Peter Kenneth Frampton (born 22 April 1950 in Beckenham, Kent) is an English musician, best known today for his solo work in the mid-1970s and as one of the original members of the band Humble Pie.

Frampton first became interested in music when he was seven-years old. He discovered his grandmother's banjolele (a banjo-shaped ukulele) in the attic. Teaching himself to play, he became near obsessed, and upon receiving a guitar and piano, from his parents, taught himself those instruments as well. At age eight he got a guitar and started taking classical music lessons.

Early influences were Cliff Richard & The Shadows, (featuring guitarist Hank Marvin) and American rockers Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran, and then the Ventures and the Beatles. His father introduced him to Belgian gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt.

By the age of ten, Frampton played in a band called the Little Ravens. Both he and David Bowie were pupils at Bromley Technical School where Frampton's father, Owen Frampton, was an art teacher and head of the Art department. The Little Ravens played on the same bill at school as Bowie's band, George and the Dragons. Peter and David would spend time together at lunch breaks, playing Buddy Holly songs.

At the age of 11, Peter was playing with a band called The Trubeats followed by a band called The Preachers, produced and managed by Bill Wyman of The Rolling Stones.

In 1966, he became a member of The Herd. He was the lead guitarist and singer, scoring a handful of British teenybopper hits. Frampton was named "The Face of 1968" by the UK press.

In 1969, when Frampton was 19 years old, he joined with Steve Marriott of The Small Faces to form Humble Pie.

While playing with Humble Pie, Frampton also did session recording with other artists including: Harry Nilsson, Jim Price, Jerry Lee Lewis and George Harrison's solo All Things Must Pass, in 1971. During this session he was introduced to the 'Talkbox' that has become such a trademark guitar sound for Frampton.

After five albums with Humble Pie, Frampton left and went solo in 1971, just in time to see 'Rockin' The Fillmore' rise up the US charts.

His debut was 1972's Wind of Change, with guest artists Ringo Starr and Billy Preston. This album was followed by Frampton's Camel in 1973, which featured Frampton working within a group project. In 1974, Frampton released Somethin's Happening. Frampton toured extensively to support his solo career. In 1975, the Frampton album was released. The album went to #32 in the US charts, and is certified Gold by the RIAA.

Peter Frampton had minimal commercial success with his early albums. This changed with Frampton's breakthrough best-selling live album, Frampton Comes Alive!, in 1976. "Baby, I Love Your Way" and "Show Me the Way" were singles. "Do You Feel Like We Do", despite its length, was also popular. The latter two tracks also featured his use of the talk box guitar effect. Recorded mainly in San Francisco, California, where Humble Pie enjoyed a good following, at Winterland in 1975. Released in early January, it debuted on the charts on Valentine's Day at 191. It stayed at the top of the charts, at number one, for 10 weeks, in the Billboard's Top 40 album chart for 55 weeks, and stayed on the Billboard 200 charts in total for 97 Weeks. It was the top selling album of 1976, beating Fleetwood Mac's Fleetwood Mac for the top spot, and was the 14^th best seller of 1977. The album became the biggest selling live album at the time of its release and sold over 6 million copies in the US, 16 million worldwide. The Garth Brooks album Double Live at 20 times platinum is the best selling live album of all time, Bruce Springsteen is next at 13 times with Bruce Springsteen & E Street Band Live 1975 - '85, The Eagles come in next with Eagles Live at 7 times, while Frampton Comes Alive! is 6 times platinum, and is now the fourth best selling live album of all time.

The success of Frampton Comes Alive! put him on the cover of Rolling Stone, in a famous shirtless photo by Francesco Scavullo. And the album put Frampton in a position to be offered, and then accept a co-starring role with The Bee Gees in director Robert Stigwood's poorly received Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Frampton's career seemed to be falling as quickly as it had risen.

His following album, I'm in You (1977) contained the hit title single and went platinum, but fell well short of expectations compared to Frampton Comes Alive!.

In June of 1978 he was involved in a near fatal car accident in the Bahamas, he had multiple broken bones, sustained a concussion, and had muscle damage. Dealing with the pain of the accident would lead him into a brief problem of drug abuse.

In 1979, Frampton returned to recording. Past band members included Stanley Sheldon (bass), Bob Mayo (keyboards/guitar/vocals), Chad Cromwell (drums), and John Siomos (drums/vocals). The album, Where I Should Be (1979) was the first album recorded after his car accident.

In 1980, his following album Rise Up was released to promote his tour in Brazil. The album eventually turned into Breaking All The Rules, released the next year in 1981. These albums were the first he recorded almost completely live - their sound is believed to be the better for it".

Frampton continued to record throughout the 80's, although his albums generally met with little commercial success. However, he did achieve a brief, moderate comeback of sorts in 1986 with the release of his Premonition album, and the single "Lying," which became a big hit on the Mainstream Rock charts. Most notably, he also united with old friend David Bowie, and both worked together to make albums. Frampton played on Bowie's 1987 album Never Let Me Down and the “Glass Spiders” world tour to promote the album.

In the late 1990s, he starred in an infomercial plugging the internationally successful eMedia Guitar Method, a piece of instructional software represented as an alternative to taking actual guitar lessons. He claimed in the infomercial that the software was the best way to learn guitar.

In 1995, Frampton released Frampton Comes Alive! II which contained live versions of many of the songs from his 80s and 90s solo albums. Although there was a large amount of marketing for the album, it did not sell well. After Frampton Comes Alive! II, he recorded and toured with Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings and Ringo Starr's All-Starr Band.

In 2003, he released the album Now, and embarked on a tour with Styx to support it. He also toured with The Elms. He appeared in 2006 on the FOX Broadcasting variety show Celebrity Duets, paired with Chris Jericho of WWE fame. They were the first pair voted out.

On September 12, 2006, Frampton released his newest album, an instrumental work titled Fingerprints. His band consists of drummer Shawn Fichter, guitarist Audley Freed, bassist John Regan (Frampton's life long best friend,), and keyboardist/guitarist Rob Arthur, and guest artists such as members of Pearl Jam, Hank Marvin, and his bassist on Frampton Comes Alive!, Stanley Sheldon.

On February 11, 2007, Fingerprints was awarded the 2007 Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Album. In February 2007, he also appeared on the Chicago based PBS television show Soundstage.

Frampton has lived in London, New York (Westchester), Los Angeles, and Nashville. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Frampton decided to become a United States citizen. He moved to Indian Hill, a suburb east of Cincinnati, Ohio, in June 2000, the birthplace of his wife Tina Elfers and the city in which they were married in 1996. They chose to live there to be closer to Tina's family. They still reside there today.

Frampton has been married three times. His wives have been: Mary Lovett (1971–1973), Barbara Gold (1983–1993) with whom he had two children, Jade and Julian, and Tina Elfers (January 13, 1996 – present) with whom he has one child, named Mia Frampton. Jade Frampton received a degree in fashion merchandising from Kent State University in 2005.http://www.fashionschool.kent.edu/alumni_list.htm

Also in 2000, Frampton served as a technical advisor for Cameron Crowe's autobiographical film Almost Famous. He also appears briefly in the film as 'Reg', a road manager for Humble Pie, Frampton's real-life former band.

* Frampton has appeared in television shows such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, and the Colbert Report. His first appearance on televison, however, was his role as an Australian coast watcher named Peter Buckley in the '70s program Baa Baa Black Sheep. * In Family Guy, in the episode "Death Lives", Peter claims that everyone must have the album, Frampton Comes Alive!, due to its success. The album also includes his and Lois' song, Baby, I Love Your Way. * In the television series Arrested Development Gob records a music CD with his puppet Franklin called "Franklin Comes Alive!," a spoof of Frampton Comes Alive!. * The band Phish named a live album Hampton Comes Alive! in a play on the Frampton Comes Alive! title. The album features the band's two-night live run in Hampton, Va. * Frank Zappa parodied "I'm in You" on his album Sheik Yerbouti with a song titled "I Have Been In You". * In the movie Wayne's World 2, Wayne (Mike Myers) is asked if he's heard Frampton Comes Alive!. He states "Everybody in the world has Frampton Comes Alive!. If you lived in the suburbs you were issued it. It came in the mail with samples of Tide." * Mitch Hedberg once talked about smoking fake pot with Frampton in Almost Famous on his second CD Mitch All Together saying "But I got to smoke fake pot with Peter Frampton. That's a cool story. It's as cool as smoking real pot with a guy who looks like Peter Frampton. I've done that way more." * In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Dead Things", while the trio are hiding out in Andrew's cellar Jonathon finds Andrew's copy of Frampton Comes Alive!. * An episode of That '70s Show opens with the main characters sitting listening to "Do You Feel Like We Do", and Jackie asks to "listen to the guitar solo just one more time". * In the 1994 film Reality Bites, Ben Stiller's character Michael states that the Frampton Comes Alive! album "like, totally changed my life". * In the 2000 film High Fidelity, John Cusack's character Rob says "Is that Peter fucking Frampton?!" when listening to Lisa Bonet's character Marie DeSalle performing a version of Frampton's "Baby I Love Your Way". Moments before this, a Peter Frampton lookalike is seen walking from right to left past John Cusack, before he asks about the song. In the book of the same name, the same character when referring to the song talks about how he and his ex-girlfriend would complain excessively about the awfulness and popularity of the song. * In the film version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Tommy Speck has his Frampton Comes Alive! album forcibly taken from him by Hedwig. * Billabong created a bikini with Peter Frampton's likeness and the phrase "Baby I love your waves" (similar to "Baby I Love Your Way") on the back without permission, subsequently litigation was enacted. * On June 22, 2007, Frampton was mentioned in the webcomic Achewood. * In the 2006 Adam Sandler movie "Click", the intro the "Show Me the Way" played during a flashback sequence when Sandler's character was reminiscing about a family camping trip when he was a teenager. * In 2001, Frampton appeared as himself on Drew Carey's Back-to-School Rock 'n' Roll Comedy Hour on the Drew Carey Show. * Starting in November 2007, Frampton stars as himself in a GEICO "celebrity translator" commercial. * On November 20, 2007 Frampton joined Chris Cornell on Stage in Nashville, TN as he performed Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" along with the song "Slaves And Bulldozers"

* On December 15, 2007 Frampton played in the 19th annual X-mas Jam,In Asheville,NC.

*Wind of Change (1972) *Frampton's Camel (1973) *Somethin's Happening (1974) *Frampton (1975) *Frampton Comes Alive! (1976) *I'm in You (1977) *Where I Should Be (1979) *Rise Up (1980) *Breaking All The Rules (1981) *The Art of Control (1982) *Premonition (1986) *When All the Pieces Fit (1989) *Peter Frampton (1994) *Frampton Comes Alive! II (1995) *Live in Detroit (2000) *Now (2003) *Live in San Francisco March 24, 1975 (2004) *2004 Summer Tour (2004)* *Fingerprints (2006)

Peter Frampton has charted 20 top ten hits.

*Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as Billy Shears *Baa Baa Black Sheep as Peter Buckley (One episode) *Almost Famous as Reg

* Peter Frampton's website * FOX Television Celebrity Duets season premier recap * Audio interview at BBC Wiltshire * Five audio interview segments with Peter Frampton from 1986