Peter Frampton, who made the best-selling live album, 1976's Frampton Comes Alive!,
clearly has an enviable resume as a musician. However, there are several interesting facts
about his career that many fans might not know about. This is the untold truth of Peter Frampton.
As a teenager, Peter Frampton got his first big break as the lead singer and guitarist
of a band called The Herd. Compared to Frampton's later output as a musician,
The Herd's songs were vastly different. The group specialized in psychedelic pop-rock,
as evidenced in their first single, 1967's "I Can Fly."
Unfortunately, the single flopped, but their next two were much more successful.
harder-edged or niche bands, the group found themselves pressured to record more mainstream
material. Frampton and keyboardist Andy Bown were not happy with this change in direction,
and it wasn't helping matters that the young frontman was getting marketed as a
teen heartthrob. Rave magazine named him the "Face of 1968,"
and he was getting noticed far more often for his good looks than his guitar-playing skills.
By the end of 1968, Frampton, then only 18 years old, was clearly frustrated with his
teen-idol status. At that time, he had become close friends with Small Faces
frontman Steve Marriott, and it seemed like a possibility that he
would soon be joining the R&B-influenced rockers as their new lead guitarist.
Similar to Peter Frampton, Steve Marriott bristled at the fact he was considered among the U.K.'s
leading teen idols of the mid-to-late '60s. Like his Small Faces bandmates,
he also wasn't a fan of the shiny, poppy singles the band's label preferred to release,
such as "Sha-La-La-La-Lee." So it's little wonder that he saw a kindred spirit in Frampton, and
that he started lobbying for his inclusion in the Small Faces even when he was still with The Herd.
The other Small Faces, however, didn't think it was a good idea. The band's keyboardist,
Ian McLagan, had this to say about Frampton joining the Small Faces:
"I love Pete, but it wasn't the right move
for us. Maybe we should've got a trumpeter, not another guitarist!"
Likewise, bassist Ronnie Lane, who was feuding with songwriting partner Marriott
as their band continued to splinter, was not enthusiastic about the thought of The Herd's
pretty-boy singer-guitarist joining the fold. Things came to a head when
Marriott walked out in the middle of a Small Faces show in Paris on New Year's Eve 1968.
They played a few more shows in Germany before breaking up in March 1969.
While Lane, McLagan, and drummer Kenney Jones recruited singer Rod Stewart and guitarist
Ronnie Wood and became The Faces, Marriott and Frampton finally got their chance to team up
as they formed Humble Pie with bassist Greg Ridley and drummer Jerry Shirley.
All told, Peter Frampton's stint in Humble Pie was rather short-lived — he recorded
two albums with the blues-rockers before leaving in 1971 to start a solo career.
By 1976, he was on top of his game as one of the world's biggest rock stars,
thanks to his live double album, Frampton Comes Alive! The singles "Baby I Love Your
Way," "Do You Feel Like We Do?," and "Show Me the Way" were all huge hits, and 1977's
"I'm In You" was his highest-charting song to date, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Then it all came crashing down one year later when he played Billy Shears in the disastrous movie
adaptation of the Beatles' classic album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Despite starring
Frampton, the Bee Gees, and dozens of other leading musicians, Sgt. Pepper's was an absolute
flop, with barely a semblance of a cohesive plot. The acting was also subpar, with Goldmine noting,
"Frampton [spent] a good portion of the 83-minute debacle smiling, baring his chest,
walking around in all his blonde, blow-dried glory, and acting highly confused."
That's not the kind of review any rock star wants to see,
and for Frampton, he was essentially reduced to flash-in-the-pan status before he even turned 30.
It wasn't just the abject failure of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band that contributed to Peter
Frampton's decline. He temporarily put his music career on hold after a serious car accident.
"I fell asleep at the wheel."
"How bad of shape were you in?"
"I was a mess. Pretty much a mess."
It took a collaboration with childhood friend David Bowie to get Frampton back on track.
"You grew up with Bowie?"
"He's my buddy."
However, Frampton was no longer the main man — instead, he was playing lead guitar
on Bowie's 1987 record Never Let Me Down and the tour that followed the album's release.
While this was Frampton's highest-profile gig since, well, Sgt. Pepper's, it wasn't like
Never Let Me Down was a critical darling. Far from it, in fact. Spectrum Culture covered the
album's many perceived faults, including songs that were too long for the pop-radio format,
a confusing mishmash of genres, and unfortunately,
Frampton's guitar playing. Never Let Me Down was still a modest hit, however,
peaking at No. 34 on the Billboard 200 and spawning two Top 30 hits on the Hot 100.
With his appearances on The Simpsons and Family Guy, Peter Frampton had a great time parodying
himself on the two iconic animated series. But his most important contribution to modern pop
culture was arguably the behind-the-scenes work he did on the set of Cameron Crowe's 2000 movie
Almost Famous. Frampton noted in his autobiography, Do You Feel Like I Do?:
A Memoir, that he was present for the entirety of pre-production as he wrote some songs for the
fictional band Stillwater and helped Billy Crudup, who played Stillwater guitarist Russell Hammond,
look like a plausible 1970s "guitar god." Frampton wrote:
"[Billy Crudup] only had a couple of weeks of guitar lessons before we met.
It amazed me how quickly he picked it all up. The playing and the stance were all important.
So I was an on-set library of band information to help Billy and Jason Lee create their characters."
The veteran rocker also served as an "authenticity advisor" who made
sure all the musical equipment used in Almost Famous was appropriate for the era. Although
Crudup was a fast learner, his guitar parts as Russell were actually played by Frampton
and Pearl Jam axeman Mike McCready. And in a nice little Easter egg for classic rock fans,
Frampton also had a brief cameo in Almost Famous, playing a Humble Pie roadie named Reg.
It all comes full circle. And with a career like his, who knows what Peter Frampton will do next.
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