"Show Me the Way," Peter Frampton
January 2026 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Frampton Comes Alive!, which somehow became a commercial breakthrough for Peter Frampton despite having had little impact on the American record charts with his studio work. Although he toured the U.S. to promote Frampton, his fourth studio solo album since leaving Humble Pie, in 1975, the album that resulted from that tour - mostly recorded at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, which in November 1976 would be the site of the Band's farewell concert - would be the big hit. It went platinum eight times.
"Show Me the Way" was one of a handful of songs Frampton performed on that 1975 tour involving a talk box Vocoder that transmitted his vocalizations through his guitar and out of the speaker. While not a major innovation - artists such as Rufus and Joe Walsh had already employed it on their own records - the Vocoder helped give Frampton a distinctive sound that set him apart from the rest. While the studio version of "Show Me the Way" had flopped as a single, the live version from Frampton Comes Alive! reached number six on the Billboard singles chart.
This performance, my Music Video Of the Week, is not the live recording of "Show Me the Way" that appears on Frampton Comes Alive! but a performance from the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, California during the 1977 Independence Day weekend - Saturday, July 2, to be exact. It's a fine live cut from the day's concert. Enjoy/
Just don't ask me how Sammy Hagar and Toni Tennille ended up in the audience together. 😉😁
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