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Star power
Frampton contemporary plays for Lawrence church

By Melodie Woerman
Editor, The Harvest

Stan Sheldon, former bass player for rock star Peter Frampton, plays for the 10:15 a.m. contemporary service at St. Margaret's, Lawrence Photo by Melodie Woerman

You know it, but you can hardly believe it. The guy playing bass guitar, right in front of your eyes, in church, is a rock star, a real one, with the platinum albums to prove it.

Stan Sheldon played on the 1976 iconic “Frampton Comes Alive!” album that sold more than six million copies, and he recently reconnected with his old colleague Peter Frampton on a new album that won a Grammy.

He’s toured the world with Frampton and Warren Zevon and has added his bass beat to recordings with famous artists for more than 30 years.

So why would he spend his Sunday mornings playing for about three dozen people at a contemporary service at St. Margaret’s in Lawrence?

Because it’s music. Because he loves to play.

From Ottawa to stardom
It’s a straight shot 25 miles south on Highway 59 from Lawrence to Ottawa, the town Sheldon’s great grandfather helped found and where he grew up. But the road from youthful dream to real-life career is a lot longer. It began in 1964, when a 14-year-old Sheldon saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show and declared, “That’s what I want to do.” Lots of kids said it, but Sheldon made it happen.

He left Ottawa right after high school and moved to Colorado and then to California, where he doggedly pursued a career as a self-taught bass player, sacrificing and dedicating himself to becoming a success. He often wondered if he’d made a mistake.

In 1975 he got the break of a lifetime — an audition with British rocker Peter Frampton. Sheldon became one-fourth of the quartet that produced the “Live” album that sold more records than any other live recording before it.

He toured with Frampton for six years. When asked if it was a typical wild rock scene, he replied, “It was just like ‘Behind the Music,’” referring to the VH1 television show that describes rock careers too often laced with hard living and substance abuse.

He played and toured with Zevon and his friend Lou Gramm of Foreigner, and he kicked around with other noted studio musicians through the 1980s.

The next chapter
Like so many others he battled drug addiction, but by 1990 he was clean and ready to start a new chapter in his life. He came home, enrolled in the University of Kansas at age 40 and pursued the college degree he’d skipped two decades earlier. He got a bachelor’s in environmental studies and a master’s in Latin American studies, becoming fluent in Spanish along the way.

He’d kept playing in local bands all this time, but he opted for a 9-to-5 job teaching environmental training in Spanish for a Lawrence firm. But it turned out Sheldon and his boss, Brad Mayhew, had more in common than just work. Mayhew, too, is a musician, and with his band — his wife and five daughters singing a blend of country and bluegrass in exquisite vocal harmony —provides the music for the 10:15 a.m. service at St. Margaret’s, a casual, contemporary worship that meets in the new parish hall building.

Four months ago Mayhew asked Sheldon if he wanted to sit in. He said he would, of course. He would play anywhere someone would ask him.

Sheldon is not an Episcopalian. He’s not even what some might call a classic Christian. He describes himself as a universalist who says “there is something out there” without needing to describe it further. “I think we express our faith in the world,” he said, “in many languages, but we are talking about the same thing. Playing here [St. Margaret’s] is part of the expression of that for me. I guess I have an all-inclusive faith.”

St. Margaret’s rector, the Rev. Darrel Proffitt, says Sheldon’s music “blesses us in so many ways.” He says Sheldon’s presence helps the parish reach out to people not part of any church. “It’s rare to have someone with his talents, passions and faith as a rock musician to be part of a local congregation.”

Full circle with Frampton
The death in 2004 of Frampton’s keyboard player and drummer shocked Sheldon. He called Frampton, who by then was living in Cincinnati, and said, “We’re the only ones left.” They knew they wanted to work together again, and Frampton described a new project, an album of pop instrumental music, and asked Sheldon if he wanted to be part of it. He cowrote and played on one track — “Ida y Vuelta,” Spanish for out and back, or roundtrip, symbolizing, he said, that “Peter and I had come full circle.”

Other musicians also signed on, including the rhythm section for the Rolling Stones and members of Pearl Jam. The result, Sheldon said, was something they all knew was good.

So he checked the Grammy award web site the morning nominations were announced and was thrilled to see “Fingerprints” nominated. “Peter was on Cloud 9,” he said. “It was the most press he’d had since the ‘Live’ album. He’d been touring the whole time, but people only wanted to hear the old hits. He had become a nostalgia act. Now he’s been transformed.” The recording won the Grammy for best pop instrumental album.

Moving to Nashville
At 56, Sheldon is ready to leave home once again to seek the musical big-time, this time readying for a move to Nashville to “get back with the A team,” he says. The collaboration with Frampton, and the award it garnered, has prompted a rededication to a career as a professional musician. “I’m committed again to the music,” he said. “If it can happen, I want to try.” He says his specialties are Latin, rhythm and blues, soul and any form of pop music. “I don’t want to exclude country,” he says, “but these days it all crosses over.”

He knows that if he’s going to make such a move, now’s the time. The Grammy, he said, is a springboard. “Doors tend to open when you have a Grammy tucked under your arm,” he said. As a teenager he said he was just crazy enough to believe he could make it big in the world of music. This time around, he knows it’s possible.

And when it happens, there will be three dozen worshippers at St. Margaret’s who will be sorry to see him go.