It's hard to say whether Peter Frampton is one of the luckiest fellows ever to strap on an electric guitar or one of the most snake-bitten.
In 1975, the slightly built British rocker was a hard-working yeoman who had achieved a modicum of respect and success over the course of five albums with the band Humble Pie and four albums on his own.
In 1976, Frampton became a sudden pop sensation. His double-live album "Frampton Comes Alive!" sold 1 million copies within a week of its release. It went on to dominate the charts during the bicentennial year, spending 10 weeks as No. 1 and ultimately selling more than 6 million copies in the U.S. At the time, no album had ever sold more.
From this peak of fortune Frampton stumbled, then plummeted. His 1977 follow-up album, "I'm in You," went platinum, but its smarmy title hit put his rock 'n' roll credentials in doubt. Those doubts turned to certainties in 1978, when Frampton starred in the disastrous film version of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," the charmless musical that wove a woeful sub-cartoonish plot around neutered renditions of Beatles songs.
Poor Frampton's job in his musical, non-speaking role was to look cute, pal around with the Bee Gees, and serve as a sexless, soft-focus love interest. He came off looking like a fluffy-haired lap dog. The man who had played lead guitar in the raucous blues-rocking Humble Pie, who had done a respectable cover of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" on his first solo album, seemed to be staking a claim as the next Davy Jones or Bobby Sherman.
Frampton's subsequent albums did nothing to change those unfavorable impressions, and he was left to spend the '80s trying with no great success to make a comeback. Two late '80s albums for Atlantic Records failed to reignite his career. Now the rocker who once headlined sold-out football stadiums is looking for a new record deal.
Discussing his prospects for the '90s in a recent phone interview, Frampton, who will be 42 on April 22, sounded like a man who has found some balance and equilibrium--proud of his past success, able to cope with the late '70s fall, and game for another try.
It hasn't been easy, though. In 1990, Frampton conceived a plan that would carry him back to his beginnings: Instead of being a solo act, he'd start a band like Humble Pie, in which the singing and songwriting would be shared by two or three members.
Frampton, now based in Los Angeles, started looking for another singer-guitarist to split time with him fronting the band. "Every time I went through these stacks of tapes, I'd go, 'No, no, not as good as Steve, not as good as Steve,' " he said--Steve being Steve Marriott, who had founded Humble Pie with Frampton in 1969 and carried on as the band's leader after Frampton left to go solo in '71.
Frampton's solution was to seek out Marriott himself.
"The first day, after not working together for 20 years, we wrote a song. His voice was fantastic still." After that initial get-together in England, Marriott returned with Frampton to Los Angeles, and the two set about writing an album and putting together a band. Frampton says they recorded demo versions of a half-dozen new songs, lined up a record deal, and prepared to join the ever-expanding ranks of '70s stars making '90s comebacks (the list includes Little Feat, the Doobie Brothers, the Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Ted Nugent).
"We had it going. We were on the springboard, just about to leap off. People were very excited about it. (Marriott) went back to England to sort things out. Then his house burned down, and he was in it."
Frampton's account of Marriott's death last April 20 (Marriott was 44 years old) may be couched in dry, stiff-upper-lip British humor, but the experience was wrenching for him both professionally and personally.
"That was devastating to me. I'd put so much energy into the project. I tried to keep going and bring the band together, looking for somebody to complete the lineup. But my heart wasn't in it. It was too soon, I think. It was Steve's and my band, so it wasn't right" to continue.
Among the names being kicked around for the Frampton-Marriott led band was Chalk and Cheese, Frampton said, "because the English have an expression that two things 'couldn't be more different than chalk and cheese.' As great as it was that we worked together, we were very different people and we pushed each other to each other's limits. I've always said that life with Steve and I was--I don't want to say love and hate, but there was a lot of tension between us. When we played or wrote music together, tension adds to that."
Frampton's first public appearance after Marriott's death came last fall at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert at the Universal Amphitheatre.
