Show Me the Way

OK, so I got a little lost trying to find Peter Frampton’s basement studio for an Enquirer story. First, there’s no number on his house, which one finds down a winding, secluded lane in Indian Hill. (Later, he tells me that someone sent him a letter addressed to “Peter Frampton, Cincinnati, Ohio” and he got it!)

So I’m stumbling around the stone path going to the back of his house, where one supposedly finds the recording studio, and I’m starting to call Cara Owsley, our photographer (who took this photo), on my cell phone, when out pops a head and Peter Frampton says in a pleasant British accent, “Come on! You’re almost there!”

Slighter than one would suspect from his publicity photos, Peter pads around in tennies, black T-shirt and brown-striped pants. Yes, the curly blond locks are gone (that earned him the nickname “Golden Boy”). He’s the perfect host, running to get bottles of water (“Water for the girls!”) and cups of Earl Gray tea (“milk? Lemon?”), pulling up chairs between his speakers, the better to hear a track from his new album, almost ready for primetime.

“When we’re recording, everyone takes turns with the drinks and chips,” he says.

Besides his upcoming gig with the Cincinnati Pops, we talked about:

The Who’s Who of rock guitarists appearing on his new CD, “Fingerprints” – Guitarist and co-producer Gordon Kennedy, in “Float,” a piece Frampton played at his father’s funeral in September. Kennedy also appears with him at the Pops and wrote much of Frampton’s last album, “Now,” with him.

Also: Rolling Stones’ Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman (“Cornerstones”); original Shadows members Hank Marvin and Brian Bennett (“My Cup of Tea”); Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready and Matt Cameron (a cover of Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” and “Blowin’ Smoke”); Warren Haynes (“Blooze”); Paul Franklin (“Double Nickels”) British sax legend Courtney Pine (“Boot It Up”); guitarist John Jorgenson (“Souvenirs De Nos Peres”).

Black Hole Sun, a Cup of Tea and the Blues – One of the highlights is a cover of Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun,” that was planned in Ohio. When Frampton played a Toledo political fund raiser with Pearl Jam and Neil Young, he approached three of the players to ask them to play his album’s instrumental version of “Black Hole Sun.”

He also made a track with one of his heroes, Hank Marvin, lead guitarist of the English band the Shadows, the first band he ever heard on television as a child of 8.

“I had to go to England to do that. So that’s a very important track – “My Cup of Tea” it’s called,” he says.

Recently, Frampton wrote a blues number that he recorded in one take in New York with guitarist Warren Haynes, “an amazing guitar player that’s playing in his own band, but is also playing with the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers – when he has a moment (laughs). I’ve always loved the blues, and played my version of the blues.”

What he was going for – “If you really admire another artist and you click, there’s no reason to say that there’s not hopefully going to be some sparks happen. And that’s what you’re going for.”

Making his first instrumental CD – “I’m so pleased I did do it. Because it definitely was a challenge, a big stretch to reach out to all the different things that have influenced me and take them and do that. You know, to work with those people, not knowing what would happen. I guess I hate (the words) ‘reinventing yourself.’ But it definitely opened up a lot of avenues musically for me.”

Limited edition “Peter Frampton” – “Martin (Guitars) has given me a Limited Edition Peter Frampton model. It’s actually the Frampton’s Camel version. There’s a little camel at the top. Because when I left Humble Pie, and I did a couple of records, Frampton’s Camel was the first one I bought with what was leftover from Humble Pie’s earnings in cash. I went to Manny’s in New York and just bought a D45 Martin, because that was my favorite acoustic, and did the album with it with a lot of good songs that have lasted. The next year when we were touring, it got stolen.

“So that’s why Dick Boak from the Martin company, when I told him that story…they put my name on this. I guess it’s going to be about 60 to 100 limited edition. So that’s like, honor.”

On playing Fillmore West (San Francisco) in the ‘60s – “I remember coming in for the first show. There was no back entrance. You had to come in through the crowd in the original Fillmore. Which is walking over people lying down! (Laughs.) And we were supporting the Grateful Dead. We were given a quick Grateful Dead-support band course. It’s, maybe you should bring your own cokes and water, because they spike everything. That’s when acid was flowing free in the late 60s. We escaped.”

How he composes – “With Gordon (Kennedy), I’ll bring some little demo bits I’ve got, and plug it through the speakers here. And we listen to all that, and he plays me his ideas. We start talking and we work out what we fancy to work with. Then we set about working on a title, and then start to put it all together.

“There’s no rules. I could wake up, and Gordon could walk in and I’ll say – ‘Rosebud!’ I don’t know, it’s just got me today. So that’s the title. That puts you in a space where you’ll both be thinking about that. He’s the wordsmith. We’ll talk and we’ll write. To me, melody is much easier. Bernie Taupin and Elton John work around the other way. Bernie will give him some verses and says, try these out. I think it’s easier to write a natural melody.”

“Float” – “It’s a slow ballad featuring Gordon Kennedy. It’s one of the first things we did for the project, here (in his studio). It was actually something that I played at my dad’s funeral. On entrance music, I played that track, ‘Float,’ which I thought was very apt. And there’s another piece on the record also, ‘Oh When,’ and his name is Owen, so that’s a little code. That’s an instrumental piece that I played at the funeral. The record is dedicated to my father and also to Bob Mayo who was my keyboard player and musical partner for so many years.

“And this record definitely would not have gotten made without my dad, not only for creating me (laughs) but for being there, and for Bob, and the encouragement from both, two of the most important people in my life. And that’s also been something that’s kept me going through hard times as well, thinking of how they’d be saying, ‘Come on.’”

Guitar heroes – “The biggest is Django Reinhardt. He’s a Belgian who lived in France, died in 1954 and he was a gypsy guitar player who played with his band called the Hot Club de France, with the very famous violinist, Stephane Grapelli.

“And Hank Marvin. When my father bought me the album, ‘Shadows,’ he bought Mum and himself ‘The Best of Hot Club de France,’ featuring Django Reinhardt. So, I would put on the Shadows, and my dad would be hovering with the Django Reinhardt.
“Even though I hated it when I first heard it, because it wasn’t rock n roll -- it was old people’s fuddy duddy – the more I learned from Hank, the more I realized that Django was probably pretty incredible too. It’s funny because both Hank and I are into Django Reinhardt now.”

How he started guitar - “When I went up into the attic with my dad to get our suitcases down to go on summer holiday, there was this little case about this big up there, and that was my grandmother’s ukulele. It was a banjolele, like a ukulele. It had ukulele strings, but it was banjo-shaped. A miniature banjo. I said, Dad, what is this? He said, ‘banjolele. Want me to play it for you?’ So he tuned it up, played chords on it, and that was it.

“That was the first time I heard that. ‘Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley’ I think he played. He used to do “Freight Train, Freight Train” (he sings, goin’ so fast.. .) and all those skiffley type of things. (Skiffle = British folk)

“So I said, do we have to put this back? He said, no, and he showed me the chords and that’s how I started. It was probably just before my 8th birthday. And by the time Christmas came around in 1958, I asked for a guitar. That’s when, he’d given me all the instruction on the banjolele, so I just had to wake him up in the middle of the night Christmas morning and say, how do you tune the other two strings? He said, ‘Oh Christ, do you know what time it is?’ So he got up. And I was off.”

Influenced by – “All the greats, I had mine from the jazz side, Wes Montgomery, Kenny Burrell, Joe Pass – I could go and on. Clapton, Eddie Van Halen. Jeff Beck, an awful lot. Very inventive player. Peter Green, Mick Taylor. If I’ve left anybody out – but I grew up in such a fantastic era where music was changing so drastically. It was changing from Big Band when I was born, over to small ensemble playing.”

Preconcert ritual – I usually try to eat a late breakfast and then go out and do whatever, phone calls, e-mails. And before the sound check, usually 4 p.m., I have a late lunch. The food thing is important, because otherwise you get starving. You eat before you go on. So I eat at 4, so I can make it through the show and then I’ll have a snack or a salad afterwards. It’s not conducive to eating well on the road. So a lot of salads.

“After the sound check, I go back and I take a little nap. Or just spazz out in front of the TV and then I do some vocal exercises and get myself ready. I usually arrive about half an hour before; sometimes we stay there all day if it’s too far from the hotel. It’s pretty much a ritual. We all have a ritual… we don’t do any sort of heavy praying, but it’s just a connect before we go on. Have a laugh, tell a joke or two, because we really like each other. It’s a great band.”

Talent genes – “(Mia, 10) sings and she does want to learn the guitar. She had some piano lessons. Every now and again she picks up the guitar and then she puts it down. But she’s very much into acting and drama. She’s studying band and she’s done dance since she was 4. So she’s really into it.
“My son Julian (Julian and Jade are from his previous marriage) who just graduated from high school in Florida, he’s going to SUNY-Purchase to study drama there. He’s plays guitar, drums, sings, writes, and I’ve just done his first demo, in fact. Pretty good, but then I’m biased.
“Another daughter, (Jade), just graduated Kent State, and she’s now a fashion assistant to the fashion director for Elle. She’s bought a house (laughs). It’s amazing, first job.

“Tina’s daughter, Tiffany, she’s going to college locally as a chemical analyst. So the girls turned right around and after scaring us to death, they went and did good.”

Payoff time – “I don’t think anything can prepare you for the craziness from the mid-70-s to the early 80s. That was something that I still don’t believe happened. It’s like it somebody else it happened to. It’s a completely different time period. But yes it was me, and I’m so thrilled that it happened. It was pretty much of a whirlwind. So this time now is sort of like payoff for me.”