Peter Frampton's guitar found after 3 decades

Re: Peter Frampton's guitar found after 3 decades

John Norris said:
Nice article on his Frampton Comes Alive guitar, which disappeared in 1980.

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/07/144799712/framptons-dream-guitar-recovered-decades-later&sc=fb&cc=fp

Lee, do you know who this guitar originally belonged to?
The article says that Frampton got it from a guy in 1970 that he met at the Fillmore West - there couldn't have been that many modded Les Pauls floating around back then.
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I don't know who sold him the guitar but I do remember the show. It was one of those FOUR band Fillmore West shows. Savoy Brown was the headliner and the rest of the bill was Sea Train, Ry Cooder and Humble Pie, in that order of "billing".

And yes they were all expected to play TWO sets each. Probably 25-30 minutes for Humble Pie and Ry Cooder, 45 minutes for Sea Train and MAYBE an hour for Savoy Brown but more likely closer to 45 minutes. Then they'd repeat the whole thing all over again. Entire evening started at 8 and done (officially anyway) by 2 AM. The infamous "Baron Von Fillmore" stage management team making sure that the trains ran on time.

The Grateful Dead and Moby Grape were the first bands to break out of the 45 minute limit, first at the Avalon where I worked and then by agreement at the Fillmore where they were booked with fewer support acts to allow for their extra long sets.

BUT back to the Frampton Guitar, I don't remember seeing anyone on stage between 1968 and 1970 with a black Les Paul except Jerry Garcia and his had the earlier pickups so I don't think the instrument in question is that on. Highly unlikely that the rabid Deadheads wouldn't know if Peter Frampton had played a guitar that "Captain Trips" had previously owned.

More likely it was someone attending that especially guitar centric December 1970 Fillmore show that saw that Frampton needed a "better tool for the job" and was willing to part with the Gibson.

For the record, the Gibson SG was by a wide margin the guitar of choice during that era of San Francisco rock. The only "non Dead" prominent band that I can remember NOT having at least one SG was the Jefferson Airplane which had a 335 (Jorma) and a Rickenbacker (Paul).
 
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Re: Peter Frampton's guitar found after 3 decades

Thanks so much, Lee for the your wonderfully detailed reply - your recollections of that era are fascinating!

Yeah, no one came to my mind, either, as to who would have given Frampton a modded Les Paul in S.F. in 1970, except the Dead/future Alembic guys, or maybe Mike Bloomfield, who was, I believe, living in the Bay Area by that time (and is the only guy that I could think of who lived there and played a Les Paul) but as you say, certainly that information would have already been made public if were Garcia's, or Bloomfield's.
 
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