover of the Stones' "Jumpin' Jump Flash" seemed tailored for his established fan base. In other words, the album was neither fish nor fowl, and sales were disappointing.

The following year's Frampton's Camel also had its mellow moments, most notably "Lines on My Face," but album closer "Do You Feel Like We Do" demonstrated a glimmer of things to come. Compared to the version that we all know and love, this take is a toothless, caged lion. There's ferocity lurking beneath the studio production, but it just can't break through. The album did better than Wind of Change but still didn't manage to break into the Top 100.

Listen to Peter Frampton Perform 'Show Me the Way'

For 1974's Somethin's Happening Frampton pulled out all the stops. He recorded at Headley Grange, home of no less than Led Zeppelin IV. He recruited Nicky Hopkins, the Rolling Stones' sideman, to play keyboards on a couple of tracks. He even had the legendary Hipgnosis team design the album cover. Although tracks like "Doobie Wah" and "I Wanna Go to the Sun" were solid enough, the album didn't fare any better than its predecessors.

Album No. 4, 1975's self-titled Frampton is when things started to gel. The acoustic Frampton and the electric rocker finally came together in the album's second track, "Show Me the Way." The song also featured the talk box, a guitar effect that he'd first encountered years earlier while doing session work for George Harrison 's All Things Must Pass. The album's only other single was a soft rocker in the style of "Wind of Change," "Baby I Love Your Way." On the strength of its two singles, Frampton cracked the top 40, but not by much.

Now 25-years-old and with four albums under his belt, Frampton hit the road in support of his latest release. In 1975, though, "hitting the road" no longer meant simply playing clubs. Bert Sugarman's Midnight Special brought the '70s taste for live music to late-night television. In those pre-MTV days, The Midnight Special was the place to be seen, so Frampton brought his two new singles to the show along with a reworked version of "Do You Feel Like We Do," now featuring the talk box he used on his most recent studio album.

Those lucky enough to catch the show in that pre-VCR era saw and heard a side of Frampton that had been lost in the studio. Many tried to explain to their friends and siblings that they'd seen a guy make a guitar talk, trying to describe the magic behind "Show Me the Way."

Others had the good fortune to see it for themselves as Frampton crisscrossed the U.S. with his band: drummer John Siomos, bassist Stanley Sheldon and guitarist/keyboardist Bob Mayo. The tour literally stretched from coast to coast, with shows recorded in New York and San Francisco. "I remember it was one of the first nights we ever headlined in San Francisco, or anywhere else for that matter," he wrote on his website . "I wasn't worried about the [recording] truck being outside, I was worried that we had enough material to do an hour and a half act. It was a stretch at that point. We were used to doing 50 minutes."

He didn't need to worry. Released on Jan. 6, 1976, Frampton Comes Alive! contained 78 minutes' worth of material. The deluxe edition released in celebration of the the album's 25th anniversary restored three missing songs from the band's set, totaling an additional 13 minutes.

Listen to Peter Frampton Perform 'Do You Feel Like We Do?'

Due to the album's intro, most people assume that Frampton Comes Alive! was recorded in San Francisco. For the most part that is true, but a quick glance at the album's liner notes reveals that it is a composite of recordings from San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom, the Marin Civic Center in San Rafael, Calif., Island Music Center in Commack, N.Y. and State University of New York at Plattsburgh. That's just trivia, though. The important thing here is that the album captured the experience of being there better than even Live at Leeds or Woodstock .

There's a sense of space in the recording that's equal parts engineering and Frampton's phrasing. Songs from his four studio albums were allowed to breathe onstage, empty measures filled with ambient noise. Frampton's Camel's "Lines On My Face," for example, was transformed from a fairly generic '70s soft rock ballad into an emotional tour de force on Frampton Comes Alive!,  the audience swirling around the lyric in a supportive embrace.

The Frampton album is well represented with four tracks, including the two singles: the almost Piedmont blues "Penny for Your Thoughts" and "I'll Give You Money," which qualifies as the album's heaviest track. Somethin's Happening's title cut and "Doobie Wah" both appear, the latter introduced by Frampton as "a little bit funky" and live even more evocative of its Doobie Brothers inspiration than in its studio version.

Debut album Wind of Change ties Frampton for most cuts with four: the title song, an uninspired cover of " Jumpin' Jack Flash," "It's a Plain Shame" and an acoustic reworking of "All I Wanna Be (Is by Your Side)" that picked up the tempo and stripped the song to its emotional core.

For most listeners,  Frampton Comes Alive! comes down to the pair of talk box tracks, "Show Me the Way" and "Do You Feel Like We Do." Many hours were spent in 1976 with the needle dropped on side four, track two, staring at the gatefold cover photo of the skinny guitarist bathed in purple light, wondering how in the heck he made that black Les Paul say " I want to thank you ." Even more hours were spent debating whether the word was "thank" or something more provocative.

To say the album was a phenomenon is an understatement. With 11 million copies sold, it held the record for bestselling live album of all-time for several years, and its success pushed live versions of "Show Me the Way" and "Baby I Love Your Way" back onto the charts. An edited version of "Do You Feel Like We Do" went Top 10, too, on the power of FM radio's willingness to play extended tracks. Even at half the length of the album version, the live take clocked in at more than seven minutes.

After more than a decade in the business, Frampton found himself an overnight success. Rather than hotshot guitarist or singer-songwriter, he was suddenly a teen idol with all of the over exposure that entails. The follow-up album,  I'm In You , was a commercial hit but also marked the beginning of the backlash. In 1978 he starred in the film adaptation of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,  a critical disaster that essentially ended his teen idol phase.

Frampton never again achieved the commercial success of Frampton Comes Alive!, but that's hardly a criticism. For this moment in time, millions of fans felt just like he did.

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Peter Frampton

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Peter Kenneth Frampton is an English born songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist. He was previously associated with the bands Humble Pie and The Herd. Frampton's international breakthrough album was his live release, Frampton Comes Alive! .

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Peter Frampton, JFK Stadium Philadelphia, Philadelphia (US) - Jun 11, 1977

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Remembering the English singer-writer-guitarist’s 1977 follow-up to ‘Frampton Comes Alive!.’

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How do you follow a career-changing, era-defining phenomenon like Frampton Comes Alive! ? Peter Frampton spent several months in several studios working on that particular challenge, before unveiling his answer on May 28, 1977.

The album was I’m In You, a record that brought the British guitarist and songwriter continuing prominence on both the LP and singles charts. Producing himself as usual, Frampton recorded it at three equally celebrated New York studios, Electric Lady, the Record Plant and the Hit Factory.

After the incredible, multi-platinum success of Comes Alive!, some of whose songs had been in his repertoire for some time, the star was keen to display his writing exploits in the interim. The album contained seven new Frampton compositions before ending with a double helping of material from the hallowed Motown catalog.

Chief among the new material was the title track, released as the album’s first single. In contrast to previous showcases for his guitar virtuosity, “I’m In You” was a striking piano ballad that quickly captured the imagination of record buyers and radio programmers alike. It climbed to No.2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for three weeks, held off the top by Andy Gibb’s “I Just Want To Be Your Everything.” But on the rival Cash Box chart, Peter’s single went all the way to No.1, as it did in Canada.

Frampton goes Motown

Other highlights of the album included “Putting My Heart On The Line,” again featuring the talk box effect that had become Frampton’s trademark on the live album’s “Show Me The Way” hit; the funky “Won’t You Be My Friend,” the reflective “You Don’t Have To Worry,” and the Motown covers. They comprised Jr. Walker & the All Stars ’ “(I’m A) Road Runner” and Stevie Wonder ’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours),” and the latter remake became a Top 20 US hit.

Listen to the best of Peter Frampton on Apple Music and Spotify .

The subsequent single “Tried To Love” featured an unmistakable guest vocal by Mick Jagger, and there was an equally distinctive harmonica solo on “Rocky’s Hot Club” by the very man Peter paid tribute to on the same album, Stevie Wonder.

The album itself repeated the achievement of its lead single by reaching No.2 in America, but this time for four weeks. I’m In You was certified both gold and platinum in the US a matter of weeks after release, in June 1977.

Buy or stream I’m In You.

Leslie Pfenninger

May 29, 2023 at 1:38 pm

Suggest you read Frampton’s memoir for his opinion of “I’m In You.”

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Peter Frampton Announces 35th Anniversary Tour of 'Frampton Comes Alive!'

Starting in August, Peter Frampton will tour in celebration of his multi-platinum-selling 1976 live album, Frampton Comes Alive! The tour -- which is growing day by day -- includes several dates in the United States, Europe and the United Kingdom. To keep up with the latest tour stops, which include Nashville and Livermore, California, check out PeterFrampton.com.

The three-hour show will feature a performance of the complete album, along with highlights from Frampton’s catalog. To commemorate the anniversary of the album, Universal Music Enterprises will be making a limited-edition offer through PeterFrampton.com. The offer will feature an autographed scrapbook containing rare photos and personal reflections from Frampton. The scrapbook will be accompanied by the Frampton Comes Alive! Deluxe Edition, the Frampton Comes Alive! II Special Edition and other memorabilia.

North American shows include:

• Aug. 9: Wente Vineyards, Livermore, CA
• Aug. 11: Oregon Zoo Amphitheatre, Portland, OR
• Aug. 14: Coeur D'Alene Tribal Casino, Worley, ID
• Sept. 24: River Rock Casino, Richmond, BC
• Oct. 22: Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, TN

European shows include:

Nov. 5:Lisbon, Portugal, Atlantico Pavillion Nov. 6:Madrid, Spain, La Riviera Nov. 8:Barcelona, Spain, Allianca de Poble Nou Nov. 11: Manchester, UK, Bridgewater Hall Nov. 12: Cambridge, UK, Corn Exchange Nov. 13: London, UK, Hammersmith Apollo Nov. 15: Birmingham, UK, Symphony Hall Nov. 16: Glasgow, UK, Royal Concert Hall Nov. 18: Antwerp, Belgium, Queen Elisabeth Hall Nov. 19: Amsterdam, Holland, Heineken Music Hall Nov. 21: Berlin, Germany, Tempodrom Nov. 22: Mainz, Germany, Phonixhalle Nov. 23: Paris, France, Bataclan

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Comes Alive: The Broadcasts, 1975-77

Peter Frampton

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Release Date:   28 April 2023

Label:   FM Concerts

Packaging Type:   Jewel Case

No of Units:   1

Barcode:   5056083211265

Genres:   Rock    Rock   

Description

Having risen through the ranks of the cult freakbeat group The Herd and Steve Marriott's post-Small Faces outfit Humble Pie in the late 60s and early 70s, Frampton embarked on a solo career that would make him - and his trusty talk box - a household name in 1976. As the string of TV appearances collated on Comes Alive - The Broadcasts 1975-1977 makes clear, Frampton was a virtuoso as adept at turning out radio-ready hits (Show Me The Way, Baby I Love Your Way) as he was wrestling soul anthems (Stevie Wonder's Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours)) and rock classics (The Rolling Stones' Jumpin' Jack Flash) from their authors and making them his own. Frampton comes alive? He's an immortal rock giant.

Tracklisting

• 1. Baby I Love Your Way
• 2. Show Me The Way
• 3. Do You Feel Like I Do
• 4. Jumpin' Jack Flash
• 5. Road runner
• 6. Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours
• 7. I'm in You
• 8. Baby I Love Your Way
• 9. Show Me The Way
• 10. Do You Feel Like I Do
• 11. Baby I Love Your Way
• 12. Show Me the Way
• 13. Do You Feel Like I Do
• 14. Nowhere's Too Far

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• Frampton's Camel  ( 61 )
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Peter Frampton on His Rock Hall Induction: ‘My Phone Hasn’t Stopped Blowing Up’

By Andy Greene

Andy Greene

After three decades of eligibility where he didn’t appear on a single ballot, Peter Frampton was starting to think he’d never be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame . But once voters finally had to chance to select him earlier this year, things changed very quickly. He learned the good news over the weekend when his manager phoned him up to say he made it. “I was absolutely blown away,” Frampton says. “My mind has been sort of a blur ever since I found out, especially since the announcement [on American Idol ] last night. My phone hasn’t stopped blowing up since.”

The afternoon after the news broke, Frampton spoke with Rolling Stone about the Hall of Fame, his fellow inductees, what he’s planning for the big night, upcoming tour plans, his battle with inclusion body myositis, and his hope that Cher changes her mind and shows up on induction night.

The thing that blew me away the most was not actually getting in — even though that is a phenomenal, unbelievable thing. It’s the amount of people who voted for me [in the fan vote]. You don’t quite understand where you’re at until you look at the amount of people who voted for you. Those are the people I need to thank the most. That was a real wonderful shock.

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I think part of the problem is that rock critics had a huge voice in the nominating process for a long time. You had such an insanely big record in the Seventies, and it attracted so many young fans, that you maybe turned off some critics. Yeah. Sometimes you can be too big. Hootie & the Blowfish, same thing. You have this ginormous selling record, and it works against you. It becomes too much of a good thing. Framptom Comes Alive! turned into Rubik’s Cube very quickly. Look what happened to that. But I can open one of those very quickly now since I’ve learned the secret.

Had you attended an induction before last year? I went when Metallica got in. It was a much smaller event in those days compared to last year’s. I’ve watched every one, all the inductees over the years, whether it be live or on film. I always thought, “Maybe… Who knows?”

It’s a cool class this year with Cher, Foreigner, Dave Matthews, Ozzy… It’s very cool. I think because of the new team that’s running it, headed by John Sykes…having known a little bit and spoken with some of them, things were not that realistic before…there were a lot of missed opportunities before, and some artists that weren’t maybe ready to go in.

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I loved seeing John Mayall’s name. He really deserves it. Absolutely. There I was in the front row of the Flamingo Club in London watching him and Eric Clapton, and him and Peter Green. I would always go up there. He has always been a champion of so many incredible guitar players, as well as being this guy that never faltered, never went commercial, never did anything but the blues. I applaud him for that. He very much deserves to get in.

There’s also people that grumble about R&B and hip-hop artists getting inducted. To me, it makes perfect sense to bring in Mary J. Blige and A Tribe Called Quest. Maybe it should be called the Music Hall of Fame as opposed to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They’re king of stuck now. But I agree. Mary J. Blige is an unbelievable talent. They definitely both deserve to get in.

Shortly before she was placed on the ballot, Cher basted the Hall of Fame and said she wouldn’t go even if she got in. I’m hoping she changes her mind. Oh, go on, Cher! We want you there. It’s okay. Look at how long I waited. I didn’t wait as long as you, but it’s okay. You’re in now. You’re in! Come on, Cher! [ Laughs ]

Do you have any thoughts on who might induct you or what songs you might play? Not right now. I haven’t been told. The basic thing I need to be told is how long musically I have, and how long speech-wise I have. And then I can make those decisions. I obviously have people in mind, but I haven’t spoken to anybody yet.

It’s going to be in Cleveland, which is pretty cool since it’s a great rock town, and you have so many fans there. Oh yeah. I’ve always loved Cleveland. I did my time in Cincinnati for a while. I lived there. They can’t take the Ohio out of me.

How do you think it’ll feel to stand at the podium, take the award, and finally give your speech? Oh, my stomach turned over when you said that. [ Laughs ] I don’t know. I’ll prepare for that moment. With great gratitude, I’ll step up to that microphone and accept what I never thought would happen for me.

You just finished a tour a few weeks back. How did that go? Fantastic. In fact, it looks like we’re going to do another two-week run sometime in the summer. I don’t have any info right now. It’s been incredible going back out after I quit. [ Laughs ] I think the crowds are so behind me since I don’t want to give up. I am a fighter. I’m going to be playing until that time comes when I can’t.

We all have our battles. We’re all fighting something. I’m just a person who is out there, doing the best he can, and brining awareness to IBM [inclusion body myositis], raising money where I can. We’ve got a lovely foundation at Johns Hopkins, the Peter Frampton Fund . People are still sending in money, which is wonderful. It’ll help us with clinical trials. Those are expensive. I’m raising money for them so we can find that magic bullet.

I’m very optimistic. I’m speaking with my doctors all the time, and hearing all the new stuff that’s coming along, and the new technologies the scientists are finding in the lab. It looks like something could be coming around the corner. We’re always hoping for that.

If your voice works and your hand works, why shouldn’t you be onstage? Exactly. I really want to share my time between three things right now. I have a record to make. I’ve been writing for six years or more. I have material up the yin yang. But only a few classics. [ Laughs ] I’m waiting a little longer, another month or two, and then I’m going to go in the studio.

In June, I’m going to England to do some stuff for my documentary. We’re going to go back to where I was born, and where I went to school with David Bowie, and the house where my brother and I grew up. We were doing some interviews with people last week in Los Angeles for the doc. We now have full funding. It’s full steam ahead. Those three projects are what we’re working on this year.

I would love to see Soungarden get in too. Oh my God. They’re not in?

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It’s great seeing Ozzy Osbourne get in solo this year. He deserves to be in twice. I agree. The man is the Betty White of rock & roll. [ Laughs ]

It would be fun to see you play “Crazy Train” with him. That would be fantastic. Let’s see what happens.

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Peter frampton is both surprised and honored he’s being inducted into the rock & roll hall of fame.

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Singer, songwriter, and musician Peter Frampton

Peter Frampton has been a rock legend to fans and fellow musicians for decades, but now he’ll get his official designation in October. The British rock guitarist, who now calls Nashville, Tennessee home, learned this week, he’s being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

“It’s all a bit crazy,” he says with a laugh. “I’m still halfway through my assimilation into accepting it.”

This was Frampton’s first nomination, although he’s been eligible since the late 1990’s.

“To be honest,” he noted during a phone interview, “I’d archived it as something that would never happen, because I was eligible more than twenty years ago. So, I’m overwhelmed by the response by the fans, and the voting and everything.”

It’s interesting to note, he got the good news one day before his 74 th birthday.

“Yeah, all my birthdays came at once this week.”

Frampton began singing and playing guitar as a teenager, joining his first group at 16, then Humble Pie in 1969. He left two years later to pursue a solo career. He released a number of albums in the early 70s, but it was Frampton Comes Alive that made him a superstar. Released in 1976, it’s one of the best-selling live albums of all time with megahits “Show Me the Way,” “Baby I Love Your Way,” and “Do You Feel Like We Do.”

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Peter Frampton in concert circa 1977 in New York City. (Photo by Images Press/IMAGES/Getty Images)

The album introduced his use of the Talk Box which allowed him blend his voice and guitar through a plastic tube and create entirely new sounds. Other artists like Stevie Wonder and Joe Walsh had done something similar, but Frampton worked to create his own unique style and signature sound.

“Obviously since autotune and the different sounds you can make with a computer, people are more used to that sound, but mine is still analog, it’s not a digital anything,” he explains. “It’s a physical thing that works. And I think that’s why it’s so much more appealing, because I can talk to the audience through it, and they love it.”

When he’s inducted into the Rock Hall this fall, he’ll be part of the Performer Category that includes Mary J. Blige, Cher, Dave Matthews Band, Foreigner, Kool & The Gang, Ozzy Osbourne, and A Tribe Called Quest.

Frampton has been busy touring, and he’s working on both a new album and a documentary. It’s been five years since he announced he’d stop touring due to a diagnosis of IBM IBM (Inclusion Body Myositis, a degenerative muscle disease that worsens over time. It’s already affected Frampton’s legs. He now walks with a cane and sits down when he performs. And while he can feel it a bit in his hands and fingers, the guitar great is still going strong.

“When I sit down and pick up a guitar, my fingers know what to do. It’s just that they have a little less strength than they used to, and I have to adapt in as much as certain fingers need to be taking over the job of another finger.”

And while Frampton may pick up on those little nuances, fans who come to hear him play can’t tell any difference at all. He’s still at the top of his game.

Peter Frampton and Mark Barden perform onstage during the Artist For Action Concert Benefit for ... [+] Sandy Hook Promise at NYU Skirball Center on December 07, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)

He’s grateful for the ability to keep playing the music he loves and thrilled to become a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame later this year.

“I’m honored to have been chosen to be inducted along with so many incredibly talented people who have gone before me,” he says. “We’re talking the Beatles, the Stones, and Elvis…It’s all pretty heady to think I’ll be inducted into the same place and have a plaque on the wall just like them.”

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Bob Heil, Whose Innovations Enhanced the Sound of Rock, Dies at 83

A groundbreaking audio engineer, he provided the large-scale systems that brought tours by the Who and the Grateful Dead to life.

By Alex Williams

Bob Heil’s career as a groundbreaking sound engineer who brought thunder and rich sonic coloring to tours by rock titans like the Grateful Dead and the Who began behind a pipe organ in a 1920s movie palace.

Mr. Heil, who helped usher rock into its arena-shaking era by designing elaborate sound systems that allowed rock juggernauts of the late 1960s and ’70s to play at volcanic volumes, first learned to appreciate the full spectrum of musical tones as a teenager, when he took a job playing the massive Wurlitzer pipe organ at the opulent Fox Theater in St. Louis.

“We had to voice and tune 3,500 pipes, from one inch to 32 feet,” he said in a 2022 video interview with the audio entrepreneur Ken Berger. “Voicing taught me to listen. Very few people know how to listen. Listening, you’ve got to mentally go in and dissect.”

Mr. Heil died on Feb. 28 of cancer in a hospital in Belleville, Ill., his daughter Julie Staley said. He was 83. His death was not widely reported at the time.

Although he worked behind the scenes, Mr. Heil was enough of a force that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland credited him with “ creating the template for modern rock sound systems” In 2006, the Hall installed a public display containing his mixing boards, speakers and other items.

“The concert business became what it is today because he made the experience so much better for the customers,” Howard Kramer, who at the time was the Hall of Fame’s curatorial director, said in an interview that year with The Houston Chronicle. “No one made the leaps in live sound that he did.”

Mr. Heil got started in the business in 1966. Up to that point, top rock ’n’ roll bands often had to rely on feeble sound systems that were drowned out by screaming fans. That roar, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones wrote in his 2010 autobiography, “Life,” was often so deafening in the band’s early days that audiences could hear nothing more than the drums: “We used to play ‘Popeye the Sailor Man’ some nights, and the audience didn’t know any different.”

Mr. Heil gave rock shows the sound arsenal they needed. “We were the first company back then to build a package P.A .,” he said in a 2008 interview with the audio magazine TapeOp. “You could come to Heil Sound in 1972 and leave the facility with a complete system: snakes, road cases, everything — even a modular mixer.”

He also put a distinctive stamp on 1970s rock with the Heil Talk Box, an effects pedal that transformed guitar parts and vocals into an interstellar drone. Joe Walsh used it in memorable fashion on his hit “Rocky Mountain Way” in 1973, and the Talk Box was a signature of Peter Frampton’s monster-selling 1976 double album, “Frampton Comes Alive!”

Mr. Heil’s career took a major turn in 1971, he told Mr. Berger, when a manager for the Who frantically called him in St. Louis, asking if he could get his crew to Boston the next day. The opening show there, part of the band’s tour in support of its hallowed album “Who’s Next,” had been a disaster, with one newspaper noting that the band’s “soaring brand of rock could not be heard” under the venue’s “miserable conditions.”

Roger Daltrey, the band’s lead singer, threatened to fly back to England until Mr. Heil arrived with his rig. When Mr. Daltrey “did the sound check,” Mr. Heil recalled, “it was OK, because it was a monster P.A.” He would work with the Who for the next decade.

Robert Gene Heil was born Oct. 5, 1940, in St. Louis, the elder of two children of Robert and LaVerna (Bills) Heil. His parents owned a clothing shop in the small town of Marissa, Ill., about 40 miles east of St. Louis.

As a youth, Bob not only played the accordion and the organ but also became a ham radio enthusiast, which gave him an early opportunity to fiddle with electronics. After graduating from Marissa Township High School in 1958, he spent time studying at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and the St. Louis Institute of Music.

In 1966 he opened Ye Olde Music Shop in Marissa, where he rented Hammond organs and repaired instruments for professional musicians. He also began to design his own audio systems.

Before long, he was supplying them to country acts like Dolly Parton and Little Jimmy Dickens as they came through St. Louis. His big break came in 1970, when management of his old employer, the Fox Theater, called him and told them of a crisis: The Grateful Dead was set to play there, but the band’s P.A. system had been confiscated by authorities in a drug raid.

On a subsequent call with Mr. Heil, Jerry Garcia, the band’s lead guitarist and vocalist, “almost dropped the phone” when he learned that Mr. Heil had a sophisticated system featuring an amplifier by McIntosh, the high-end audiophile brand, Mr. Heil told Mr. Berger. Performing Musician magazine later called the resulting concert “the night that modern live sound was born.”

In addition to his daughter Ms. Staley, Mr. Heil is survived by his wife, Sarah (Benton) Heil; another daughter, Barbara Hartley; a stepson, Ash Levitt, the president and chief executive of Heil Sound; a sister, Barbara Schneidewind; and seven grandchildren. Both daughters are from his first marriage, to Judy Mortensen, which ended in divorce.

By 1980, Mr. Heil had grown weary of life on the road, so he created a new line of headsets and microphones for the ham radio industry. At one point, Joe Walsh, another ham enthusiast, told him he wanted to use one of his microphones onstage.

Mr. Heil protested that the microphones were not concert quality. Mr. Walsh disagreed. “I was at his house and went downstairs to his little studio and he proved it to me,” Mr. Heil told TapeOp. “So I had to start listening all over again.”

Alex Williams is a reporter in the Obituaries department. More about Alex Williams