At just 21 years old Peter Frampton had already played with The Herd and co-formed and left Humble Pie. So he struck out on his own with the appropriately named, “Wind of Change.” Freed from Humble Pie’s narrower focus on hard-rock boogie, Frampton’s debut solo album reveals an artist exploring more dimensional, delicate and nuanced songwriting and guitar playing … Frampton showed his own brand of rocking hard with tunes like “It’s a Plain Shame,” “All I Wanna Be (is by your side)” and even made a Stones song his own with “Jumping Jack Flash,” which became a staple of Frampton’s live shows. But these tunes and even the hook-laden “The Lodger” are balanced with intricate, beautiful tunes like the elegiac “Fig Tree Bay” and the title track “Wind of Change.”
An auspicious and stirring debut, “Wind of Change” launched Frampton’s solo career and began the inexorable path to superstardom.
Intervention’s Frampton@50 series 180G vinyl reissues are 100% Analog Mastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering from the best analog tape sources available.
Intervention worked for months with Universal’s archive team, scouring the vaults in the US and UK for the best-sounding tapes. Several sets of tapes, including 1970s-era tape copies, were sent to mastering and evaluated by IR’s Shane Buettner and Chris Bellman.
The best-sounding tapes are 1/2″ safety copies from the 1990s A&M Safety Program. The “Wind of Change” and “Frampton” safeties are sourced from UK Production Masters, while the “Frampton’s Camel” safety is sourced from the Original Stereo Master. These tapes sound sensational, vibrant, detailed and alive. Combined with Chris Bellman’s work at the board, and the superbly transparent mastering chain at Bernie Grundman Mastering, legions of fans will hear what Peter and the band really put on tape during this seminal period. Fans will hear bottom-end authority, dynamics and textural details never revealed on any previous edition. These are the definitive versions of these amazing albums that made Peter Frampton one of the greatest artists of his time!
*Intervention would be remiss not to thank (profusely!) professor producer and engineer Keith Hanlon for introducing us to Team Frampton. Keith is adjunct professor of at Ohio University teaching audio/music production, and a long-serving session engineer for Musicol Recording Studios in Columbus, OH. In 2020, he became the owner/operator of Secret Studio, a recording studio, art gallery and events space allowing artists of all types to connect, share and create. You can find more about Keith and his work HERE.
