And it’s definitely not hurting my situation.”
When this new version of “Baby, I Love Your Way” reached #1, Frampton told the LA Times that he was “thrilled”: “I always thought it was a strong song. Nothing so apocalyptic happened to Peter Frampton, but his subsequent records never reached the heights of Frampton Comes Alive! By 1987, Frampton was one of the musicians on his former classmate David Bowie’s Glass Spider tour. Collins lived long enough to see “Free Bird” become a #1 hit, but he died in 1990. Collins was paralyzed from the waist down, and his girlfriend was killed. In 1986, a drunk-driving Collins crashed his car. That plane crash broke the neck and nearly severed the arm of guitarist Allen Collins, Van Zandt’s “Free Bird” co-writer. Skynyrd frontman Ronnie Van Zandt and guitarist Steve Gaines were both killed in a 1977 plane crash, which also took the lives of many of the band’s associates. Lynyrd Skynyrd and Peter Frampton both had big runs in the ’70s, but neither of them were doing too well by 1988. From a narrative standpoint, this makes no sense. Still, the Miami producer’s version was a much bigger chart hit than either of the originals. The 1988 single that fused the two songs has totally faded from memory. Those two ’70s power ballads have endured “Free Bird,” in particular, is now part of the American cultural fabric.
When both of those songs were more than a decade old, though, a Miami DJ and dance producer combined both tracks into one ungainly beast, and he wound up with a #1 hit. Lynyrd Skynyrd and Frampton both sold millions upon millions of records, but neither one ever managed to land a #1 hit. Both of those songs were hits, but neither one made the top 10. Consider what happened with Peter Frampton’s “Baby, I Love Your Way” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird,” two entries in the grand pantheon of ’70s lighters-up arena-rock power ballads. In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present.
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