Post by Slinger on Sept 25, 2022 21:17:30 GMT
Robert Fripp
In 1957, at the age of ten, young Robert received a guitar for Christmas from his parents and recalled: "Almost immediately I knew that this guitar was going to be my life"
He then took guitar lessons and at age 11, he was playing rock, moving on to traditional jazz at 13 and modern jazz at 15. He cited jazz musicians Charlie Parker and Charlie Mingus as his musical influences during this time.
In 1961, the fifteen-year-old Fripp joined his first band, The Ravens, which also included Gordon Haskell (who later joined Fleur De Lys) on bass. After they split in the following year, Fripp concentrated on his O-level studies and joined his father's firm as a junior negotiator.
At this point, he intended to study estate management and eventually, take over his father's business.
However, at seventeen, Fripp decided to become a professional musician. He became the guitarist in the jazz outfit The Douglas Ward Trio, playing in the Chewton Glen Hotel near Bournemouth, followed by a stint in the rock and roll band The League of Gentlemen which included two former Ravens members.
In 1965, Fripp left the group to attend Bournemouth College, where he studied economics, economic history, and political history for his A-levels. It was during this time when he met musicians that he would collaborate with in his career: John Wetton, Richard Palmer-James, and Greg Lake.
He subsequently spent three further years playing light jazz in the Majestic Dance Orchestra at the Bournemouth Majestic Hotel (replacing future Police guitarist Andy Summers, who had gone off to London with Zoot Money).
At age 21, going back home from college late at night, Fripp tuned on to Radio Luxemburg where he heard the last moments of "A Day in the Life." Galvanized by the experience, he went on to listen to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Bartók's string quartets, Dvořák's New World Symphony, Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced and John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers.
Many years later, Fripp would recall that "although all the dialects are different, the voice was the same... I knew I couldn't say no".
In 1967, Fripp responded to an advertisement placed by Bournemouth-born brothers Peter and Michael Giles, who wanted to work with a singing organist.
Though Fripp was not what they sought, his audition with them was a success and the trio relocated to London and became Giles, Giles and Fripp. Their only studio album, The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp, was released in 1968.
Despite the recruitment of two further members – singer Judy Dyble (formerly with Fairport Convention and later of Trader Horne) and multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald, who went on to co-found Foreigner – Fripp felt that he was outgrowing the eccentric pop approach favoured by Peter Giles (preferring the more ambitious compositions being written by McDonald) and the band broke up in 1968.
Almost immediately, Fripp, McDonald and Michael Giles formed the first lineup of King Crimson in mid-1968, recruiting Fripp's old Bournemouth College friend Greg Lake as lead singer and bass player, and McDonald's writing partner Pete Sinfield as lyricist, light show designer, and general creative consultant.
King Crimson's debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King, was released in late 1969 to great acclaim: drawing on rock, jazz and European folk/classical music ideas, it is regarded as one of the most influential albums in the history of progressive rock.
Also, in '69, they played the infamous "Stones In The Park" free gig, in Hyde Park. I was lucky enough to be there for that, but I remember nothing about their set.
The band was tipped for stardom but (due to growing musical differences between Fripp on one side and Giles and McDonald on the other) broke up at the end of its first American tour in 1969. A despondent Fripp offered to leave the group if it would allow King Crimson to survive; however, Giles and McDonald had independently decided that the band's music was "more Fripp's than theirs" and that it would be better if they were the ones to leave.
During the recording of the band's second album In the Wake of Poseidon, Greg Lake departed to form Emerson, Lake and Palmer, leaving Fripp and Sinfield as the only remaining founder members.
They issued two more albums (Lizard, and Islands) and were the only constants in a regularly changing King Crimson lineup. It included (at various times) Gordon Haskell, saxophonist/flute player Mel Collins, drummers Andy McCulloch and Ian Wallace and future Bad Company bass player Boz Burrell, in addition to a palette of guest players from Soft Machine, Keith Tippett's band, Brotherhood of Breath and Centipede.
Fripp was listed as the sole composer of the band's music during this time, which built on the first album's blueprint but progressed further into jazz-rock and free jazz while also taking form from Sinfield's esoteric lyrical and mythological concepts.
In 1971, Fripp ousted Sinfield and took over de facto leadership of King Crimson (although he has always formally rejected the label, preferring to describe his role as "quality control" or "a kind of glue").
From this point onwards, Fripp would be the only constant member of the band, which in turn would be defined primarily by his compositional and conceptual ideas (which drew on avant-garde jazz and improvisation mixed with a variety of hard rock and European influences, in particular, the music of Béla Bartók).
With avant-garde percussionist Jamie Muir, violinist David Cross, singing bass player John Wetton and former Yes drummer Bill Bruford now in the ranks, King Crimson produced three more albums of innovative and increasingly experimental rock, shedding members as they progressed: beginning with Larks' Tongues in Aspic, progressing with Starless and Bible Black and culminating in the benchmark avant-power trio album Red.
Fripp formally disbanded the group in 1974, in what eventually turned out to be merely the first in a regular series of long hiatuses and further transformations.
Robert pursued side projects during King Crimson's less active periods. He worked with Keith Tippett (and others who appeared on King Crimson records) on projects far from rock music, playing with and producing Centipede's Septober Energy in 1971 and Ovary Lodge in 1973.
During this period he also worked with Van der Graaf Generator, playing on the 1970 album H to He, Who Am the Only One and in 1971, on Pawn Hearts.
He produced Matching Mole's "Matching Mole's Little Red Record," in 1972. Prior to forming the Larks-era KC, he collaborated on a spoken-word album with a woman he described as "a witch", but the resulting Robert Fripp & Walli Elmark: The Cosmic Children Of Love was never officially released.
With Brian Eno, Fripp recorded (No Pussyfooting) in 1972, and Evening Star in 1974. These experimented with several avant-garde musical techniques that were new to rock. A tape delay system utilising dual reel-to-reel Revox tape machines would play a central role in Fripp's later work, and become known as "Frippertronics".
In 1973, Fripp performed the guitar solo on "Baby's on Fire", perhaps the best-known track on Eno's solo debut Here Come the Warm Jets. In 1975, Fripp and Brian Eno played live shows in Europe, and Fripp also contributed guitar solos to Eno's landmark album, Another Green World.
In 1977, Fripp received a phone call from Eno, who was working on David Bowie's album "Heroes". Fripp and Eno had collaborated on an album released in 1975 called Evening Star. On this album – particularly 'An Index of Metals' – are strains that would influence the Bowie project two years later, notably its second side.
Fripp's playing on Heroes initiated a series of collaborations with other musicians; Fripp soon collaborated with Daryl Hall on Sacred Songs.
During this period, Fripp began working on solo material, with contributions from poet/lyricist Joanna Walton and several other musicians, including Eno, Gabriel, and Hall (including the latter's partner, John Oates), as well as Peter Hammill, Jerry Marotta, Phil Collins, Tony Levin and Terre Roche. This material eventually became his first solo album, Exposure, released in 1979, followed by the Frippertronics tour in the same year.
While living in New York, Fripp contributed to albums and live performances by Blondie (Parallel Lines) and Talking Heads (Fear of Music) and produced The Roches' first and third albums, which featured several of Fripp's characteristic guitar solos.
A second set of creative sessions with David Bowie produced distinctive guitar parts on Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980) and prior to that, Peter Gabriel's third solo album known as Melt.
With Blondie, Fripp appeared live on stage at Hammersmith Odeon on 12 January 1980 participating in the band's cover version of Bowie's "'Heroes'". This recording was on the 12" single of Atomic released the same year and later turned up as a bonus track on CD pressings of Blondie's album Eat to the Beat.
Fripp's collaboration with bassist Busta Jones, drummer Paul Duskin, and vocals by David Byrne (Byrne credited as Absalm el Habib) produced God Save the Queen/Under Heavy Manners in the following year. He simultaneously assembled what he called a "second-division touring new wave instrumental dance band" under the name League of Gentlemen (again), with bassist Sara Lee, keyboardist Barry Andrews and drummer Johnny Elichaoff (credited as "Johnny Toobad"). Elichaoff was later replaced by Kevin Wilkinson. The LOG toured for the duration of 1980.
1981 saw the formation of a new King Crimson lineup, reuniting Robert with drummer Bill Bruford and opening a new partnership with two American musicians: bass guitarist/Chapman Stick player Tony Levin (who had played with Fripp on Exposure and in the first Peter Gabriel touring band) and Adrian Belew, a singer and guitarist who had previously played with Bowie, Talking Heads and Frank Zappa.
Although the band had been conceptualised under the name Discipline it came to Fripp's attention that the other members thought the name King Crimson was more appropriate: for Fripp, King Crimson had always been "a way of doing things" rather than a particular group of musicians, and the current group felt that their music captured that methodology.
With the more pop-inspired Belew as the main songwriter (complementing Fripp as the main instrumental composer), the band took on a new style incorporating minimalism, New York influences from post-punk to go-go, and textured experiments with guitar synthesizers.
After releasing three albums (Discipline, Beat, Three of a Perfect Pair), this new King Crimson broke up in 1984.
During this period Fripp made two records with his old friend Andy Summers of The Police. On I Advance Masked, Fripp and Summers played all the instruments, while Bewitched was dominated more by Summers, who produced the record and collaborated with other musicians in addition to Fripp.
In 1982 Fripp produced and played guitar on Keep on Doing by The Roches. As in his previous guesting on David Bowie's Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (which also featured Pete Townshend and Chuck Hammer on guitar synthesizer),
Fripp's distinctive guitar style and sound that characterised his music of this period are featured alongside the sisters' songs and harmony.
Fripp's collaborations with David Sylvian feature some of his most exuberant guitar playing. Fripp contributed to Sylvian's twenty-minute track "Steel Cathedrals" from his Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities album of 1985. Then Fripp performed on several tracks from Sylvian's 1986 release, Gone to Earth.
In late 1991, Fripp had asked Sylvian to join a re-forming King Crimson as a vocalist. Sylvian declined the invitation but proposed a possible collaboration between the two that would eventually become a tour of Japan and Italy in the spring of 1992.
Also in 1991, Fripp released an album with the project Sunday All Over The World, featuring his wife Toyah Willcox, former King Crimson member Trey Gunn and drummer Paul Beavis.
The prior name of this band was Fripp Fripp, and they toured as such in 1988. They renamed to SAOTW, and toured again as SAOTW, in 1989.
In July 1993, Sylvian and Fripp released the collaborative effort The First Day. Other contributors were soon-to-be King Crimson member Trey Gunn on Chapman Stick and Jerry Marotta (who, like Sylvian, almost became a member of King Crimson) on drums.
When the group toured to promote the CD, future King Crimson member Pat Mastelotto took over the drumming spot.
The live document Damage was released in 1994, as was the joint venture, Redemption – Approaching Silence, which featured Sylvian's ambient sound sculptures (Approaching Silence) accompanying Fripp reading his own text (Redemption).
During the early and mid-1990s, Fripp contributed guitar/soundscapes to Lifeforms (1994) by the Future Sound of London and Cydonia (released 2001) by the Orb, as well as FFWD, a collaborative effort with the latter's members.
In addition, Fripp worked with Brian Eno again, co-writing and supplying guitar to two tracks for a CD-ROM project released in 1994 entitled Headcandy created by Chris Juul and Doug Jipson.
Eno thought the visual aspects of the disc (video feedback effects) were very disappointing upon completion and regretted participation.
During this time, Fripp also contributed to albums by No-Man and the Beloved (1994's Flowermouth and 1996's X, respectively).
He also contributed soundscapes and guitar to two albums by the UK band Iona: 1993's Beyond These Shores and 1996's Journey into the Morn.
In late 1994, Fripp re-formed the 1981 line-up of King Crimson for its fifth incarnation. This line-up released the VROOOM EP in 1994, and the Thrak album in 1995.
From 1997 to 1999, the band "fraKctalised" into five experimental instrumental sub-groups known as ProjeKcts.
By 1998 Bruford had quit the band altogether.
In 2000, Fripp, Belew, Gunn and Mastelotto reunited as a four-piece King Crimson (minus Levin, who was busy with session work). This lineup produced two studio albums, the construKction of light in 2000 and The Power to Believe in 2003, which took on a more metallic, heavily electronic approach. Gunn departed at the end of 2003.
Although Levin immediately returned to the band, another hiatus followed until King Crimson reappeared in 2007 with a second drummer - Gavin Harrison of Porcupine Tree - appended to the lineup, This version of the band played a brief eastern USA tour in 2008, reassessing its 1981-2003 back catalogue and approach and introducing lengthy percussion duets between the two drummers.
No new original material was recorded, and in 2010, Fripp announced that King Crimson was on (yet) another indefinite hiatus.
During 2004, Fripp toured with Joe Satriani and Steve Vai as the guitar trio G3. He also worked at Microsoft's studios to record new sounds and atmospheres for Windows Vista. (Yes, really.)
Robert composed that. His finest moment? Probably not, but I bet it paid well.
In late 2005 and early 2006, Fripp joined sometime R.E.M./Nine Inch Nails drummer Bill Rieflin's improvisational Slow Music project, along with guitarist Peter Buck, Fred Chalenor (acoustic bass), Matt Chamberlain (drums) and Hector Zazou (electronics). This collective of musicians toured the west coast of America in May 2006.
In 2006 Fripp contributed his composition "At The End Of Time" to the Artists for Charity album Guitarists 4 the Kids, produced by Slang Productions, to assist World Vision Canada in helping underprivileged children.
Throughout 2006, Fripp would perform many solo concerts of soundscapes in intimate settings, especially in churches around the West Midlands in England, where he lives.
In October 2006, ProjeKct Six (Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew) played at select venues on the east coast of the U.S., opening for Porcupine Tree.
In the same year, Fripp contributed soundscapes to two songs for Porcupine Tree's Fear of a Blank Planet - "Way Out of Here" and "Nil Recurring," the second of which was released in September 2007 as part of the "Nil Recurring" EP. Fripp also sporadically performed Soundscapes as an opening act for Porcupine Tree on various tours from 2006 through 2009.
In 2008, Fripp collaborated with Theo Travis on an album of guitar and flute-or-saxophone duets called 'Thread', and the duo played a brief English tour in 2009 (repeating the collaboration with the Follow album in 2012).
Also in 2009, Fripp played a concert with the band The Humans (which consists of his wife Toyah Willcox, Bill Rieflin and Chris Wong), appeared on Judy Dyble's Talking With Strangers (along with Pat Mastelotto and others) and played on two tracks on Jakko Jakszyk's album The Bruised Romantic Glee Club.
In 2010, Fripp contributed a guitar solo to an extended version of the song 'Heathen Child' by Grinderman, released as a B-side on the 'Super Heathen Child' single.
In May 2011, Jakko Jakszyk, Robert Fripp and Mel Collins released a song album called A Scarcity of Miracles: A King Crimson ProjeKct on the Panegyric label. The album also featured contributions by Tony Levin and Gavin Harrison, leading to speculation that the project was a dry run for a new King Crimson.
In an interview published on 3rd August 2012, Fripp stated that he had retired from working as a professional musician, citing longstanding differences with Universal Music Group and stating that working within the music industry had become "a joyless exercise in futility".
This retirement proved to be short-lived, lasting as long as it took to come to a settlement with UMG.
In his online diary entry for 6th September 2013, Fripp announced the return of King Crimson as a seven-piece unit with "four Englishmen and three Americans". The new lineup was Fripp, Levin, both Mastelotto and Harrison on drums, returning 1970s band member Mel Collins and two new members: Jakko Jakszyk as singer and second guitarist, and Bill Rieflin as a third drummer.
This version of the band went on tour in 2014 and 2015 with a setlist reworking and reconfiguring the band's 1960s and 1970s material (plus songs from A Scarcity of Miracles and new compositions).
In early 2016, it was announced that former Lemon Trees/Beady Eye drummer Jeremy Stacey would substitute for Rieflin on that year's tour while the latter was on sabbatical.
King Crimson has since continued touring as a seven- or eight-piece unit with Stacey as a permanent member on drums and keyboards, plus Rieflin (when available) on keyboards and "fairy dusting."
Since lockdown began, Fripp has posted regular slices of Sunday lunchtime love and lunacy, ably abetted by Mrs Fripp - the wonderful Toyah Wilcox - from their home, and garden.
"An evening with Robert Fripp and David Singleton, That Awful Man And His Manager", will be touring Canada and the US this autumn.
I'll leave you with this slice of ambient peace, which some of you might recognise.
In 1957, at the age of ten, young Robert received a guitar for Christmas from his parents and recalled: "Almost immediately I knew that this guitar was going to be my life"
He then took guitar lessons and at age 11, he was playing rock, moving on to traditional jazz at 13 and modern jazz at 15. He cited jazz musicians Charlie Parker and Charlie Mingus as his musical influences during this time.
In 1961, the fifteen-year-old Fripp joined his first band, The Ravens, which also included Gordon Haskell (who later joined Fleur De Lys) on bass. After they split in the following year, Fripp concentrated on his O-level studies and joined his father's firm as a junior negotiator.
At this point, he intended to study estate management and eventually, take over his father's business.
However, at seventeen, Fripp decided to become a professional musician. He became the guitarist in the jazz outfit The Douglas Ward Trio, playing in the Chewton Glen Hotel near Bournemouth, followed by a stint in the rock and roll band The League of Gentlemen which included two former Ravens members.
In 1965, Fripp left the group to attend Bournemouth College, where he studied economics, economic history, and political history for his A-levels. It was during this time when he met musicians that he would collaborate with in his career: John Wetton, Richard Palmer-James, and Greg Lake.
He subsequently spent three further years playing light jazz in the Majestic Dance Orchestra at the Bournemouth Majestic Hotel (replacing future Police guitarist Andy Summers, who had gone off to London with Zoot Money).
At age 21, going back home from college late at night, Fripp tuned on to Radio Luxemburg where he heard the last moments of "A Day in the Life." Galvanized by the experience, he went on to listen to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Bartók's string quartets, Dvořák's New World Symphony, Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced and John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers.
Many years later, Fripp would recall that "although all the dialects are different, the voice was the same... I knew I couldn't say no".
In 1967, Fripp responded to an advertisement placed by Bournemouth-born brothers Peter and Michael Giles, who wanted to work with a singing organist.
Though Fripp was not what they sought, his audition with them was a success and the trio relocated to London and became Giles, Giles and Fripp. Their only studio album, The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp, was released in 1968.
Despite the recruitment of two further members – singer Judy Dyble (formerly with Fairport Convention and later of Trader Horne) and multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald, who went on to co-found Foreigner – Fripp felt that he was outgrowing the eccentric pop approach favoured by Peter Giles (preferring the more ambitious compositions being written by McDonald) and the band broke up in 1968.
Almost immediately, Fripp, McDonald and Michael Giles formed the first lineup of King Crimson in mid-1968, recruiting Fripp's old Bournemouth College friend Greg Lake as lead singer and bass player, and McDonald's writing partner Pete Sinfield as lyricist, light show designer, and general creative consultant.
King Crimson's debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King, was released in late 1969 to great acclaim: drawing on rock, jazz and European folk/classical music ideas, it is regarded as one of the most influential albums in the history of progressive rock.
Also, in '69, they played the infamous "Stones In The Park" free gig, in Hyde Park. I was lucky enough to be there for that, but I remember nothing about their set.
The band was tipped for stardom but (due to growing musical differences between Fripp on one side and Giles and McDonald on the other) broke up at the end of its first American tour in 1969. A despondent Fripp offered to leave the group if it would allow King Crimson to survive; however, Giles and McDonald had independently decided that the band's music was "more Fripp's than theirs" and that it would be better if they were the ones to leave.
During the recording of the band's second album In the Wake of Poseidon, Greg Lake departed to form Emerson, Lake and Palmer, leaving Fripp and Sinfield as the only remaining founder members.
They issued two more albums (Lizard, and Islands) and were the only constants in a regularly changing King Crimson lineup. It included (at various times) Gordon Haskell, saxophonist/flute player Mel Collins, drummers Andy McCulloch and Ian Wallace and future Bad Company bass player Boz Burrell, in addition to a palette of guest players from Soft Machine, Keith Tippett's band, Brotherhood of Breath and Centipede.
Fripp was listed as the sole composer of the band's music during this time, which built on the first album's blueprint but progressed further into jazz-rock and free jazz while also taking form from Sinfield's esoteric lyrical and mythological concepts.
In 1971, Fripp ousted Sinfield and took over de facto leadership of King Crimson (although he has always formally rejected the label, preferring to describe his role as "quality control" or "a kind of glue").
From this point onwards, Fripp would be the only constant member of the band, which in turn would be defined primarily by his compositional and conceptual ideas (which drew on avant-garde jazz and improvisation mixed with a variety of hard rock and European influences, in particular, the music of Béla Bartók).
With avant-garde percussionist Jamie Muir, violinist David Cross, singing bass player John Wetton and former Yes drummer Bill Bruford now in the ranks, King Crimson produced three more albums of innovative and increasingly experimental rock, shedding members as they progressed: beginning with Larks' Tongues in Aspic, progressing with Starless and Bible Black and culminating in the benchmark avant-power trio album Red.
Fripp formally disbanded the group in 1974, in what eventually turned out to be merely the first in a regular series of long hiatuses and further transformations.
Robert pursued side projects during King Crimson's less active periods. He worked with Keith Tippett (and others who appeared on King Crimson records) on projects far from rock music, playing with and producing Centipede's Septober Energy in 1971 and Ovary Lodge in 1973.
During this period he also worked with Van der Graaf Generator, playing on the 1970 album H to He, Who Am the Only One and in 1971, on Pawn Hearts.
He produced Matching Mole's "Matching Mole's Little Red Record," in 1972. Prior to forming the Larks-era KC, he collaborated on a spoken-word album with a woman he described as "a witch", but the resulting Robert Fripp & Walli Elmark: The Cosmic Children Of Love was never officially released.
With Brian Eno, Fripp recorded (No Pussyfooting) in 1972, and Evening Star in 1974. These experimented with several avant-garde musical techniques that were new to rock. A tape delay system utilising dual reel-to-reel Revox tape machines would play a central role in Fripp's later work, and become known as "Frippertronics".
In 1973, Fripp performed the guitar solo on "Baby's on Fire", perhaps the best-known track on Eno's solo debut Here Come the Warm Jets. In 1975, Fripp and Brian Eno played live shows in Europe, and Fripp also contributed guitar solos to Eno's landmark album, Another Green World.
In 1977, Fripp received a phone call from Eno, who was working on David Bowie's album "Heroes". Fripp and Eno had collaborated on an album released in 1975 called Evening Star. On this album – particularly 'An Index of Metals' – are strains that would influence the Bowie project two years later, notably its second side.
Fripp's playing on Heroes initiated a series of collaborations with other musicians; Fripp soon collaborated with Daryl Hall on Sacred Songs.
During this period, Fripp began working on solo material, with contributions from poet/lyricist Joanna Walton and several other musicians, including Eno, Gabriel, and Hall (including the latter's partner, John Oates), as well as Peter Hammill, Jerry Marotta, Phil Collins, Tony Levin and Terre Roche. This material eventually became his first solo album, Exposure, released in 1979, followed by the Frippertronics tour in the same year.
While living in New York, Fripp contributed to albums and live performances by Blondie (Parallel Lines) and Talking Heads (Fear of Music) and produced The Roches' first and third albums, which featured several of Fripp's characteristic guitar solos.
A second set of creative sessions with David Bowie produced distinctive guitar parts on Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980) and prior to that, Peter Gabriel's third solo album known as Melt.
With Blondie, Fripp appeared live on stage at Hammersmith Odeon on 12 January 1980 participating in the band's cover version of Bowie's "'Heroes'". This recording was on the 12" single of Atomic released the same year and later turned up as a bonus track on CD pressings of Blondie's album Eat to the Beat.
Fripp's collaboration with bassist Busta Jones, drummer Paul Duskin, and vocals by David Byrne (Byrne credited as Absalm el Habib) produced God Save the Queen/Under Heavy Manners in the following year. He simultaneously assembled what he called a "second-division touring new wave instrumental dance band" under the name League of Gentlemen (again), with bassist Sara Lee, keyboardist Barry Andrews and drummer Johnny Elichaoff (credited as "Johnny Toobad"). Elichaoff was later replaced by Kevin Wilkinson. The LOG toured for the duration of 1980.
1981 saw the formation of a new King Crimson lineup, reuniting Robert with drummer Bill Bruford and opening a new partnership with two American musicians: bass guitarist/Chapman Stick player Tony Levin (who had played with Fripp on Exposure and in the first Peter Gabriel touring band) and Adrian Belew, a singer and guitarist who had previously played with Bowie, Talking Heads and Frank Zappa.
Although the band had been conceptualised under the name Discipline it came to Fripp's attention that the other members thought the name King Crimson was more appropriate: for Fripp, King Crimson had always been "a way of doing things" rather than a particular group of musicians, and the current group felt that their music captured that methodology.
With the more pop-inspired Belew as the main songwriter (complementing Fripp as the main instrumental composer), the band took on a new style incorporating minimalism, New York influences from post-punk to go-go, and textured experiments with guitar synthesizers.
After releasing three albums (Discipline, Beat, Three of a Perfect Pair), this new King Crimson broke up in 1984.
During this period Fripp made two records with his old friend Andy Summers of The Police. On I Advance Masked, Fripp and Summers played all the instruments, while Bewitched was dominated more by Summers, who produced the record and collaborated with other musicians in addition to Fripp.
In 1982 Fripp produced and played guitar on Keep on Doing by The Roches. As in his previous guesting on David Bowie's Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (which also featured Pete Townshend and Chuck Hammer on guitar synthesizer),
Fripp's distinctive guitar style and sound that characterised his music of this period are featured alongside the sisters' songs and harmony.
Fripp's collaborations with David Sylvian feature some of his most exuberant guitar playing. Fripp contributed to Sylvian's twenty-minute track "Steel Cathedrals" from his Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities album of 1985. Then Fripp performed on several tracks from Sylvian's 1986 release, Gone to Earth.
In late 1991, Fripp had asked Sylvian to join a re-forming King Crimson as a vocalist. Sylvian declined the invitation but proposed a possible collaboration between the two that would eventually become a tour of Japan and Italy in the spring of 1992.
Also in 1991, Fripp released an album with the project Sunday All Over The World, featuring his wife Toyah Willcox, former King Crimson member Trey Gunn and drummer Paul Beavis.
The prior name of this band was Fripp Fripp, and they toured as such in 1988. They renamed to SAOTW, and toured again as SAOTW, in 1989.
In July 1993, Sylvian and Fripp released the collaborative effort The First Day. Other contributors were soon-to-be King Crimson member Trey Gunn on Chapman Stick and Jerry Marotta (who, like Sylvian, almost became a member of King Crimson) on drums.
When the group toured to promote the CD, future King Crimson member Pat Mastelotto took over the drumming spot.
The live document Damage was released in 1994, as was the joint venture, Redemption – Approaching Silence, which featured Sylvian's ambient sound sculptures (Approaching Silence) accompanying Fripp reading his own text (Redemption).
During the early and mid-1990s, Fripp contributed guitar/soundscapes to Lifeforms (1994) by the Future Sound of London and Cydonia (released 2001) by the Orb, as well as FFWD, a collaborative effort with the latter's members.
In addition, Fripp worked with Brian Eno again, co-writing and supplying guitar to two tracks for a CD-ROM project released in 1994 entitled Headcandy created by Chris Juul and Doug Jipson.
Eno thought the visual aspects of the disc (video feedback effects) were very disappointing upon completion and regretted participation.
During this time, Fripp also contributed to albums by No-Man and the Beloved (1994's Flowermouth and 1996's X, respectively).
He also contributed soundscapes and guitar to two albums by the UK band Iona: 1993's Beyond These Shores and 1996's Journey into the Morn.
In late 1994, Fripp re-formed the 1981 line-up of King Crimson for its fifth incarnation. This line-up released the VROOOM EP in 1994, and the Thrak album in 1995.
From 1997 to 1999, the band "fraKctalised" into five experimental instrumental sub-groups known as ProjeKcts.
By 1998 Bruford had quit the band altogether.
In 2000, Fripp, Belew, Gunn and Mastelotto reunited as a four-piece King Crimson (minus Levin, who was busy with session work). This lineup produced two studio albums, the construKction of light in 2000 and The Power to Believe in 2003, which took on a more metallic, heavily electronic approach. Gunn departed at the end of 2003.
Although Levin immediately returned to the band, another hiatus followed until King Crimson reappeared in 2007 with a second drummer - Gavin Harrison of Porcupine Tree - appended to the lineup, This version of the band played a brief eastern USA tour in 2008, reassessing its 1981-2003 back catalogue and approach and introducing lengthy percussion duets between the two drummers.
No new original material was recorded, and in 2010, Fripp announced that King Crimson was on (yet) another indefinite hiatus.
During 2004, Fripp toured with Joe Satriani and Steve Vai as the guitar trio G3. He also worked at Microsoft's studios to record new sounds and atmospheres for Windows Vista. (Yes, really.)
Robert composed that. His finest moment? Probably not, but I bet it paid well.
In late 2005 and early 2006, Fripp joined sometime R.E.M./Nine Inch Nails drummer Bill Rieflin's improvisational Slow Music project, along with guitarist Peter Buck, Fred Chalenor (acoustic bass), Matt Chamberlain (drums) and Hector Zazou (electronics). This collective of musicians toured the west coast of America in May 2006.
In 2006 Fripp contributed his composition "At The End Of Time" to the Artists for Charity album Guitarists 4 the Kids, produced by Slang Productions, to assist World Vision Canada in helping underprivileged children.
Throughout 2006, Fripp would perform many solo concerts of soundscapes in intimate settings, especially in churches around the West Midlands in England, where he lives.
In October 2006, ProjeKct Six (Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew) played at select venues on the east coast of the U.S., opening for Porcupine Tree.
In the same year, Fripp contributed soundscapes to two songs for Porcupine Tree's Fear of a Blank Planet - "Way Out of Here" and "Nil Recurring," the second of which was released in September 2007 as part of the "Nil Recurring" EP. Fripp also sporadically performed Soundscapes as an opening act for Porcupine Tree on various tours from 2006 through 2009.
In 2008, Fripp collaborated with Theo Travis on an album of guitar and flute-or-saxophone duets called 'Thread', and the duo played a brief English tour in 2009 (repeating the collaboration with the Follow album in 2012).
Also in 2009, Fripp played a concert with the band The Humans (which consists of his wife Toyah Willcox, Bill Rieflin and Chris Wong), appeared on Judy Dyble's Talking With Strangers (along with Pat Mastelotto and others) and played on two tracks on Jakko Jakszyk's album The Bruised Romantic Glee Club.
In 2010, Fripp contributed a guitar solo to an extended version of the song 'Heathen Child' by Grinderman, released as a B-side on the 'Super Heathen Child' single.
In May 2011, Jakko Jakszyk, Robert Fripp and Mel Collins released a song album called A Scarcity of Miracles: A King Crimson ProjeKct on the Panegyric label. The album also featured contributions by Tony Levin and Gavin Harrison, leading to speculation that the project was a dry run for a new King Crimson.
In an interview published on 3rd August 2012, Fripp stated that he had retired from working as a professional musician, citing longstanding differences with Universal Music Group and stating that working within the music industry had become "a joyless exercise in futility".
This retirement proved to be short-lived, lasting as long as it took to come to a settlement with UMG.
In his online diary entry for 6th September 2013, Fripp announced the return of King Crimson as a seven-piece unit with "four Englishmen and three Americans". The new lineup was Fripp, Levin, both Mastelotto and Harrison on drums, returning 1970s band member Mel Collins and two new members: Jakko Jakszyk as singer and second guitarist, and Bill Rieflin as a third drummer.
This version of the band went on tour in 2014 and 2015 with a setlist reworking and reconfiguring the band's 1960s and 1970s material (plus songs from A Scarcity of Miracles and new compositions).
In early 2016, it was announced that former Lemon Trees/Beady Eye drummer Jeremy Stacey would substitute for Rieflin on that year's tour while the latter was on sabbatical.
King Crimson has since continued touring as a seven- or eight-piece unit with Stacey as a permanent member on drums and keyboards, plus Rieflin (when available) on keyboards and "fairy dusting."
Since lockdown began, Fripp has posted regular slices of Sunday lunchtime love and lunacy, ably abetted by Mrs Fripp - the wonderful Toyah Wilcox - from their home, and garden.
"An evening with Robert Fripp and David Singleton, That Awful Man And His Manager", will be touring Canada and the US this autumn.
I'll leave you with this slice of ambient peace, which some of you might recognise.
