Mention Peter Frampton, and people of a certain age remember Frampton Comes Alive!, the rock album that dominated the airwaves in 1976 and made the talk box a staple of cover bands everywhere.
But his first solo album, Wind of Change, had a mellow, acoustic flavor that was captivating, too, despite modest sales.
Frampton revisited those roots on Friday at Morristown’s Mayo Performing Arts Center, sharing acoustic treatments of his hits (approximate set list here), and even recruiting the audience to stand in for his talk box on Show Me the Way.
Video: Peter Frampton plays ‘All I Want to Be’ in Morristown
Stripped of fancy electronics, he reminded everyone that he can flat-out play the guitar — a fact that got overlooked way back when, thanks to a bare-chested album cover that pegged him as a teen idol.
In one of the evening’s highlights, Frampton thanked the late David Bowie — a boyhood classmate in England– for rehabilitating his image by featuring him on guitar during the Glass Spider Tour of the late 1980s.
Frampton dedicated his lovely song Not Forgotten to Bowie, and to Frampton’s late parents.
For most of the night, Frampton was accompanied on guitar and backup vocals by Gordon Kennedy, who co-wrote Eric Clapton’s hit, Change the World.
They covered that one nicely, along with the Beatles’ Norwegian Wood. Frampton’s son Julian, who opened the concert with keyboard player Ben Sheridan (they did a bouncy version of the Beatles’ Hey Bulldog), joined his father and Kennedy for sparkling three-part harmonies on Buddy Holly’s Heartbeart.
Julian also dueted with his dad on Road to the Sun, from the 2010 album Thank You, Mr. Churchill.
Other pleasant surprises included a pair of newer tunes. Hummingbird in a Box was written with Kennedy for a Cincinnati Ballet production. I Saved a Bird Today, a tender ballad, stemmed from a funny story about Frampton’s efforts to rescue a dazed American coot that landed outside his Nashville condo.
Frampton’s puckish sense of humor made his meandering introductions a treat.
Wind of Change, near the top of his set, was inspired during a visit to George Harrison’s Friar Park estate in the early 1970s. Frampton strummed an instrument hanging on the wall.
“Ooh, George, what’s that tuning?” he inquired.
In a thick Liverpudlian accent, Harrison replied: “It’s my tuning, and don’t you steal it.”
“So I stole it,” Frampton recounted, to much laughter in the theater. He was eager for the weekend visit to end, so he could race home and re-tune his guitar. “It was the first time I couldn’t wait to get away from a Beatle.”
FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE IN MORRISTOWN, 2015
Video: Peter Frampton plays ‘Wind of Change’ in Morristown