From Trogg To Prog - The Bobby Fripp Interview

The last post in our record-breakingly popular PEW Week is an exclusive interview with Robert Fripp. I interviewed Bobby (as he's known to his closest friends) in his converted vicarage at Piddlehinton, deep in the Dorset hills.

FMF©: Can we start with your experience with The Troggs? I don't think most of our readers will be aware of the connection.
RF: My! You have done your research, haven't you? Well, Reginald [Presley - Ed.] and I were at Yeovil Technical College together. Not really together as such, I tended to distance myself from that crowd, but when Reginald said he was forming a beat group I generously offered my services as guitarist - not because I could play, but because I owned one. A Burns three pick-up. Bright red. I remember it had an impressive array of tone switches which made very little difference to the sound. One was labeled dog bark! Reginald's cronies were what I used to call oiks - still do, actually - real country bumpkins with straw in their hair. As a slight and bookish youth, my downy cheek easily brought to a blush, I was an outsider from the beginning. But I quickly mastered the two chords they used for every song and did the dance steps with them round those ghastly Working Mens' Clubs [shudders]. There was quite the celebration when Reginald signed the recording contract, but when it was time to get in the van for the trip to London, friend Reginald said, not you, specs, and pushed me back over my guitar case. The group drove off laughing and pointing.
FMF©: Must have been traumatic.

RF: Oh, one soldiers on, doesn't one. I'd decided the music business was not for me, and soon found employ as a living garden gnome, hiring myself out to garden parties and fêtes and the like. I'd crouch by ponds dangling my little rod and wink at the girls. It was at one such event that I was spotted by Mickey and Pete Giles. They needed a novelty keyboard player for their musical comedy act, which was a kind of whimsical Footlights thing. So of course one leapt at the opportunity!
FMF©: It's hard to equate this background with the very serious, complex prog-rock world of King Crimson. 
RF: It is? Never thought about it.

Our interview was brought to a natural close by the arrival of his lovely wife, La Toya Wilcox, wheeling in a tea urn.