Peter Frampton, the singer and guitarist whose album ‘Frampton Comes Alive’ is one of the best-selling live albums ever, has been diagnosed with a degenerative muscle disease.
Frampton has revealed he has Inclusion Body Myositis (IBM). It’s a condition which causes muscles to stop functioning. Believing that the disease will eventually spread to his fingers and stop him playing guitar, Frampton has announced a farewell tour.
The musician, who has worked with David Bowie and Pearl Jam, told CBS This Morning: “I’m a perfectionist, and I don’t want to go out there and feel like ‘Oh I can’t, this isn’t good.’ That would be a nightmare for me.”
Explaining his love of playing live, Frampton said: “I’ve been playing guitar for 60 years, it’s my passion. I started when I was eight and now I’m 68. So I’ve had a very good run.”
All 40 of Frampton’s farewell tour dates are in North America, apart from an appearance at blues festival Keeping The Blues Alive in Barcelona on August 16.
Released in 1976, ‘Frampton Comes Alive’ spent 10 weeks at No 1 in the US and has sold 11 million copies. Frampton’s most famous songs include ‘Show Me The Way’, ‘Baby, I Love Your Way’ and ‘Do You Feel Like We Do’. Will To Power’s cover of ‘Baby, I Love Your Way’ was No 1 in the US in 1988.
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Frampton has played himself in both The Simpsons and Family Guy, and became famed for pioneering the talk box, an instrument which merged his voice with his guitar and made it sound as if his guitar was singing.
David Bowie attended the same Kent school, Bromley Technical School, as Frampton and was taught art by Frampton’s father Owen Frampton. Three years older than Frampton, Bowie later invited him to play guitar on his 1987 album ‘Never Let Me Down’ and on the accompanying Glass Spider tour.
Frampton first found fame in Humble Pie with Steve Marriott of The Small Faces, before going solo in 1971. After the success of ‘Frampton Comes Alive’, he was involved in a near-fatal car crash in the Bahamas in 1978.
Frampton’s 2006 album ‘Fingerprints’ featured Matt Cameron and Mike McCready from Pearl Jam.