Peter Frampton’s career has produced only one Grammy for the classic-rock guitarist. It’s not for Frampton Comes Alive!, the 1976 smash hit that made him a global superstar, but for Fingerprints, his 2007 instrumental album.
Now, as the 76-year-old guitarist prepares to release his new album, Carry the Light, on May 15, he’s measuring success on his own scale.
“In my mind, I’m more successful than I’ve ever been — because I like myself, I like what I do,” Frampton tells The New York Times in a new interview. “I’ve always been someone who didn’t think I was good enough, but I’ve reached the point where I don’t care what anybody else thinks. I should have felt that way a long time ago.”
Frampton’s regret is poignant. In recent interviews he’s said the success of Frampton Comes Alive! overwhelmed him — and that its hastily recorded follow-up, I'm in You (1977), was a mistake. Suddenly he was everywhere — on the radio, TV and posters on fans’ walls, with his famed Fenix Les Paul electric guitar.
In my mind, I’m more successful than I’ve ever been — because I like myself, I like what I do,”
— Peter Frampton
“The pressure was so great,” he said. “There was absolutely no need to do I’m in You then and there. The biggest mistake was just not shutting down at that point.”
His career slowed afterward as musical tastes shifted. Years later, speaking at The Art of Music event at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City last year, Frampton said it was then that he began planning for the next phase of his career.
“That’s when I sort of stopped working and basically just started writing on my own and getting ready for something that was to come.”
His evolution since then has resulted in what may be his most personal — and political — record. Carry the Light finds the guitarist reflecting on life, family and the current political climate, with assistance from friends that include Graham Nash, Sheryl Crow and Tom Morello.
The album developed over the past three years, as he and his son, Julian, reconnected following the COVID-19 pandemic. Just before then, Frampton became a grandfather for the first time.
But the joy of that milestone was tempered by the effects of Inclusion Body Myositis (IBM), a progressive muscle-wasting disease that weakens the arms and legs. Frampton learned he had IBM around 2014 after suffering several falls at home and onstage, but he didn’t publicly reveal the diagnosis until 2019.
Julian said, ‘Let’s run up this hill.’ Normally I would beat him, and I didn’t.”
— Peter Frampton
He recalls the first time he sensed something might be wrong. It was 2009, when he was 59. He and Julian were on a rare road trip to Big Sur to reconnect and write songs together.
“Julian said, ‘Let’s run up this hill.’ Normally I would beat him, and I didn’t,” Frampton says from his home studio in Nashville. “It felt like there were insects in my legs, like they were vibrating.”
Since revealing his diagnosis, Frampton has made fewer appearances. He surprised attendees at the 2025 NAMM music show with an appearance at the Martin Guitar booth, where he first hinted he was recording Carry the Light. But standing — and even playing guitar — has become more difficult, forcing him to adjust how he frets chords and notes.
While he’s unsure whether he’ll tour again, he remains hopeful. And he’s keeping positive.
“People say, ‘Oh, you must be so upset,’ and, yeah, I am. But you can fix the little things,” Frampton says.
“But big things never worried me, because they’re the things you can’t do anything about. If I don’t accept what I have, I’m going to be mad for the rest of my life.”
