The Peculiar Truth about Frampton & Bowie

• Beckenham, Kent, England in the early 1960s: Owen Frampton was an art teacher. He gave his son Peter a guitar, and the boy learned to play on his own. Peter asked his father if any of his art students played guitar, and Owen mentioned a fascinating lad named Davy Jones who played guitar and saxophone. Owen introduced them. The young lads became pals and played 1950s American rock and roll they’d heard on the radio like Buddy Holly.

• When Davy Jones eventually grew popular, he changed his name because he didn’t want to be confused with a member of the fabricated TV rock band The Monkees. He became known as David Bowie.

• He and his childhood guitar-playing pal, Peter Frampton, eventually became rock stars.

• Their subsequent music careers went in different directions. But numerous parallel twists and turns eventually brought the life-long friends back together as performers.

• When Davy was fifteen years old, he formed his first rock band, the Konrads. That group influenced Peter. 

• By age 16, Frampton formed a band called The Herd. He became the reluctant frontman because of his teeny-bopper good looks. When the Herd appeared on British TV, David believed his friend Peter had made the big time.

• June 1, 1967: At age 20, David Bowie released his self-named first album. It came out the same day as the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper, which got all the attention. Bowie’s record flopped.

• 1969: Bowie released his single “Space Oddity,” which coincided with the Apollo 11 space mission. That tune became a huge international hit.

• Also in ’69, Frampton and Steve Marriott formed the band Humble Pie, which was a bona fide hard rock group. They got recording contracts and achieved some minor successes with tunes like ’30 Days in the Hole’ and ‘I Don’t Need No Doctor.’ 

• 1972 : Citing Marriott’s troublesome drug use, Frampton moved on. He got a solo recording contract, but album sales were poor.

• Also in 1972, Bowie went through his androgynous glam-rock phase with his creation of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. His worldwide popularity rose.

• 1975: He released the album Young Americans and cemented his name in the annals of rock music.

• 1975: Frampton was a relative unknown who went on tour with his band as an opening act for all sorts of rockers including the Who, the Kinks, Black Sabbath, and ZZ Top. 

• One year later, Frampton was a headliner. He started selling out arenas because songs from his album Frampton Comes Alive were airing on FM radio stations all across the US in heavy rotation — even though the studio recordings of the same songs were not big hits. 

• Frampton Comes Alive broke the Guinness Book of World Records for sales in 1976.

• That same year, Bowie introduced another persona, the Thin White Duke. He then dealt with drug addiction and personal controversy.

• The remainder of the 1970s weren’t a particularly prosperous time for either Bowie or Frampton.

• When the ’80s began, however, Bowie reinvented himself yet again, arguably more successful than ever. 

• The out-of-nowhere success of Frampton Comes Alive fell as quickly as it rose, and Peter went into a career downturn. He opened for Stevie Nicks on her 1986 solo tour.

• 1987: Bowie went back on the road, this time with the Glass Spider tour. Bowie asked Peter to join him — not as an opening act but as his lead guitarist. Frampton said yes. They performed together like they did as teenagers.

• As the new century dawned, Bowie’s legend carried on, despite his most prolific years falling away behind him. Frampton became an anachronism but continued to perform.

• They remained life-long friends.

• Bowie died in 2016. Frampton contracted an autoimmune disorder several years ago that has limited him physically. He has been on a sort of never-ending farewell tour ever since.

• The two young lads who played guitar together in art class decades ago are now both in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.