Thursday, January 19, 2012
Update on recently returned old Les Paul. (PF post)
Peter Frampton (Facebook)Update on recently returned old Les Paul.
My dear friend, Mike McGuire has been working on the at the Gibson custom shop. We are not changing the appearance just making it playable and cleaning it up a bit. There are some cracks in the headstock that need gluing and every screw hole has to be filled. I guess as screws were lost they looked in the kitchen drawer and said, "This'll do". The frets were in really bad shape mainly in 1st position. (Lots of C, F, G and E, A, D playing I guess. lol.) The great luthier, Joe Glaser, tenderly changed the frets for almost the same ones as were originally on the guitar. I must also thank my good buddies, Phil Bennet and Gordon Kennedy, for coming to the rescue with NOS guitar parts. Caps and pots etc. needed replacing. The electronics were shot but these time sensitive special pieces will be fantastic in bringing it back to it's old self.
I did finally speak with Marc Mariana, who actually gave me the guitar in the first place. I could hear him smiling on the other end of the phone. It's so great to be able to share this great news with him. I will be able to see him in CA during the upcoming tour.
We are documenting every stage of the guitar's convalescence with photos and video. It's the only reality show where you will ever find me!
Tommy Bolin Tribute Album Includes Peter Frampton, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Brad Whitford, Steve Lukather and More
Tommy Bolin was part of the rock scene for just a short time, playing with the James Gang and Deep Purple, but his legacy has been felt by many of today's greats. Some of those are coming together for the tribute album, Great Gypsy Soul, out on March 27 on 429 Records.
Produced by Greg Hampton and Warren Haynes, it's a remarkable project that brings together major players who actually perform alongside Tommy Bolin's playing and vocals from the recording outtakes to his solo debut album Teaser. Peter Frampton, Warren Haynes (a key supporter of the project), Nels Cline, Steve Lukather, Steve Morse,Brad Whitford, Joe Bonamassa, John Scofield, Derek Trucks, Glenn Hughes and Myles Kennedy all contribute to this amazing project.
The album will be released in both a single CD format and double CD with bonus tracks. A series of promotional concerts are also in the works.
From the press release:
Tommy Bolin was the quintessential guitar prodigy who focused his talents within the burgeoning rock/metal scenes of the early 70's as well as mastered a highly lauded jazz fusion technique, catching the attention of rock tastemakers and guitar legend peers. It was just a matter of time before Bolin was making a name for himself playing on projects as diverse as Billy Cobham's "Spectrum" project (considered one of the great jazz fusion recordings of all time), replacing Joe Walsh in the James Gang, playing session work on seminal fusion projects by Moxy and Alphonse Mouzon, to replacing Ritchie Blackmore in Deep Purple. With the release of his second solo album "Private Eyes", what should have been a red letter moment for Bolin, opening up for Jeff Beck in Miami, sadly turned tragic as Bolin was found dead of an overdose shortly after the gig.
Says Warren Haynes: "Many of the guests added after the fact have a close personal connection to Tommy—all share in acknowledging his place in rock history. Watching (and hearing) it all come to fruition some 35 years later was a journey of its own—well worth the travel."
The Track Listing:
Disc 1
The Grind (with Peter Frampton)
Teaser (with Warren Haynes)
Dreamer (with Myles Kennedy and Nels Cline)
Savannah Woman (with John Scofield)
Smooth Fandango (with Derek Trucks)
People People (with Big Sugar and Gordie Johnson)
Wild Dogs (with Brad Whitford)
Homeward Strut (with Steve Lukather)
Sugar Shack (with Glenn Hughes and Sonny Landreth)
Crazed Fandango (with Steve Morse)
Lotus (with Joe Bonamassa, Glenn Huges and Nels Cline)Disc 2 Bonus CD
Flying Fingers (with Oz Noy and Nels Cline)
Marching Bag –Movement One (with Nels Cline, Bolin, Greg Hampton, John Scofield, Sonny Landreth)
Marching Bag—Movement Two (with Nels Cline, Bolin, Steve Lukather, Derek Trucks, Peter Frampton)
Marching Bag—Movement Three (with Gordie Johnson, Bolin, Nels Cline, Oz Noy, Steve Lukather, Steve Morse, Joe Bonamassa)
Marching Bag—Movement Four (with Nels Cline, Bolin, Warren Haynes, Joe Bonamassa, Oz Noy, Brad Whitford, Peter Frampton)
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Peter Frampton Reunited With ‘Best Guitar’ After 31 Years
January 3, 2012 It turns out the guitar did not burn up in November 1980 when a cargo plane crashed on takeoff in Caracas, Venezuela, on its way to Panama, where Mr. Frampton was to perform. Instead someone plucked it from the burning wreckage and later sold it to a musician on the Dutch Caribbean island of Curaçao.
The guitar was returned to Mr. Frampton in Nashville last month after a two-year negotiation involving the local musician who had the guitar, a customs agent who repairs guitars in his spare time, a diehard Frampton fan in the Netherlands and the head of the island’s tourist board.
Last month, the tourist board official, Ghatim Kabbara, bought the guitar with public funds and traveled to Nashville to hand it to Mr. Frampton in a tattered gig bag. Mr. Frampton said he knew as soon as he picked the instrument up that it was the same 1954 Gibson Les Paul with customized pickups that he had played for a decade. It was an emotional moment, he said.
“For 30 years, it didn’t exist – it went up in a puff of smoke as far as I was concerned,” Mr. Frampton said in a telephone interview.
Mr. Frampton said he was given the guitar by a man named Mark Mariana in 1970. Mr. Frampton had been playing with his band Humble Pie at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, and he borrowed the guitar from Mr. Mariana for a show because his own instrument kept feeding back when he soloed. He fell in love with it. Made of Honduran mahogany, it was light in his hands, and the neck was thin, the fretting action light, suiting his small hands.
“I used it for both sets and my feet didn’t touch the ground,” he recalled. saying he thought, “This is the best guitar I have ever played.”
After the show he tried to buy the instrument, but Mr. Mariana insisted on giving it to him. It became his favorite guitar. He played it on the Humble Pie albums “Rock On” and “Rocking the Fillmore,” and on all his solo records. He used it in sessions with George Harrison, Harry Nilsson and John Entwistle.
Perhaps most important, it was the guitar he played on the 1976 solo album “Frampton Comes Alive!” one of the best-selling live albums ever and the recording that established him as one of the great rock guitarists of the 1970s. “It’s all I ever used for 10 years,” he said. “That was it. That was part of me.”
Mr. Kabbara said the guitar surfaced two years ago when the local guitarist, who has not been identified, took the instrument to Donald Balentina, a Curaçao customs agent who collects and repairs old guitars in his spare time. The musician had been using it for decades, playing in hotels and bars on the island, but did not know the instrument’s history, Mr. Kabbara said.
Asked to repair the guitar, Mr. Balentina noticed the unusual third set of pickups and burn marks on the neck, Mr. Kabbara said. The customs agent began to suspect the guitar might be the one Mr. Frampton had played on the “Frampton Comes Alive!” album. He consulted with another Frampton fan in the Netherlands, who confirmed it had all the earmarks of the missing Gibson. Mr. Balentina also sent photos of the inner works of the guitar to Mr. Frampton. Mr. Frampton said he was stunned when he saw the photos; it looked like guitar, he said, but he could not be sure.
For two years Mr. Balentina tried to persuade the local guitarist to sell the instrument, and finally, in November, facing a financial problem, he finally agreed. But Mr. Balentina did not have money and, afraid another buyer might scoop up the guitar, he approached Mr. Kabbara at the tourist board.
Mr. Kabbara, an amateur guitarist who admires Mr. Frampton, agreed to put up the board’s funds to purchase the guitar, on one condition. He and Mr. Balentina would take the guitar to Mr. Frampton as a gesture of goodwill. “I thought the right thing to do was to give him back his guitar,” he said. “This guitar was him. The whole 1970s was this guitar.”
Mr. Frampton, who is 61, said he hopes to play the guitar again when he appears at the Beacon Theater in New York in February. For now, he has left the instrument at the Gibson Custom Shop in Nashville to have some minor repairs made. The neck is still straight, he said, but he must replace old pickups with new ones, made to the same specifications as the original coils. But he said he will leave the burn marks and scrapes alone.
“I want it to have its battle scars,” he said.
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Peter Frampton Sues A&M Records Over Digital Royalties
Peter Frampton has sued Universal Music Group-owned A&M Records for unpaid digital royalties, according to numerous reports. The suit alleges breach of contract and unfair competition and seeks compensatory damages.
At the center of the lawsuit is the way royalties are calculated for digital goods. Frampton's complaint argues Universal should have paid 50 percent of net receipts, which is typical when music is licensed. But record labels tend to treat digital sales like physical sales, which have a much lower royalty rate.
According to a report in The Tennessean, Frampton's suit was brought by Nashville attorney Richard Busch, a partner with King & Ballow. Busch was the attorney behind similar suits brought against major labels by Eminem and The Knack's Bruce Gary. "The issues in these cases go beyond simply breach of contract," Busch told the Tennessean. "The plaintiffs allege the wrongdoing here is a part of deliberate effort to deprive the parties of their royalties."
A spate of lawsuits has followed a court victory by F.B.T. Productions and Em2M over digital royalties earned by Eminem, who was under contract with F.B.T. since 1995. F.B.T. claimed to have been underpaid by more than $650,000 from 2002-2005. In September 2010 an appeals court overturned a lower court's 2009 ruling in favor of Universal and Aftermath Records. Calling the parties' legal agreements "unambiguous," the appeals court gave F.B.T. Productions and Eminem 50 percent of digital royalties rather than the 12 percent royalty given for sales of physical albums. The U.S. Supreme Court denied to hear the case earlier this year.
Universal has maintained the Eminem ruling applies to contracts particular to that case and do not set a legal precedent. However, Frampton's suit is reported to say the language of the agreement between Frampton and A&M is "virtually identical" to F.T.B.'s suit against Universal and Aftermath Records.
Billboard asked King & Ballow's Busch if the firm had any more suits planned on this issue, considering it filed two in the days before Christmas. In an e-mail, Busch responded, "We are being contacted by artists frequently, and evaluate on a case-by-case basis."
According to a report in The Tennessean, Frampton's suit was brought by Nashville attorney Richard Busch, a partner with King & Ballow. Busch was the attorney behind similar suits brought against major labels by Eminem and The Knack's Bruce Gary. "The issues in these cases go beyond simply breach of contract," Busch told the Tennessean. "The plaintiffs allege the wrongdoing here is a part of deliberate effort to deprive the parties of their royalties."
A spate of lawsuits has followed a court victory by F.B.T. Productions and Em2M over digital royalties earned by Eminem, who was under contract with F.B.T. since 1995. F.B.T. claimed to have been underpaid by more than $650,000 from 2002-2005. In September 2010 an appeals court overturned a lower court's 2009 ruling in favor of Universal and Aftermath Records. Calling the parties' legal agreements "unambiguous," the appeals court gave F.B.T. Productions and Eminem 50 percent of digital royalties rather than the 12 percent royalty given for sales of physical albums. The U.S. Supreme Court denied to hear the case earlier this year.
Universal has maintained the Eminem ruling applies to contracts particular to that case and do not set a legal precedent. However, Frampton's suit is reported to say the language of the agreement between Frampton and A&M is "virtually identical" to F.T.B.'s suit against Universal and Aftermath Records.
Billboard asked King & Ballow's Busch if the firm had any more suits planned on this issue, considering it filed two in the days before Christmas. In an e-mail, Busch responded, "We are being contacted by artists frequently, and evaluate on a case-by-case basis."
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