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At 76 and with six decades of rock 'n' roll experience to his credit, Peter Frampton has lived enough life to fill several documentaries.
There was his meteoric rise, the nearly 20 million-selling Frampton Comes Alive!, the sudden fame, and the years when the career he'd built faltered. Then, he played his way back into the spotlight and a place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. In recent years, he’s publicly faced a medical diagnosis that threatens his livelihood: playing guitar.
On Sept. 24, Frampton will watch his life’s journey unfurl on a Music City movie screen when his new documentary, Frampton, makes its Southeast premiere as the opening-night film of the Nashville Film Festival.
"It's the good, the bad and the ugly," Frampton says. "I haven't held back."
Frampton and director Rob Arthur will attend the sold-out screenings at Regal Green Hills and participate in a post-screening discussion. For Frampton, a Nashville-area resident, bringing the film to his adopted hometown is particularly meaningful. Half of the documentary was shot here, half of its team lives here, and Music City has become a main character in this chapter of his life and music.
The film traces his journey from his early days with the bands The Herd and Humble Pie through 1976's life-altering Frampton Comes Alive!, the lows that followed, and his determined climb back. The British guitarist describes the documentary’s central theme as perseverance.
"I became very successful very early on in my life, and then things fell off," he says. "I spent the next few years just working my way back, and I never gave up."
No single hit record revived his career. He kept making music and touring.
"I built my following back up and ended up in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame," he says. "Who could think of that?"
He credits his parents for his persistence, which has proven more crucial at this stage of his career than in his middle years. Frampton has inclusion body myositis, a degenerative muscle disease that now affects his ability to play guitar. When the singer announced his farewell tour in 2019, he thought that would end his touring career. Then a year passed, and he realized he could still play.
Frampton continued touring for another six years. He says this is the first year in a long time that he hasn't toured. The disease is affecting his playing, and guitars are harder for him to lift. However, once the instrument is in his lap, he still feels confident.
The documentary also takes Frampton back to the time when Frampton Comes Alive! transformed his life. The album celebrated its 50th anniversary this year.
Frampton remembers how quickly everything changed. One day, he could walk into a supermarket or record store without being noticed. Seemingly overnight, everyone knew who he was.
He remembers being in New York City when the car he was riding in got a flat tire. He got out to wait for another car to pick him up. In about 10 minutes, a crowd had gathered.
"I was like the Pied Piper," he says. "People were shouting, screaming ... and it was a mob scene. That was when I realized that my life had changed, and this was one of the many ways it was going to change."
Frampton doesn't stop with the success.
"You can't tell the good stuff if you don't tell some of the bad stuff and how it made you feel, how it made the family feel," he says. "It's a very emotional documentary for me. I wasn't there for my kids at certain points in their upbringing, and I regret that."
Watching his life compressed into the documentary's 100 minutes is emotional and exhausting, Frampton says. It has also given him a chance to consider what matters now.
"Now it's all about family, and that's so important to me," he says. "We have the best family occasions now, and I'm just enjoying life with the family."
Looking back hasn't stopped Frampton from moving forward. He’s still recording, and it’s important to him that people know that.
Frampton recently released Carry the Light, his first album of all-new material in 16 years. Co-written and produced with his son Julian Frampton, the collection features Sheryl Crow, Bill Evans, H.E.R., Tom Morello, Graham Nash and Benmont Tench.
Nashville is all over it.
Frampton lived downtown for 10 years before buying a home outside the city several years ago. He also owns a studio in Berry Hill and has immersed himself in Nashville's music community.
"I've written with so many different people in Nashville," he says, citing songwriter Gordon Kennedy. "So many guitar players here and drummers and bass players and you name it. So, it's played a huge part."
He used Nashville musicians, string players and horn players on Carry the Light.
"Nashville is very much a part of the new record and very much part of the documentary," he says, "because this is where I am."
Carry the Light isn't the end of the story, either.
As the conversation ends, Frampton offers one more piece of news: He's already halfway through another album.
"I'm not stopping," he says.
He never really has.