The Not-So Odd Couple

When Andy Summers teamed up with King Crimson's Robert Fripp at the dawn of the 80s, it afforded The Police guitarist the chance to rediscover a musical mojo left wanting as a result of phenomenal mainstream success.

- Rob Hughes

With these collaborative efforts now newly compiled, along with a mini album of lost recordings, Summers and Fripp look back on the sessions that would embrace avant-garde improvisation, state-of-the-art guitar technology and a bold attempt to fuse both the “out-there” and the “accessible”.

Yet conquering the mainstream also brought a degree of frustration for Andy Summers. When their tour hit Munich, the guitarist sat down in his hotel room and wrote a letter to Robert Fripp.

“I'd been in the band for a few years and I wanted to try something else, musically, just to prove that I existed outside of the framework of The Police as a musician,” Summers explains today. “I'd really loved the Roches album [1979's The Roches, produced by Fripp], especially Robert's guitar-playing on it, so it occurred to me to get in touch.”

Fripp was then involved with The League Of Gentlemen. And while it proved a short-lived affair, his sights were set on something more ambitious: a new “first division” rock ensemble that would eventually lead to a fresh iteration of King Crimson. For the immediate future though, Summers' suggestion of a two-way collaboration was attractive

"Andy was a phenomenal broad-based guitarist. There was a hidden sophistication in his playing."

“I'd seen The Police at the Bottom Line in New York in ’77 or ’78, and liked them a lot,” Fripp recalls. “Andy was a phenomenal broad-based guitarist. And you're not really going to appreciate his rhythm parts in The Police unless you work through substitute chords.” and voicings. There was a hidden sophistication in his playing.”

Summers and Fripp met up in New York City the following year, when their respective schedules finally eased.

“We hung out for an afternoon and got on very well, two English blokes from Bournemouth,” says Summers. “And we decided that we'd try and do something together.”