He is a guitarist, composer and record producer born in Wimborne Minster, Dorset, England.
He began his professional career in 1967 as an organist in the band Giles, Giles and Fripp. Although they released an album and a couple of singles, they were not successful so broke up and formed the band King Crimson with the addition of Greg Lake, Ian McDonald and Peter Sinfield. They released their first album in 1969 but broke up shortly afterwards to reform again on several occasions through the years.
He is the only member of the band who has consistently remained with them but has also been involved in working with other bands such as Van der Graaf Generator, and recording in collaboration with Brian Eno. His albums with Brian Eno included a tape delay system which would become a characteristic of his and was named “Frippertronics.”
He left music for a while and concentrated on the works of the Greek-Armenian mystic Gurjieff and these would later prove influential in his music. His return was as a session guitarist and he performed with Peter Gabriel on his first and second albums. He toured with him to promote the tour and was introduced by the pseudonym Dusty Rhodes.
Other artists he has worked with are many and include David Bowie on the albums Heroes and Scary Monsters album, Daryl Hall on Sacred Songs, Blondie, Phil Collins , David Sylvian, Andy Summers and Talking Heads.
In 1984 he became a teacher at the American Society for Continuous Education and through his Guitar Craft course The League of Craft Guitarists was born and has since released several albums.
He is married to the singer Toyah Willcox and has collaborated with her on two recordings.
In 1994 he returned to solo recording and released the series of records called Soundscapes which employs the “Frippertronic” technique and digital technology.
In 2005 he worked at Microsoft Studios to record new sound effects for the 2007 release of Windows Vista. When 2008 came around he worked with Theo Travis on the guitar and flute/saxophone duet album Thread which they followed with a short English tour. The repeated this by recording Follow in 2012 and doing a short subsequent tour. In 2009 he performed with his wife in The Humans.
In 2011 the album A Scarcity of Miracles: A King Crimson ProjeKct was released but in 2012 he announced his retirement saying that working in music was now “a joyless exercise in futility”. This was short-lived though as within a year he announced that King Crimson had two new members in a seven-piece line-up and they began touring again.
Peter Gabriel Recordings
I Don’t Remember (Peter Gabriel )
Here he performs with the Robert Fripp String Quintet…
Sources:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fripp#Biography
- http://www.allmusic.com/artist/robert-fripp-mn0000238440/biography
- http://www.progressiveears.com/frippbook/index.asp?bhcp=1
- https://www.dgmlive.com/rf/index.htm?bio=true
- https://www.discogs.com/artist/10355-Robert-Fripp