Frampton Comes Alive!: The Breakthrough Album Turns 50—The Daily Earworm
Peter Frampton released his breakthrough live double album on Jan. 15, 1976. Dubbed Frampton Comes Alive!, the release was a massive success and skyrocketed the British-born guitarist to stardom. As the album turns 50 this week, we take a look back at the album, and the story and artist behind it, in today’s Daily Earworm.
Why Frampton Comes Alive! Was So Important
Frampton grew up in England, knowing that he wanted to be a musician from an extremely young age. He and David Bowie went to school together at Bromley Technical School and would frequently get together at lunch and play Buddy Holly songs on their guitars. At the age of 12, Frampton started playing in bands. By age 14, he was in a band with older musicians called the Preachers, playing gigs late at night. The band eventually changed its name to Moon’s Train and was managed by Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones.
At 16, Frampton joined the English rock band the Herd as singer and guitarist. The group had three Top 20 singles in the UK before Frampton left the band and formed Humble Pie with Small Faces frontman Steve Marriott. The group also enjoyed moderate success, with their 1971 live album Rockin’ the Filmore reaching #20 on the Billboard 200.
At 21, and having tasted some minor success in the United States with Humble Pie, Frampton decided to move to the U.S. and start a solo career. After having success at every step of his young career, the still-young Brit did not find success so easily this time. After four studio albums on A&M Records met with little commercial success, Frampton began to question his choices and worried about his future with the label.
Frampton’s next album was set up to be a live LP. After recording a couple of concerts, A&M added additional shows and decided to make it a double album. Frampton Comes Alive! was crafted from footage from two shows in California and two in New York. However, during the recording process, there had been some technical glitches, and they had to re-record a couple of drum, piano, and rhythm guitar parts on individual songs. Frampton and A&M needed this project to pay off. Boy, did it.
Frampton Really Does Come Alive
After four years of adversity, Frampton’s solo career found new life. Frampton Comes Alive! entered the Billboard 200 at #191 on Jan.15, 1976, and slowly began climbing. On Apr.10, the album hit #1. It stayed on the Billboard 200 for 97 weeks and spent 10 of those weeks at the top. Frampton Comes Alive! was the best-selling album of 1976 and eventually became one of the best-selling live albums in history, with over 8 million copies sold.
Frampton Comes Alive! produced three hit singles, all of which had gone nowhere on the albums that they had been originally recorded on. “Show Me the Way” was certified gold and reached #6 on the Billboard Hot 100. The second single, “Baby, I Love Your Way,” peaked at #12 and also achieved gold status. The album’s final single, “Do You Feel Like We Do,” topped out at #10.
Frampton’s Secret Weapon
In 1970, during his Humble Pie years, Frampton spent some time doing session work at Abbey Road Studios with the Beatles‘ George Harrison, who was working on his first solo album. While in the studios, pedal steel guitarist Pete Drake introduced Frampton to the talk box. The effects device allows musicians to pipe an instrument’s sound into their mouth and essentially sing the instrument’s music back into the microphone it is attached to. It is an amazing process.
Bob Heil gave Frampton a hand-built version of the device for Christmas in 1974. Frampton tinkered with it a little on his fourth studio album, Frampton, but by the time he recorded the shows for Frampton Comes Alive!, he had mastered it. It became his secret weapon on the album and was used on two of the album’s three hit singles. You can hear it featured in “Show Me the Way” above. Frampton’s talk box sound has been his trademark ever since the epic album hit the stores.
Frampton Comes Alive!: The Legacy
Other musicians have used a talk box over the years, but no one has ever mastered it like Frampton did on Frampton Comes Alive! The album remains one of the greatest of its generation. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2020. It saved Frampton’s career and set him on a trajectory that led to his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame four years later.
