Background

The son of an estate agent from a working-class background, Robert Fripp was born in Wimborne Minster, Dorset, England. On Christmas Day 1957, aged 11, he got a "very cheap" guitar from his parents, saying "almost immediately I knew that this guitar was going to be my life". Fripp took guitar lessons with teachers Kathleen Gartell and Don Strike, which quickly advanced his skills: at 11 years of age, he was playing rock, moving on to traditional jazz at 13 and modern jazz at 15. At this time he was influenced by such jazz players and composers as Charlie Parker and Charlie Mingus.

Education

Fripp took guitar lessons with teachers Kathleen Gartell and Don Strike, which quickly advanced his skills: at 11 years of age, he was playing rock, moving on to traditional jazz at 13 and modern jazz at 15. Despite his jazz inclinations, Fripp's first band was a rock band called The Ravens, formed in 1961 when he was 15 and also featuring schoolmates Graham Wale (drums, subsequently replaced by Chris 'Fergy' Ferguson), Gordon Haskell (bass guitar), and Tino Licinio (vocals/guitar). In 1962 The Ravens split as Fripp concentrated on his O-level studies and joined his father's firm as a junior negotiator, at this point planning to study estate management and eventually take over his father's business. By 1964, aged 17, Fripp made the decision to become a professional musician.

For a while, Fripp played guitar in the Chewton Glen Hotel with a jazz band called The Douglas Ward Trio. Soon afterwards, he formed a rock and roll band called The League of Gentlemen (a name he would resurrect in 1980 for an entirely different band). In addition to Fripp on guitar, the lineup of the 1964 League of Gentlemen included his former Ravens bandmates Gordon Haskell and Tino Licinio, plus Stan Levy (drums) and Reg Matthews (vocals).

Still keeping his options open, Fripp left The League of Gentlemen in 1965 in order to study for A-levels at Bournemouth College, where he studied economics, economic history and political history, writing a special paper on social conditions of the mid-to-late 19th century; it was there where he met future musical colleagues John Wetton, Richard Palmer-James and Greg Lake.

Career

Doomed to become one of rock music's most distinctive guitarists, Robert Fripp spent the beginning of his music career playing in hotel dance bands while studying economics. Oddly, he did not find either pursuit particularly satisfying, and so in 1967 he moved to London with brothers Peter Giles and Michael Giles to become a full-time, professional musician. As Giles, Giles and Fripp, the trio released a record of goofy, vaudeville-inspired pop tunes. Commercial success was not forthcoming.

Yet from out of the heady manure churned up by the three sprouted King Crimson - a project that could not have been more different. Shedding Peter and adding multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald and singer/bassist Greg Lake, the music took a turn into heavier and more sinister realms. Success was immediate this time, as many a drug-addled hippie was left dribbling by the blast of Crimson's savage and precise live performances; their debut record In the Court of the Crimson King was met with similar enthusiasm. The good vibes were to be short-lived, however, as the founding line-up did not last long enough to even complete the follow-up record. Similar circumstances were to persist throughout the subsequent development of King Crimson: personnel would rarely endure from one record to the next, with Fripp himself being the only constant.

Arguably the most influential configuration of King Crimson existed between 1972 and 1975, with the potent combination of Fripp, bassist/vocalist John Wetton, ex-Yes drummer Bill Bruford, violinist David Cross, and (briefly) percussionist Jamie Muir. Particularly in live performance, the music veered between energetic, freeform improvisation, heavy and complex rock composition, and occasional gentle ballads. This version of the band seemed poised to surpass the success of the first, but by 1975 Fripp had had enough. He dissolved the band, withdrew from public view, and enrolled at The International Society for Continuous Education.

It was with reluctance that Robert Fripp re-entered the music industry in 1977, coaxed out by friend Peter Gabriel to participate in the recording of Peter's first solo record. Notable sessions with other artists followed (David Bowie, Blondie), with Robert also donning a producer's hat for records by Daryl Hall (of Hall and Oates), New York-based vocal trio The Roches, and for Peter Gabriel's second release. Most of these performers were also brought in to contribute to the first Robert Fripp solo release Exposure. It was during this time period that Fripp began a series of performances as a "small, mobile, intelligent unit", utilizing a system introduced to him by collaborator Brian Eno that involved a guitar fed through a tape-feedback system. Fripp dubbed his technique in using this system Frippertronics, later to be re-named Soundscaping in the 90's when the process was translated into the digital realm.

In 1981 King Crimson was resurrected again, this time with its first American participants: guitarist Adrian Belew and bassist Tony Levin. Bruford resumed his role on the drum stool, and the band set out into dramatically different territory from its earlier incarnations. The members of this line-up have proved the most enduring of all, although various changes have taken place in the 1990's.

During yet another hiatus from band activity, Robert Fripp founded Guitar Craft in 1985, founded on techniques learned from the Society for Continuous Education. Distinct from the much more widespread histrionic, bum-shaking approach to playing the guitar, Guitar Craft cultivates a rigorous self-discipline and an economy of movement. An alternate guitar tuning is also adopted.

Perhaps the most difficult ordeal in Robert Fripp's life took place in the business realm. During the heady, optimistic days of the first Crimson line-up, the band's agreement with its management (EG Records) was made on no more than the strength of a handshake. This was to prove disastrous as the music industry quickly became overrun by liars, thieves and parasites. It took many long years for Fripp to become fully aware of, and seven more to extricate himself from, the exploitive bureaucratic tangle into which his business affairs had degenerated. He finally managed to free himself from EG's clutches in 1998. Using his on-line diary as a forum, he has since become a vocal "whistle-blower" of the record industry's corrupt business practices, making public both his own experiences and those of other professional and semi-professional musicians.

Achievements

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  Robert Fripp is ranked 62nd on Rolling Stone magazine's 2011 list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time after having been ranked by David Fricke 42nd on its 2003 list. Tied with Andrés Segovia, he also is ranked 47th on Gibson's Top 50 guitarists of all time. King Crimson have frequently been cited as pioneers of progressive metal and as an influence on bands of this genre.
  
  

Works

More photos

• music

  • In the Court of the Crimson King 1969
  • In The Wake Of Poseidon 1970
  • Lizard 1970
  • Pawn Hearts 1971
  • Islands 1971
  • Lark's Tongues in Aspic 1973
  • Starless and Bible Black 1974
  • Red 1974
  • "Heroes" 1977
  • Parallel Lines 1978
  • Scary Monsters 1980
  • Discipline: 40th Anniversary Series 1981
  • Beat 1982
  • Three Of A Perfect Pair 1984
  • Thrak 1995
  • Gates of Paradise 1998
  • The Construkction Of Light 2000
  • The Power To Believe 2003
  • Raised in Captivity 2011

Views

While being taught guitar basics by his teacher Don Strike, Fripp began to develop the technique of crosspicking, which became one of his specialities. Fripp teaches crosspicking to his students in Guitar Craft. In 1985, Fripp began using a tuning he called "New Standard tuning" (C2-G2-D3-A3-E4-G4), which would also become popularised in Guitar Craft.

Fripp's guitar technique, unlike most rock guitarists of his era, is not blues-based but rather influenced by avant-garde jazz and European classical music. He combines rapid alternate picking and crosspicking with motifs employing whole-tone or diminished pitch structures and sixteenth-note patterns for long stretches in a form called moto perpetuo (perpetual motion).

Rather than stand when performing, he seats himself on a stool (unusual for a performer in rock music), and by doing so was called in a May 1974 issue of Guitar Player "the guitarist who sits on stage."

The band's music was initially grounded in the rock of the 1960s, especially the acid rock and psychedelic rock movements. The band played Donovan's "Get Thy Bearings" in concert, and were known to play the Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" in their rehearsals. However, for their own compositions, King Crimson (unlike the rock bands that had come before them) largely stripped away the blues-based foundations of rock music and replaced them with influences derived from classical composers. The first incarnation of King Crimson played the Mars section of Gustav Holst's suite The Planets as a regular part of their live set and Fripp has frequently cited the influence of Béla Bartók. As a result of this influence, In the Court of the Crimson King is frequently viewed as the nominal starting point of the progressive rock movements.

King Crimson have incorporated improvisation into their performances and studio recordings from the beginning, some of which has been embedded into loosely composed pieces such as "Moonchild" or "THRaK". Most of the band's performances over the years have included at least one stand-alone improvisation where the band simply started playing and took the music wherever it went, sometimes including passages of restrained silence, as with Bill Bruford's contribution to the improvised "Trio". The earliest example of King Crimson unambiguously improvising is the spacious, oft-criticised extended coda of "Moonchild" from In the Court of the Crimson King.

Quotations: "I’m a very difficult person to work with."

"Creative work is serious play."

"The musician is as rich as the music they give away."

"Act with courtesy - Otherwise, be polite, but always be kind."

"If we don’t know where we’re going, we’ll probably get there; if where we are going is how we get there, we are already where we are going."

"A mistake is always forgivable, rarely excusable, and never acceptable."

"Me and a book is a party. Me and a book and a cup of coffee is an orgy."

"You see, the thing is, I’ve been in jams like this. The feeling is totally there among the musicians (and whoever else happens to be sitting around, whether they’ve paid for it or not, probably, and preferably, not). You are close to silence, Silence with a capital S. You are in tune with silence, the deepest sound of them all. Every sound, therefore, that you make, make with intention, sensitivity, and awareness, has a meaning, an ineffability, a significance. You are listening, Listening with a capital L. You hear what everyone else is doing; you do whatever is necessary, which is usually as little as possible. It has nothing to do with self-expression: it has to do with a group mind."

"There is no such thing as making a mistake. Only one thing is compulsory, only one mistake: and that is not realizing your mistakes."

"Music is the cup which holds the wine of silence. Sound is that cup, but empty. Noise is that cup, but broken."

"I woke at 9:57 having got to bed at 6:30 subsequent to spraying burning guitar over David Bowie's new album and not leaving the studio until 5:00."

Personality

Fripp is a pescetarian. In person, Fripp appears to bear little resemblance to the mythic caricature of the ’70s. He’s eloquent, garrulous and frequently funny, fielding all the questions with the kind of intellectual rigour – and alarming capacity to pin stories to exact dates – that you just don’t find in most rock musicians.

Physical Characteristics: Fripp began playing guitar at the age of eleven. When he started, he was tone deaf and had no rhythmical sense, weaknesses which led him later to comment "Music so wishes to be heard that it sometimes calls on unlikely characters to give it voice." He was also naturally left-handed but opted to play the guitar right-handed.

Quotes from others about the person

• "One part Joseph Stalin, one part Mahatma Gandhi, and one part Marquis de Sade." - Bill Bruford

Interests

• Music & Bands

  Tool, Charlie Parker, Charlie Mingus

Connections

Fripp married Toyah Willcox in 1986 in Poole, Dorset, England. The couple have no children and have arranged their will so as to leave their entire fortune to the establishment of a musical educational trust for children.

Wife:

Toyah Willcox

Toyah Ann Willcox is an English musician, singer, songwriter, actress, producer and author.

colleague:

David Bowie

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 and in particular on the recording An Index of Metals there are strains that would influence the Bowie project two years later - most notably Side Two of the Bowie album. Fripp agreed to play guitar for Bowie's Heroes album, a move that initiated a series of collaborations with other musicians.

A second set of creative sessions with David Bowie produced distinctive guitar parts on Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980).

colleague:

Steven Wilson

Steven John Wilson is an English musician, singer, songwriter and record producer, most closely associated with the progressive rock genre. Currently a solo artist, he became known as the founder, lead guitarist, lead vocalist and songwriter of the band Porcupine Tree, as well as being a member of several other bands.

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.

colleague:

Mel Collins

Melvyn Desmond "Mel" Collins is a British saxophonist, flautist and session musician. Collins is perhaps best known for his work in progressive rock, having been a member of King Crimson on two separate occasions (the first from 1970 to 1972 and the second from 2013 to the present day) and having played with Camel, the Alan Parsons Project and Chris Squire.

colleague:

Pat Mastelotto

Lee Patrick Mastelotto is an American rock drummer and record producer who has worked most notably with Mr. Mister and King Crimson, among many others (XTC, the Rembrandts).

colleague:

Tony Levin

Anthony Frederick Levin is an American musician and composer, specializing in electric bass, Chapman Stick and upright bass. He also sings and plays synthesizer. Levin is best known for his work with King Crimson and Peter Gabriel. He was also a member of Liquid Tension Experiment, Bruford Levin Upper Extremities, ProjeKct One, and ProjeKct Four.

References

• Robert Fripp: From King Crimson to Guitar Craft
• Robert Fripp: The Boffomundo Interview 1979
• Wire Magazine Issue #368, October 2014, Robert Fripp
• Bill Bruford: The Autobiography. Yes, King Crimson, Earthworks and More.