If you were alive in 1976, you heard Frampton Comes Alive! whether you knew it or not. It was everywhere. In my neighborhood, it literally was everywhere. My friend Mike put his stereo speakers in his bedroom window and broadcast it every day for everyone to hear. Luckily for him, he forced a good album on all of us, otherwise he surely would have died a quick death. In this age of digital downloads, Mike still has his vinyl LP. Why was this such a good album, and why did it sell by the truckload? I have one theory. During that time we all had to suffer a disease that was afflicting the music industry. That disease was called disco.
I won’t get into a long diatribe about how bad disco was. Suffice to say, if you hated disco as much as I did, Frampton Comes Alive! was a welcome respite from that “musical” [and I use that term loosely] scourge. If you don’t buy this argument consider the following. Peter Frampton later teamed up with the Bee Gees, purveyors of that monstrous musical form, to make the movie Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Frampton had sold out, he had taken up with “the enemy” and his fall from grace was as sudden as was his rise to fame. I dare say that it took his career over 20 years to recover. Yes, the movie had nothing to do with disco, but the mere thought of a musician of Peter Frampton’s caliber associating himself with perpetrators of such crap was just too much to bear. But enough about disco…
Disco isn't the only reason Frampton Comes Alive! was a monster hit. What was the appeal? Sure, he had the teeny-bopper good looks, the long-flowing blonde locks that the girls loved at the time. They liked the pretty songs like Baby I Love Your Way. For the guys [and girls too] there was a damn fine guitarist. His band was as tight as they come [the immortal Bob Mayo, Stanley Sheldon, and the late John Siomos]. From the opening moments of Something’s Happening, the energy of both the band and the audience leap out of the speakers. Frampton’s element was on-stage. He comes across as a nice guy who has an excellent rapport with his audience. He had strong material, even though it didn’t sell well in the studio incarnations. I think the hook for many people was the talk box. I know of only two people who used it with guitar before Frampton did [Joe Walsh and Jeff Beck], and when people heard Frampton do it, people thought “that was cool” [at least I did anyway]. Was it a case of “right place, right time”? It probably was, but it sounded good. Hell, it sounded great!
What about the songs? With the exception of one song [Shine On], all the songs are from the first four albums Peter Frampton made after leaving Humble Pie [Wind of Change, Frampton’s Camel, Somethin’s Happening, Frampton]. He left Humble Pie because he thought the hard rock direction they were taking overwhelmed his talents as a player. Unlike the balls-to-the-wall attack of Humble Pie, Frampton liked to mix his music with both electric and acoustic textures. Additionally there’s more of an emphasis on melody. This approach is also reflected on Frampton Comes Alive!, but fear not – Frampton did not forget how to rock out just because he left Humble Pie. There was the talk-box excess of Do You Feel Like We Do. There was the white-boy funkiness of Doobie Wah. How can one NOT like Show Me The Way? My personal favorite is the Humble Pie song Shine On, which follows Do You Feel Like We Do on the 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition. Also on the Deluxe Edition, there are four extra songs that weren’t on the original album for space reasons. One of those, White Sugar, immediately follows Shine On and flows right into PF’s inspired take of the Stones’ Jumpin’ Jack Flash. Where the original album ended with Do You Feel Like We Do, the Deluxe Edition ends with Jumpin’ Jack Flash. Peter Frampton re-sequenced the Deluxe Edition to reflect what his setlist really looked like at the time, such is the luxury of not having to squeeze music onto pieces of vinyl.
The original album track listing:
Somethin’s Happening / Doobie Wah / Show Me The Way / It’s a Plain Shame / All I Wanna Be (Is By Your Side) / Wind of Change / Baby I Love Your Way / I Wanna Go To The Sun / Penny For Your Thoughts / (I’ll Give You) Money / Shine On / Jumpin’ Jack Flash / Lines on My Face / Do You Feel Like We Do
The 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
Somethin’s Happening / Doobie Wah / Lines on My Face / Show Me The Way / It’s a Plain Shame / Wind of Change / Just the Time of Year* / Penny For Your Thoughts / All I Wanna Be (Is By Your Side) / Baby I Love Your Way / I Wanna Go To The Sun / Nowhere’s Too Far (For My Baby)* / (I’ll Give You) Money / Do You Feel Like We Do / Shine On / White Sugar* / Jumpin’ Jack Flash / Day's Dawning* [live-for radio session]
Peter Frampton is celebrating the 35th anniversary of Frampton Comes Alive! this summer by playing the whole thing, start to finish [including the extras]. That’ll be just the first set. I assume he also play a heavy dose of selections from Fingerprints and Thank You Mr. Churchill. I suspect he’ll play While My Guitar Gently Weeps and I Don’t Need No Doctor. At least I hope so because I plan to buy tickets to see this show in Pensacola in October this year. It should be a great show.
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