Frampton Comes Alive! is a live double album by English musician Peter Frampton that was released in 1976.

 It has been certified 8x platinum in the United States and it has sold 18 million copies worldwide.

Frampton Comes Alive! is regarded as one of the best live albums ever made and is often ranked among such classics as 

Pink Floyd’s The Wall, The Who’s Live at Leeds, Paul Simon’s Graceland: Live in Concert, and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s One More from the Road.

The album was recorded at several shows in 1975 in support of Frampton’s breakthrough solo release Frampton (1975).

 The performances are culled from several shows on the tour, and include material from his first three studio albums,

 including his breakthrough singles “Baby, I Love Your Way” and “Show Me the Way.”

Frampton Comes Alive! was recorded in 1976 at seven different venues in four different cities over a period of 28 days.

 It was originally released as a double vinyl album set on A&M Records in January 1977 

Frampton’s first live album is more than just a live album: it is considered by many to be one of the greatest live albums ever released. 

In fact some consider it to be the best live album ever released.

The songs on the album are all drawn from Frampton’s first three studio albums:

 1969’s “Wind of Change”, 1971’s “Fingerprints” and 1975’s “Frampton”. The only two non-solo tracks on the album were co-written by Peter Banks of Yes fame.

 Those tracks happen to be one of the most popular songs from Fingerprints, Show Me 

The Way and from the original Mindbenders (featuring Mike Smith) 1964 version of Baby I Love Your Way.

Despite having a name like Frampton Comes Alive!, 

this is not a live performance as such, but rather a selection of both live and studio tracks

 put together in an order that gives the impression it is one continuous performance. 

The album is presented in a “song cycle” format, which was common at the time. 

The final track on each side (“Frampton Concerto for Polyrhythm and Humble Apology” on Side 1,

 “Do You Feel Like We Do” on Side 2) function as segues between the previous song and the next.

According to producer and former A&M executive Dave Robinson, the band was not an easy one to record:

In reality it was a hybrid mix of live and studio recordings (some of which were done overnight after shows that had been recorded earlier) 

but this impression comes across only due to the excellent sequencing. The original vinyl version contained all tracks in their intended running order.

The show was recorded at six different venues in four different cities over a 28-day period in the spring of 1976: 

All shows are culled from one performance that occurred on 2 May 1976 in Buffalo, New York.

Frampton’s first live album consists of seven tracks. According to Rick Marotta, the engineer for the album, this is the reason for its success: 

In reality it was a hybrid mix of live and studio recordings (some of which were done overnight after shows that had been recorded earlier) 

but this impression comes across only due to the excellent sequencing. The original vinyl version contained all tracks in their intended running order.

Recorded at:

Tracks 1–6 are rearranged and abridged versions of songs that appeared on Frampton’s previous studio albums: 

1969’s “Wind of Change”, 1971’s “Fingerprints” and 1975’s “Frampton”. Track 7, the live version of Show Me the Way,

 is from the original Mindbenders (featuring Mike Smith) 1964 version. 

The album also includes a live cover version of Do You Feel Like We Do, written by Peter Banks and Steve Howe from Yes.

 It turns out that Frampton had been planning to record a cover version of this song since before his first album was released in 1969.

 Since the original Mindbenders version of Show Me the Way was not released in the US (Frampton never actually had a US hit with it),

 he substituted his own solo record of it, which became one of his biggest solo hits.

Frampton’s second live album

 is also a double album, but this time a double CD rather than double vinyl. 

And like its predecessor, it is regarded by many as one of the greatest live albums ever released. what designated peter frampton’s frampton comes alive! a “big album”?

The songs on this album are drawn from Frampton’s four most recent studio albums: 

1977’s “I’m in You”, 1978’s “Where I Should Be”, 1979’s “Thank You Mr Churchill” and 1981’s “Premonition”.

 Interestingly, “Thank You Mr Churchill” was never released as a studio album.

Frampton’s second live album consists of twelve tracks. Four of the tracks were recorded at The Warehouse in New Orleans, 

two were recorded at The Summit in Houston and six were recorded at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland. 

The recording from The Warehouse is particularly notable as it features guest guitarist Robby Krieger of the Doors fame