Peter Frampton: from the Face of ’68 to Winterland | Ultimate Guitarist Reunion

Why fans still care

PETER FRAMPTON saw Frampton Comes Alive! creep onto the Billboard 200 at number 191. On 10 April 1976 it reached number 1, and it stayed there for ten weeks. The RIAA has it at eight times platinum, AARP puts its worldwide sales at “nearly 20 million”, while Guitar.com puts it at “over 11 million”.

It’s a double live album, taped mostly at Winterland in San Francisco, by a guitarist a teen magazine had once tagged “the Face of ’68”. By the time it came out, people knew him for something else: a guitar that sounded like it was talking.

Early life and training

Peter Frampton was born in Beckenham, Kent, on 22 April 1950. His father, Owen, taught art at Bromley Technical School, and one of the boys in his classes was David Jones, the future David Bowie, Who’s Who number 16 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon).

His first instrument was a banjolele. A guitar turned up for Christmas when he was about eight. He was already playing when he saw the teenage Bowie, Who’s Who number 16 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) on stage with the Kon-Rads, and it stayed with him. “Seeing David play with his band The Kon-Rads made a huge impression on me,” he told Louder in 2024.

His own official history lists the bands. He was in the Little Ravens at about ten and the Trubeats at 11. Then came the Preachers, produced and managed by Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones.

By 16 he was in a professional band.

Career chapters

1. 1966Joined the Herd, aged 16
2. 1968I Don’t Want Our Loving to Die reached number 5 in the UK
3. Late 1968 to early 1969Formed Humble Pie with Steve Marriott, Greg Ridley and Jerry Shirley
4. 1971Left Humble Pie after five albums
5. 1972First solo album, Wind of Change, with Ringo Starr, Who’s Who number 5 in · Ultimate Beatles Reunion (story coming soon) on drums
6. 1976Frampton Comes Alive! went to number 1 in the US
7. 1977I’m in You
8. 1980His Comes Alive! guitar is lost in a cargo plane crash in Venezuela
9. 1987Played on David Bowie’s, Who’s Who number 16 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) Never Let Me Down and the Glass Spider Tour
10. 2007Grammy for Fingerprints
11. 2011The guitar is handed back to him in Nashville
12. 2019Revealed he has inclusion body myositis
13. 2024Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
14. 2026Carry the Light, and the documentary Frampton

The Herd 1966 to 1968

Frampton joined the Herd in the summer of 1966, after Mick Underwood left. He was 16, and the hits came quickly. From the Underworld came out on 5 August 1967 and reached number 6 in the UK, staying on the chart for 13 weeks. Paradise Lost made number 15. In the spring of 1968 I Don’t Want Our Loving to Die went to number 5, the band’s biggest hit.

That was the year a teen magazine called him “the Face of ’68”.

Humble Pie and the sessions 1968 to 1971

He left the Herd, and between late 1968 and early 1969 he formed Humble Pie with Steve Marriott, Greg Ridley and Jerry Shirley. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame calls the band blues-rock pioneers.

He was busy in other people’s studios too. The Hall describes him as an indispensable session man for George Harrison, Who’s Who number 44 (story coming soon), and Harry Nilsson. In Ultimate Classic Rock’s report on the 2026 documentary, Harrison, Who’s Who number 44 (story coming soon) is remembered as taking the young guitarist on “like a little brother”.

He made five albums with Humble Pie and went solo in 1971, just as their live record Performance: Rockin’ the Fillmore was climbing the US chart. His first solo album, Wind of Change, came out on A&M in 1972, with Ringo Starr, Who’s Who number 5 in · Ultimate Beatles Reunion (story coming soon) among the drummers. Frampton’s Camel followed in 1973 and Somethin’s Happening in 1974.

Frampton Comes Alive! 1975 to 1976

The Winterland recordings started on 13 June 1975. The double album came out on 16 January 1976, entered the Billboard 200 at number 191 and climbed all the way to the top.

It carried three hit singles. Show Me the Way was a top ten hit in both the US and the UK. Baby, I Love Your Way was a hit as well, and Do You Feel Like We Do reached number 10 on the Hot 100.

The follow-up, I’m in You, sat at number 2 in the US for a month in 1977. Its title track also peaked at number 2.

The crash and the Bowie call 1978 to 1987

In late June 1978 Frampton was in a car crash in the Bahamas. Ultimate Classic Rock lists a broken arm, cracked ribs and bruises. Afterwards, the Rock Hall says, he “re-focused on guitar work”.

In 1987 David Bowie, Who’s Who number 16 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) brought him in to play on Never Let Me Down and on the Glass Spider Tour. The schoolboy his dad had once taught was now his boss. Frampton credits those shows with giving him back his credibility as a player.

Fingerprints 2006 to 2007

Fingerprints was an instrumental album. At the 49th Grammy Awards in 2007 it won Best Pop Instrumental Album, ahead of Gerald Albright, Larry Carlton, Fourplay and Spyro Gyra.

IBM and Carry the Light 2019 to 2026

In February 2019, on CBS, Frampton said he had inclusion body myositis. It had been diagnosed about three and a half years earlier, and he was in a drug trial at Johns Hopkins. He said that year’s tour would be his last. He summed up the illness in six words: “It’s not life-threatening. It’s life-changing.”

It wasn’t the end. On 15 May 2026 he released Carry the Light through UMe, his first new original music in 16 years and, by AARP’s count, his 19th studio album. He co-wrote and co-produced it with his son Julian. The guests include Sheryl Crow, Bill Evans, H.E.R., Tom Morello, Who’s Who number 22, Graham Nash, Who’s Who number 13 in · Ultimate Eagles Reunion (story coming soon) and Benmont Tench. One track, Buried Treasure, is named after Tom Petty’s, Who’s Who number 2 in · Ultimate Eagles Reunion (story coming soon) radio show and features Tench, the Heartbreakers’ keyboard player.

He told AARP that playing guitar every day keeps his hands working. “This is the best time of my life,” he said.

Craft, sound and style

The talk box is the sound most people know, so it’s worth getting the history right. Frampton didn’t invent it. Pete Drake showed it to him, and Drake had earlier lent his own unit to Joe Walsh, Who’s Who number 25, who used it on Rocky Mountain Way. Bob Heil started building talk boxes because Walsh, Who’s Who number 25 asked him to.

What the Rock Hall credits Frampton with is making it popular, during his run in the mid-1970s.

Under the talk box was a session player that Harrison, Who’s Who number 44 (story coming soon) and Nilsson trusted, and the guitarist Bowie, Who’s Who number 16 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) wanted beside him on stage in 1987.

Stories people still tell

1. Bowie’s, Who’s Who number 16 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) art teacher.

   Owen Frampton taught at Bromley Technical School, and David Jones was one of the students. Decades later, that student hired Owen’s son.

2. The smoke scare.

   Frampton says that on the Glass Spider Tour in 1987, what looked like smoke poured into the cabin of a tour plane as it taxied. Bowie, Who’s Who number 16 in · The Ultimate Reunion (story coming soon) shouted “Smoke! Smoke!”, the escape chute came out, and he made sure Frampton went down it ahead of him. In his memoir Frampton says it was most likely condensation from the air conditioning.

3. The guitar that came back.

   The black Les Paul on the Frampton Comes Alive! cover was a 1954 model. In 1970 a man called Mark Mariana lent it to him at the Fillmore West, after his own guitar kept feeding back during a Humble Pie show, and then wouldn’t take it back. “It’s all I ever used for 10 years,” Frampton told the New York Times. In November 1980 it was on a cargo plane that crashed on takeoff in Caracas, Venezuela, on the way to Panama. People died in that crash, and his whole stage rig went with it. “For 30 years, it didn’t exist,” he said. In fact someone had pulled the guitar out of the wreckage, and it ended up with a musician on Curaçao who played it in hotels and bars for decades. A customs officer who repairs guitars, Donald Balentina, noticed the third pickup and the burn marks. After two years of talks the island’s tourist board bought it and handed it back to Frampton in Nashville in December 2011. “It’s almost like the guitar said, ’Okay, you’re worthy again,’” he told CBS.

4. Not a farewell after all.

   The 2019 tour was billed as his last. Seven years later he had a new album out and a film about his life at Tribeca.

Legacy

Frampton was first nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2024, after more than 25 years of eligibility, and went in that same year. Roger Daltrey, Who’s Who number 13 in · Ultimate Queen Reunion (story coming soon) inducted him on 19 October 2024. “I was astonished that this guy wasn’t inducted 35 years ago,” Daltrey, Who’s Who number 13 in · Ultimate Queen Reunion (story coming soon) said. Keith Urban, Who’s Who number 13 in · Ultimate Aussie Reunion - Part 2 (story coming soon) joined Frampton for Do You Feel Like We Do.

In 2026 his long-time bandleader, Rob Arthur, directed a documentary, Frampton, marking 50 years since Comes Alive! It premiered at the Tribeca Festival on 4 June 2026. His children, Julian, Mia and Jade, are in it, as are Daltrey, Who’s Who number 13 in · Ultimate Queen Reunion (story coming soon), Alice Cooper, Who’s Who number 5 in · Ultimate Queen Reunion (story coming soon), Ringo Starr, Who’s Who number 5 in · Ultimate Beatles Reunion (story coming soon) and Morello, Who’s Who number 22. Ultimate Classic Rock’s report on the film has him saying, “I’m stronger than I thought.”