The multi-faceted career of Peter Frampton, now surpassing 60 years, resembles the ‘Phenix’ Gibson Les Paul he eventually reclaimed from the ashes of a plane crash in 1980. Just when we think that’s the end of it, it comes alive time and again.
Frampton’s golden goose looked to be cooked in 1978, after a car crash in the Bahamas brought a sudden, inglorious and desperately sad halt to two years sitting at rock’s pinnacle. Teenagers who had grown up listening to Sparky’s Magic Piano, the Sonovox children’s radio classic, fell in love with satin-trousered, fluffy-haired Peter and his talkbox on 1976’s Frampton Comes Alive!; at its peak, that double album was selling a million copies a week. He had previously had a respectable run in The Herd, Humble Pie, as a solo artist, and playing guitar on sessions for George Harrison, among others
