Fred Frith | Artist

Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser born 1949 in Heathfield UK. Best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. Starting violin lessons at the age of five, Frith switched to guitar after watching a group imitating popular instrumental band the Shadows. His first public performances were in 1967 in folk clubs in northern England, where he sang and played traditional and blues songs. He was drawn to any music that had guitar in it, including folk, classical, ragtime, flamenco and East European folk music. Frith went to Cambridge University in 1967, where his musical horizons were expanded by the philosophies of John Cage and Frank Zappa's manipulation of rock music. Frith and fellow student Tim Hodgkinson formed Henry Cow in 1968 and they remained with the band until its demise in 1978, during which time they released five excellent studio albums. While guitar was Frith's principal instrument, he also played violin, bass guitar, piano, and xylophone. After Henry Cow's first album, Frith released his first solo album Guitar Solos in 1974, comprising eight tracks of unaccompanied and improvised playing on prepared guitars, recorded in four days without overdubs. When it was released, Guitar Solos was considered a landmark album because of its innovative and experimental approach to guitar playing. Downbeat magazine remarked that Guitar Solos "must have stunned listeners of the day. Even today that album stands up as uniquely innovative and undeniably daring." It also attracted the attention of other musicians, including Brian Eno, who enlisted Frith to play guitar on two of his albums, Before and After Science (1977) and Music For Films (1978). Frith carried on his successful solo career, releasing over 80 studio albums including chamber works, film soundtracks and collaborations with musicians such as John Zorn, Charles Hayward, Bill Laswell, Ensemble Modern, Derek Bailey and Evelyn Glennie. Standout albums include Guitar Solos (1974), Gravity (1980), Traffic Continues (2000), Clearing (2001), Prints (2002), Rivers & Tides (2003), the soundtrack Step Across the Border (1990), and the duo with Evelyn Glennie The Sugar Factory (2007). In 1979 Frith relocated to New York City, where he hooked up with the local avant-garde downtown music scene and began recording with musicians and groups, including Henry Kaiser, Bob Ostertag, the Residents, the Golden Palominos, Material and Curlew. He spent 14 years in New York, during which time he joined John Zorn's band Naked City, plus he started the bands Massacre, Skeleton Crew and Keep the Dog. In a typical solo improvising concert, Frith would lay a couple of his homemade guitars flat on a table and play them with a collection of found objects. He would drop objects, like ball bearings, dried beans, and rice on the strings while stroking, scraping, and hitting them with whatever was on hand. Later he added a live sampler to his on-stage equipment, which enabled him to dynamically capture and overlay guitar sounds, until he had a bed of repeated patterns on top of which he would then begin his performance.

Artist Website: fredfrith.com

Featured Albums: Fred Frith

Related Artists: Art Bears, Henry Cow, The Golden Palominos, John Zorn