DO YOU FEEL?
Peter Frampton takes stock with insightful memoir
Peter Frampton is excited about revealing his life story. And terrified.
“I’m dreading it coming out!” Frampton — whose “Do You Feel Like I Do?: A Memoir” publishes Tuesday — declares over the phone from his home in Nashville. Then he laughs. “Obviously I’m joking, but there is a nervousness of ‘ What have I done?! My life is not an open book for your enjoyment. What am I doing here?!’
“But, yeah, I’m very pleased it’s done. It’s a long process. It’s much more difficult than I would ever have imagined, and it takes a lot of work. But I’m happy with it.”
“Do You Feel,” co-written with music journalist Alan Light, is not a particularly long book (341 pages), but the season’s most anticipated music memoir this side of Mariah Carey’s does smoothly condense Frampton’s lengthy and impactful (and, supporters would say, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-worthy) career at a time when it’s nearing an end. He was diagnosed in 2017 with inclusion body myositis, a slow-moving degenerative condition that’s causing his muscles to atrophy. He’s not waving thewhite flag— he recently started a new experimental therapy, “a ray of hope” at Johns Hopkins Hospital — but with the disorder starting to affect the guitar player’s fingers, Framptonfigures it’s anappropriate time to take stock of things.
“I never wanted to do a tellall book. This is just basically my story,” explains Frampton, 70, adding that his approach was inspired by British actor David Niven’s 1971 memoir “The Moon’s a Balloon.” Frampton does chronicle his struggles with substance abuse and depression, as well as a mid-career malaise. But the book seldom dips into easy sensationalism.
“I didn’t want it to be about this relationship or that relationship,” the British-born father of three says. “My family comes in and out of it, but it’s really a book about my career.
“There’s everything in there. My sense of humor, I think, comes across. And also I don’t let up or stop at a certain point. I tell the whole story. When it’s something that wasn’t so great for me, it’s in there, and I think that was important.”
Showing the way
More than anything else, the anecdote-packed “Do You Feel” illuminates those who may know him only from the blockbuster “Frampton Comes Alive” album to the fact that there’s a great deal more Frampton has accomplished sincehe started playing in bands at the age of 12. In fact, it establishes Frampton as a kind of rock ’n’ roll Zelig or Forrest Gump, continually crossing paths with a who’s-who of the British rock scene — as a schoolmate of David Bowie (backing himon the 1987 “Never Let Me Down” album and accompanying Glass Spider Tour), as a member of bands such as the Herd and Humble Pie, and as a gun-for-hire playing on sessions for George Harrison, Harry Nilsson, the Who’s John Entwistle and others.
There are plenty of victories, especially creative, as well as pitfalls such as an ill-advised shirtless cover photo for Rolling Stone magazine and starring in the ill-fated film adaptation of the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” But it’s almost dizzying as Frampton pops up everywhere from British teen magazines in the ’60s to later animated appearances in “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy,” a tenure with Ringo Starr’s AllStarr Band and a consulting role (and cameo) in Cameron Crowe’s film “Almost Famous.”
“My son Julian, after he read the first of my edits, said, ‘Dad, what band weren’t you asked to join?’” Frampton, whose 2000 “Live in Detroit” album and video came from a show the previous summer at the Pine Knob Music Theatre, says with a laugh. “I lived it, so I don’t think about it that way, but I guess for other people it’s pretty amazing. I think it’s something about my playing that appealed to these people, and I’mnot a bad dude. I’m a pretty nice guy aswell, but it had to be the playing.”
Among the book’s revelations is an early ’80s invitation from the Who’s Pete Townshend for Frampton to take his place in the band. Townshend would still write material for the group, but Frampton would step in for the live shows. “I love Pete dearly and we’ve always had a great relationship, but itwas a ridiculous idea,” Frampton says now. “Obviously no one could fill those shoes. I’ve always loved the Who and I’ve known them all for most of my life, since I was 17 or 18, but. ...
“At the time, though, my career was in the toilet, so it started to go from a ridiculous offer to ... ‘ Yeah, maybe this could work...’ But nothing came of it, which was probably all for the better.”
Other eyebrow-raising stories concern Dee Anthony, Frampton’s manager with Humble Pie andthe early part of his solo career, and his ties to organized crime. It became clear at certain points that Anthony had accumulated considerable debts with the mob and counted on his clients’ revenues to help him square accounts — though Frampton says he never felt in danger himself.
“I just thought that’s the way it is in New York at that time,” he remembers. “It was all very like a movie tome, going to Dee’s apartment and having to go through four or five bodyguards before I got to the front door was kind of shocking. And then I walk in and I meet one of the heads of the five families.
“I didn’t realize the enormity of it at the time. I had no idea! I was a newbie, a kid who’d just come over and was learning about this country.”
Shine on
As “Do You Feel” rolls out, Frampton has also recorded an audio book version for which he plays some music, including early songs he learned and some new material. He shies away fromthe idea of a biopic, however.
“Oh gosh, I hope not,” he says with another laugh. “I don’t feel I deserve that. People have asked, ‘Can we do a tribute concert to you?’ and things like that, and I’ve turned it all down because it’s not my thing. I’m honored — don’t get me wrong — but I’m not really big on that kind of thing. It’s been mentioned, about a film, but I wouldn’t be behind it.”
What Frampton’s most interested in is creating as much music as he can while he’s still able. He recently took part in an allstar 60th anniversary charity recording of Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me,” and in the wake of 2019’s critically acclaimed “All Blues” he has three more albums on the runway, including another blues set, a proper solo album and collection of instrumental cover songs that he expects to put out first, early in 2021.
And after a North American farewell tour during 2019 he was supposed to do the same in England this year, but those shows were shut down by the pandemic — which means Frampton isn’t sure when, or even if, he’ll be able to step on a stage again.
“It’s a disappointing period for me, and I don’t know what the future will bring,” he acknowledges. “We have the COVID ticking clock and I have my own ticking clock, and the two don’t go well together. I have a journey, and I’ve accepted that. The best I get is when I’m working. I’m just a pig in s—- when I’m working on one of my tracks or for one of my friends. It doesn’t matter which.
“I’m still playing. I’m still making music. And I’ll keep doing that until I can’t. That’s just who I am and what I do. And that’s what the book’s all about, really.”