Sounds Like AM Radio

It’s New Years Eve day and I’m just picking up the house a bit as I’ve got a few friends coming up tonight. As I’m cleaning up around here I started to go through some CD’s I haven’t heard in awhile and put them into the Bose.

I put in an old one from my high school years. The album is the studio album Peter Frampton put out right before his live album came out in 1976. Listening to the album it reminded me of when the album came out and a few of us went and bought the record. There were a couple minor hits on it that got a decent amount of FM airplay and we were all pretty satisfied with our purchase. Of course we had no idea what would come next for the guy.

A number of the songs on the “Frampton” album were also on the live album and hearing them done in a studio as opposed to live is really something. I had forgotten how fresh the songs sounded all those years ago. It’s actually a really good album. There were a couple songs that I still just love that never made it onto the live album and hearing them after all these years brings a comfort that’s hard to describe.

Anyway, the reason I started to write was that I was thinking about what happened to Peter Frampton and how none of you out there that are in my age group have listened to “Frampton Comes Alive” in ages. You almost have to feel sorry for the guy. This was a great album and that’s not an exaggeration. It was the album that started the trend in the 70’s of other artists recording live albums. Think about it, did you know anyone back then that didn’t buy it? I’m hard pressed to think of anyone I knew.

So why would I say you almost have to feel sorry for him? Well, let’s look at what happened to his career. It was pretty much finished, artistically; he became a pop star instead of a rock star. Do you know anyone who has a Frampton album that was released after the live one? Neither do I. all this guy did was play a concert in San Francisco that was recorded. He didn’t change his style or music, he just played.

We, the listening public, heard this album so much that it became almost hard to listen to. It went from being played on album oriented rock stations to top 40 stations and once that happens the shelf life just disappears. Those of you that saved your albums from back then should go take a look at it. I’m sure that looking at it you’ll see how used it is. You, like so many others, played the hell out of it. I said it earlier and it really is true, this was a great album.

There are, as mentioned earlier, a few songs on the “Frampton” album that didn’t make it onto the live set. If you are so inclined go online and see if you can download “Nowhere’s Too Far” and "Apple Of Your Eye”. I think it’ll bring some memories back and you just might like to hear something you haven’t heard in over 30 years.