WHEN PETER FRAMPTON co-founded Humble Pie in 1969, he was already regarded as one of England’s hottest guitarists, but his songwriting skills hadn’t yet blossomed. He contributed a number of strong cuts to the four studio albums he recorded with the band during his brief, two-year tenure, but it wasn’t until he turned solo and began issuing his own albums, starting with 1972’s Winds of Change, that his compositional chops began to equal his skills as an instrumentalist.
“I can’t say I always enjoy the process of writing,” he says. “I do like coming up with bits — a riff or a chord pattern. Sometimes a title comes to me that sparks something. But putting a song together and actually finishing it can be quite painful, especially when it comes to writing lyrics. That can take a while. It isn’t until I’ve got the whole thing down and I’ve got a little demo version of a song that I can feel enjoyment.”
In 1976, Frampton’s monster-selling concert recording, , was something of an unofficial greatest-hits collection, containing the tastiest gems from his previous solo albums, among them, “Show Me the Way,” “Baby, I Love Your Way,” “Lines on My Face” and “Do You 200 albums chart, none of its singles hit number one. At the height of his fame in 1977, Frampton came this-close to that mark when the title track from his studio album reached number two on ’s Hot 100.
