Peter Frampton, who once was king of the music world with his landmark and precedent-setting 1976 Frampton Comes Alive double album, then the best-selling live album of all time, is psyched about something he produced in the studio. It's his new all-instrumental Fingerprints album (A&M), whose guests include members of the Rolling Stones, Pearl Jam, Warren Haynes, the original Shadows and British saxophone legend Courtney Pine, among others.

      It's a record he has been waiting his entire life to make, says Frampton, now 56. "I started playing guitar just before my eighth birthday and I've been playing ever since. It's been my passion. Then I became a guitarist who was perceived as the entertainer, sort of the singer, good looking, all that sort of stuff. No one really knows what has driven me all these years—basically it's my guitar and my love of it," he explains. "Being able to do an instrumental record, no voices, no singing, just music, it was a huge challenge because it had to be good. It is a very big statement, obviously."

      In one respect, Frampton has forged a solid career out of making statements with his instrument. When he was 16, he became lead guitarist, then lead singer, with the Herd, scoring several hits in his native U.K. In 1969, still a teenager, he formed Humble Pie with ex-Small Faces singer Steve Marriott. Bands such as the Black Crowes credited Humble Pie as influences.

      After five Humble Pie albums in two years, his last the live Performance: Rockin' The Filmore, he made a living as a session guitarist, the most memorable of which came when George Harrison invited him to play lead guitar on his classic All Things Must Pass album.

      It remains one of his most vivid freeze frame memories so far. "It was me and George Harrison sitting on two stools with two mikes in Abbey Records, looking through the glass at [legendary producer] Phil Spector," he recalls.

      He also contributed guitar to the late Harry Nilsson's Son of Schmilsson album and played on albums by Ringo Starr and David Bowie. He eventually went solo and, at 26, into superstardom.

      From 1975 to 1978 Frampton says he never really stopped. Frampton Comes Alive! went to No 1 in 1976, selling 6 million copies in the U.S. alone. He was named artist of the year by Billboard and by Rolling Stone's readers. He made the cover of Rolling Stone twice. Even President Gerald Ford got in the act, declaring that Frampton was his favorite singer.

      It was, Frampton acknowledges, a "be careful what you wish for" time of his life as he and his band pushed toward burning themselves and their audiences out. "It was a very heady time," he recalls. He was able to enjoy some of it, he says, "but not as much of it as other people probably think I did.

      "The pressures, the stress and exhaustion factor came in. You spent your entire career trying to get to the point where you had a hit. I had hits with the Herd and Humble Pie, but not a solo hit. So it was basically, ‘Bring it on and I'll do everything,' instead of pacing yourself at that point. Instead of just doing the Comes Alive tour, we kept going and milking the country instead of taking time off. I had just released the biggest-selling live record of all time. It probably would be a good idea to go away for 17 or 18 months and rest up and write. That didn't happen."

      If Frampton could change one aspect of his career, he says it might have been at that time to "think more of us as people and less of us as a career. That in turn would have been thinking about the career and its longevity at that point. We were just wasted, literally. We worked so hard and just didn't stop. And of course too much of something and people get bored with it."

      He certainly has no regrets about the Frampton Comes Alive album itself. To this day, he hears from people who tell him the album "makes them smile." That is a simple yet profound compliment, he says. "It's a very nice feeling when someone comes up to me and says that. The younger music admirers seem to be picking up on not just me, but classic rock in general, going back and finding the good stuff."

      Frampton is hopeful that his new burst of creativity will be recognized on Fingerprints. He wanted to raise the artistic bar for himself and he believes he has, creating a work of which he is quite proud.

      "The goal was not to make a CD that was like 12 songs I wrote over three weeks, and get three guys together and go in and rehearse and play it in 10 days," he explains. "I wanted something done over time and to be as much involved in every track that really normally I put into a whole album. All of a sudden, each track is much more important than any single track I've ever done before."

      His essence, he believes, is his guitar. "Everything always stems from the guitar and my love of it and always trying to push further," he says. "I like singing but I love to play the guitar."

      He offers this admission: "I've been guilty of being lazy and just doing another record and doing another record up to the last two that came out. I've got back into working hard and doing experimentation and having a studio at home [in Cincinnati] and recording and mixing at home."

      He is well aware that doing an all-instrumental album is a commercial risk, given that many people can't remember the last time there was an instrumental hit. "Most people probably would say it's not a good idea," he says. "But I've had more interest in people talking about the instrumental record than the last two. It's interesting because people think I'm taking a huge gamble. But I don't. This is just what I want to do. I don't care what other people expected."