45 Facts About Fred Frith

Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith was born on 17 February 1949 and is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser.

Probably 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.

Fred Frith was a member of the groups Art Bears, Massacre, and Skeleton Crew.

Fred Frith has collaborated with a number of prominent musicians, including Robert Wyatt, Derek Bailey, the Residents, Lol Coxhill, John Zorn, Brian Eno, Mike Patton, Lars Hollmer, Bill Laswell, Iva Bittova, Jad Fair, Kramer, the ARTE Quartett, and Bob Ostertag.

Fred Frith has composed several long works, including Traffic Continues and Freedom in Fragments.

Fred Frith produces most of his own music, and has produced many albums by other musicians, including Curlew, the Muffins, Etron Fou Leloublan, and Orthotonics.

Fred Frith is the subject of Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel's 1990 documentary Step Across the Border.

Fred Frith appears in the Canadian documentary Act of God, which is about the metaphysical effects of being struck by lightning.

Fred Frith has contributed to a number of music publications, including New Musical Express and Trouser Press, and has conducted improvising workshops across the world.

Fred Frith was awarded the 2008 Demetrio Stratos Prize for his career achievements in experimental music.

In 2010 Fred Frith received an honorary doctorate from the University of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, England, in recognition of his contribution to music.

Fred Frith was Professor of Composition in the Music Department at Mills College in Oakland, California, until his retirement in 2018.

Fred Frith is the brother of Simon Frith, a music critic and sociologist, and Chris Frith, a psychologist at University College London.

Fred Frith was born in Heathfield in East Sussex, England into a family where music was considered an essential part of life.

Fred Frith was given the nickname "Fred" at school after the motorcycle road racer Freddie Frith.

Fred Frith started violin lessons at the age of five and became a member of his school orchestra, but at 13 switched to guitar after watching a group imitating a popular instrumental band at the time, the Shadows.

Fred Frith decided to learn how to play guitar and get into a band.

Fred Frith taught himself guitar from a book of guitar chords and soon found himself in a school group called the Chaperones, playing Shadows and Beatles covers.

Besides the blues, Fred Frith started listening to any music that had guitar in it, including folk, classical, ragtime, and flamenco.

Fred Frith listened to Indian, Japanese, and Balinese music and was particularly drawn to East European music after a Yugoslav schoolfriend taught him folk tunes from his home.

Fred Frith went to Cambridge University in 1967, where his musical horizons were expanded further by the philosophies of John Cage and Frank Zappa's manipulation of rock music.

Fred Frith graduated from Christ's College, Cambridge, with a BA in 1970, but the real significance of Cambridge for him was that the seminal avant-rock group Henry Cow formed there.

Fred Frith met Tim Hodgkinson, a fellow student, in a blues club at Cambridge University in 1968.

Fred Frith composed a number of the band's notable pieces, including "Nirvana for Mice" and "Ruins".

In November 1973, Fred Frith participated in a live-in-the-studio performance of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells for the BBC.

Between October and December 1974, Fred Frith contributed a series of ten articles to the British weekly music newspaper New Musical Express entitled "Great Rock Solos of Our Time".

Fred Frith spent some 14 years in New York, during which time he joined a few bands, including John Zorn's Naked City and French Frith Kaiser Thompson.

Fred Frith started three bands himself, namely Massacre, Skeleton Crew, and Keep the Dog.

Cutler and Fred Frith have been touring Europe, Asia, and the Americas since 1978, and have given dozens of duo performances.

In 1995 Fred Frith moved to Stuttgart in Germany to live with his wife, German photographer Heike Liss, and their children Finn and Lucia.

Between 1994 and 1996, Fred Frith was Composer-in-Residence at L'Ecole Nationale de Musique in Villeurbanne, France.

Fred Frith relocated to the United States in 1997 to become Composer-in-Residence at Mills College in Oakland, California.

Fred Frith is currently Professor Emeritus of Music at Mills, after having retired in 2018.

Fred Frith has maintained that "most of my students are better qualified to teach composition than I am," and that he learns as much from them as they learn from him.

In March 1997 Fred Frith formed the electro-acoustic improvisation and experimental trio Maybe Monday with saxophonist Larry Ochs from Rova Saxophone Quartet and koto player Miya Masaoka.

In March 2008, Fred Frith formed Cosa Brava, an experimental rock and improvisation quintet with Zeena Parkins from Skeleton Crew and Keep the Dog, Carla Kihlstedt and Matthias Bossi from Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and the Norman Conquest.

Fred Frith has collaborated with a number of prominent musicians, including Robert Wyatt, Derek Bailey, Lol Coxhill, Lars Hollmer, and the Scottish deaf percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie.

Step Across the Border is a 1990 documentary film on Fred Frith, written and directed by Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel, and released in Germany and Switzerland.

In 2002, Fred Frith created his own record label, Fred Records, an imprint of Recommended Records, to re-release his back catalogue of recordings and previously unreleased material.

Fred Frith played bass guitar on several tracks on Frith's albums at the time, and did the photography and artwork for a number of his albums during that period.

Fred Frith has done the artwork for many of Frith's albums, and has performed with him on several occasions.

Fred Frith has used a number of different guitars, including homemade instruments, over the years, depending on the type of music he is playing.

Fred Frith uses a variety of implements to play guitar, from traditional guitar picks to violin bows, drum sticks, egg beaters, paint brushes, lengths of metal chain, and other found objects.

Since the late 1980s, Fred Frith has composed a number of longer works.

Fred Frith appears on over 400 recordings: with bands, in collaboration with other musicians, solo, albums he produced for other bands and musicians, and albums featuring his composed work performed by others.