Earlier this year, legendary musician Peter Frampton announced his farewell tour after revealing that he’s been diagnosed with a form of degenerative muscle disease. Frampton released a double album titled “All Blues” this summer, which marked his first release in three years. He then began his farewell 50-date tour, which he hopes to complete before fully retiring due to his health.
The disease in question is called inclusion body myositis, which causes muscles to weaken over time. Thankfully, this disease is not known to shorten a person’s overall life expectancy. While the disease would not affect his singing voice, it will have a substantial impact on his ability to move his fingers along his instruments as time passes.
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“In a year’s time, I might not be able to play,” Frampton said to RollingStone amid the announcement of his tour, “I want to record as much as I can in the shortest space of time.”
The musician also told Rolling Stone about the disease’s warning signs, which he experienced over the last few years. He said that he started noticing a tightness in his ankles about eight years ago and he even fell on stage while trying to kick a beach ball around four years ago. He also tripped over a guitar cord onstage and was unable to place his things in overhead compartments on planes.
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While many of these shortcomings may not seem like a big deal, they ultimately led to the eventual diagnosis of degenerative muscle disease. However, he also told Rolling Stone that only his children and band members knew of the diagnosis for the past four years.
Sadly, there is no medicine available to treat the specific disease that he has, but Frampton’s been exercising every day and hopes to participate in future drug trials. According to Frampton, this year seemed like the right time to let the public know about his long-kept secret.
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Frampton also shared that he plans to donate $1 from every ticket sale for his tour to a fund he started with Johns Hopkins University to research Myositis.
“Maybe a huge door is closing in my life, but then there’s lots of other doors that open,” he said. He has sadly confirmed that the disease has already begun to affect his fingers, but he can still play guitar fairly well at this time. “If I’m going to do a farewell tour, I want to play good… I want to rock it. I know that this tour, I will be able to do everything I did last year and the year before. That’s the most important thing to me. I want to go out screaming as opposed to, ‘He can’t play anymore.’”
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Please be sure to share this story with your friends and family and ask them to send their well wishes and prayers to Peter Frampton during this difficult time.
Here’s a video of Frampton performing “Do You Feel Like We Do” from 1977.
Here’s another video about this story.
Source: Doyouremember.com