Child prodigy; lead guitarist in a British supergroup (Humble Pie); restless solo artist in search of a sound to call his own; rocket-to-the-moon-riding mega-hitmaker; star of one of the biggest movie fiascoes of all time (Robert Stigwood\u2019s film version of Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/i>); 30-something has-been; David Bowie sideman; fondly remembered classic rocker; elder statesman of British rock. Over the course of a five-decade career, Peter Frampton has been thrust into or saddled with each of these roles over the years, seeming to meet each with shoulder-shrugging equanimity, as if to say \u201cWhatever, guys, I just want to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of all the digressions Frampton and his career have taken over the decades since he set the rock world back on its heels with his world-beating Billboard #1 1976 live album Frampton Comes Alive!<\/i>, his 2006 solo album Fingerprints<\/i> remains a standout.<\/p>\n
For one thing, it\u2019s overloaded with A-list guests, from original Rolling Stones rhythm section Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman, to Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready and Matt Cameron, to original Shadows members Hank Marvin and Brian Bennett, to Allman Brothers slide guitar maestro Warren Haynes, to industry-famous sidemen Paul Franklin (pedal steel) and John Jorgenson (guitar), to his chief collaborator, Nashville songsmith\/guitarist Gordon Kennedy. <\/p>\n
For another, this is the only album in Frampton\u2019s entire catalog on which he does not sing. It\u2019s 14 tracks of instrumental music, a showcase for Frampton the guitar player that leaves no doubt why his childhood friend Bowie plucked him from the sidelines in 1986 and made him part of his touring and studio band for two years. No traces remain on Fingerprints<\/i> of Frampton the teen idol; here he\u2019s a musician\u2019s musician, going toe-to-toe with a series of fellow greats and having an absolute blast at it. After many years of pressing hard to mixed results, Fingerprints <\/i>finds Frampton fully engaged with the pure joy of playing guitar.<\/p>\n
And while there\u2019s plenty of his trademark tastefully melodic British-inflected blues-rock, those moments are honestly less exciting than when Frampton takes the music in a more unexpected direction\u2014which he does again and again.<\/p>\n
When you hear the name Peter Frampton, you don\u2019t necessarily think of funk, but that\u2019s exactly where this album starts off, with the uber-funky strut of \u201cBoot It Up,\u201d featuring Frampton trading licks with sax player Courtney Pine. The more familiar-feeling \u201cIda Y Vuelta (Out And Back)\u201d is a snappy acoustic piece featuring Comes Alive<\/i> bassist Stanley Sheldon sitting in. But then Frampton throws a huge curveball, delivering slicing, skronky, greasy electric leads on a thundering cover of Soundgarden\u2019s \u201cBlack Hole Sun,\u201d with McCready and Cameron supplying extra muscle and authenticity. Here Frampton\u2019s playing is as dynamic as anything you\u2019ve ever heard from him, modulating tones dramatically, gradually gaining heaviness until the solo section erupts into a squalling duel with the ever-ready McCready. Just for kicks he drops a little trademark PF talk box into the final verse, before another storming guitar battle takes them to the close.<\/p>\n
Next up, \u201cFloat\u201d and \u201cMy Cup Of Tea\u201d feel more familiar, lilting numbers full of bright, melodic playing. Ah, but then we get to \u201cShewango Way,\u201d a frenetic, angular, careening, number that goes dreamy in some places and purely experimental in others, with superb tone throughout; it\u2019s the first Frampton tune I\u2019ve ever heard that reminded me of Ronnie Montrose. Then Frampton\u2019s blues chops come to the fore in the winkingly named \u201cBlooze,\u201d executing a gentle, masterful buildup to an eruptive fireworks show of a twin-guitar solo section featuring Frampton squaring off with Haynes. <\/p>\n
Watts and Wyman provide the deepest of pockets for \u201cCornerstones,\u201d an emphatic slice of blues-rock featuring a dirty rhythm riff topped by PF\u2019s screaming lead, before he goes full funk once again with the giddy, playful \u201cGrab A Chicken (Put It Back).\u201d Atmosphere is the focus of the winding, circuitous \u201cDouble Nickels\u201d and the acoustic blues \u201cSmoky,\u201d before the thunder returns with the heavy metal sounds of \u201cBlowin\u2019 Smoke.\u201d McCready and Cameron again contribute a big stomping beat and bruising rhythm guitar as Frampton plays the fat, twisty-turny main riff.<\/p>\n
Penultimate track \u201cOh When\u2026\u201d showcases PF alone with his acoustic, a pleasant meditation \/ interlude before he closes things out with the still-acoustic but more offbeat \u201cSouvenirs De Nos Peres (Memories Of Our Fathers),\u201d an old-timey number with a distinctly Parisian feel. (Seriously, I kept expecting a woman singing in French to come in over the top.)<\/p>\n
Fingerprints<\/i> is a powerful reminder that before the melodrama, before the megastardom, before Peter Frampton ever even wrote a song, he made his bones in the music world as an ace guitar player. This album saw his gifts unleashed in a whole new way, and while the Grammys get it wrong more often than not, they got it exactly right when this album won Best Pop Instrumental Album in 2007. It\u2019s a hell of a good time with a hell of a good player.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":34207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5954],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-46038","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-peter-frampton","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46038"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}