Posted on 07/10/2025 5:22:50 PM PDT by nickcarraway
With news that a new King Crimson album is in the works, Fripp's past comments highlight the left-field ideas that make him an original
News that King Crimson are at work on a new album has generated a wave of excitement as fans and guitarists thrill to the prospect of fresh music coming from guitarist Robert Fripp.
Rising to prominence in the late ‘60s, when Eric Clapton was deemed a deity and blues guitar was dominating the charts, Fripp separated himself from the pack with a left-field approach to songwriting and what could be achieved on guitar. His talents earned him praise from high-profile supporters, with no less than Jimi Hendrix once hailing King Crimson as the best band in the world.
It seems those feelings of adoration weren’t entirely reciprocated.
Mark Knopfler says it's “awkward” to be called a guitar god and tells who deserves the title A look into the influences that shaped the now 79-year-old Fripp's daring sound reveal how little he cared for his peers and his instrument of choice back in his heyday.
“I've never really listened to guitarists, because they've never really interested me,” he told Guitar Player in 1974.
It was a year that yielded Starless and Bible Black and Red, two of King Crimson's landmark albums. Fripp was at the top of his game.
At that time, Clapton was two albums into his solo career after the demise of Cream. Hendrix was four years gone, but a raft of stellar players had risen to take his place as guitar gods for the 1970s
By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. Still, the players that were getting raves left Fripp nonplussed.
“I think the guitar is a pretty feeble instrument,” he continued. “Virtually nothing interests me about the guitar.”
I saw Cream live once and I thought they were quite awful. Clapton's work since, I think, has been excessively tedious.”
— Robert Fripp
Fripp's contrarian views on the instrument were shaped in childhood, where he was seduced by “the early Sun records with Scotty Moore” before he discovered traditional jazz at the age of 15. By then, he was no longer going with the cultural currents, a bias that helped him forge an identity of his own rather than one based on earlier genres and players. .
“I haven't been influenced by Hendrix and Clapton in the way that most people would say it,” he explained. “I don't think Hendrix was a guitarist. I very much doubt if he was interested in guitar playing as such. He was just a person who had something to say and got on and said it.
“Clapton I think is mostly quite banal, although he did some exciting things earlier in his life with Mayall. I saw Cream live once and I thought they were quite awful. Clapton's work since, I think, has been excessively tedious.”
As guitarist/producer Steven Wilson observes, Fripp's against-the-grain nature often put him at odds with those around him. Having remixed King Crimson's back catalog, he's well informed of the guitarist's genius.
“Every single Crimson record that’s ever come out was a battle,” Wilson states. “A battle between Robert and the rest of the band in some cases, a battle between Robert and the record company or the management or finances or touring schedules. Everything was against them, like the press telling them they were washed up.”
Rather than buckle to the whims of mainstream audiences, Fripp doubled down on his unique approach.
“I learned that a lot of Crimson records were similar to jazz and avant-garde jazz in the British jazz movement in the early '70s,” Wilson continues. “You realize that what made those records thrilling is that fact that the band were flying by the seat of their pants a lot of the time. The music was on the verge of falling apart in some respects.”
It’s interesting, then, that the one guitarist who escaped Fripp’s crosshairs during his 1974 GP interview was a guitarist that similarly challenged the status quo with his music: Jeff Beck, who was making waves at the time with his album Blow by Blow.
“Jeff Beck's guitar playing I can appreciate as good fun,” Fripp said. “It's where the guitarist and ‘poser-cum-ego tripper-cum-rock star-cum entertainer’ becomes all involved in the package. It's good fun, it's quite enjoyable, very exciting. I wish him all the best of luck.”
As the sands of time shifted and the blues gave way to shred mania in the 1980s, Eddie Van Halen became the new Clapton, the new poster boy of the electric guitar, and the next player that every other guitarist aspired to be like.
Jeff Beck's guitar playing I can appreciate as good fun. It's quite enjoyable, very exciting. I wish him all the best of luck.”
— Robert Fripp
Reflecting on the impact that had on the guitar scene last year, Wolfgang Van Halen theorized that his Dad “kind of ruined the musical landscape” during that period.
“Because,” he explains, “instead of everybody wanting to find out who they are, they wanted to be that.”
Today, it's easy to point to players like Tosin Abasi as the guiding light for imitators. Fripp has never succumbed to such worship, and the fact that he didn't allow his unique, timeless voice on the instrument to sustain.
News of a new King Crimson album, their 14th in total and their first since 2002, brings light relief following Robert Fripp’s recent heart attack. Jakszyk believes that might hinder any future touring plans, but Fripp is at least taking his feeble Fernandes Goldtop into the studio at least one more time.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
I saw KC in concert in June, 1984, right before Bruford left to do other things. Great show.
The opening act was juggler Ray Jason, who was well known on Pier 39 back in the day. I also saw him with Shields and Yarnell at a show at De Anza college, probably in the late 70s.
to me Hendrix was an amazing artist & performer, not unlike Waters being the same. Neither Hendrix’s guitar playing nor Waters’ singing were, in my opinion, virtuosic
I have followed Fripp since the 60s and respect some of his work but not all of it. Much of it is tedious. But to each his own. But i did really love some of it while ignoring much of it.
Fripp is an odd bird and i am not surprised he had no use for blues rock pioneers like Hendrix and Clapton. He was way outside the box so he never understood them.
in contrast, someone like Guthrie Govan is a virtuoso
How did he feel about Tiny Tim?
Every interview I have ever read with Robert Fripp makes me think he is often being tongue-in-cheek, rather post-modern/deconstructionist. Driven by what? Nihilism? I do not know.
I am not sure how the inventor of Frippertronics can call Eric Clapton (of whom I am NOT a fan) tedious.
Sometimes, I get the feeling he is just putting us on, as in the “Drive to 1983”, where he doesn’t state what the point of it is, and the music doesn’t tell us. And he doesn’t tell us. Perhaps it is a mockery of other drives.
So, he is a talented guitarist, but I think like a lot of the modern art guys he doesn’t take the art (by his own admission, really) or much of anything, seriously. Instead, he seems to mock almost everything in that dry English way.
He sounds fine on Bowie’s “Scary Monsters” LP.
Guthrie has developed something many guitarists seem to lack..the guys just a natural with his instrument no matter what genre he’s playing. Been fortunate to see him play with Steve Wilson a few times and never disappointed.
Once I heard Leo Kottke, stopped listening to rock guitars until mark Knopfler came along.
and he’s incredibly modest and grateful
I believe the Aristocrats are still touring
“I think the guitar is a pretty feeble instrument”
Stevie Ray Vaughan. Bite my Southern ass.
I think Jeff Beck was the best guitar player in the world especially when he played like Jeff Beck.
“Once I heard Leo Kottke, stopped listening to rock guitars until mark Knopfler came along.”
Heard Kottke in Nashville. Damn that guy could play.
Damn. Fripp is so good I’ve never heard of him. He comes across as an ass.
I think he could have reached his true expression on the bongos.
Lol! Well, now, that certainly brought me back down to earth!
From the sublime to....
Tiny Tim might have turned the noble Ukulele into part of his goofy stage act, but Robert Smith gave it dignity once again on his piece “Pictures Of You”.
His wife Toyah is a total ham and totally owns the stage in this Black Sabbath cover (with Robert on guitar):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxbX0XOEApU&list=RDNE6AgfQfflE&index=2
I wouldn’t have thought a woman her age could do Sabbath justice, but, amazingly, she does.
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