Happy Birthday to Robert Fripp Following Successful Heart Surgery
by Best Classic Bands Staff
Fripp at right on a 1974 album cover
Guitarist, songwriter and producer Robert Fripp was born May 16, 1946, in Wimborne Minster, Dorset, England. He is perhaps best known as a founding member of King Crimson, one of the leading lights of the progressive rock movement that Fripp has continued to keep going in various configurations up to the present.
In May 2025, Fripp revealed that he had suffered a heart attack in April after initially thinking it was acid reflux. Following his performance on the annual “Cruise To the Edge,” he recognized that it was far more serious. Before he returned home, the organizers took him to a cardiac hospital in Italy, where he was ultimately admitted to intensive care. Testing revealed that his blood had high levels of an indicator often associated with a heart attack. He underwent emergency surgery and then a second.
“Gratitude to all the many good people who have sent good wishes, privately and publicly. Bless you,” he tweeted on May 12. “Rumours of my impending uselessness are much exaggerated. I’m in great shape and great spirits, and set up for the remainder of my long life.”
RF: Gratitude to all the many good people who have sent good wishes, privately and publicly. Bless you.
Rumours of my impending uselessness are much exaggerated.
I’m in great shape and great spirits, and set up for the remainder of my long life. pic.twitter.com/LuaxSQOQVn— Robert Fripp (@frippofficial) May 12, 2025
King Crimson’s 1969 debut studio album, In the Court of the Crimson King, was widely influential. Over time, the band’s many members have included such well known performers as Greg Lake, Michael Giles, Bill Bruford, John Wetton, Adrian Belew and Tony Levin.
In addition to King Crimson and his solo albums, Fripp has collaborated with such other artists as Brian Eno, David Bowie (including the Heroes album), Peter Gabriel, Blondie and Talking Heads, among many others. Interesting fact: When Fripp started playing guitar at age 11 he was tone deaf and had no sense of rhythm.
With drummers Pat Mastelotto, Gavin Harrison and Jeremy Stacey, as well as multi-instrumentalist Bill Rieflin on drums and keyboards, Fripp has said that this “double quartet formation” is likely to make more noise than ever before. Rounding out the eight-piece line-up are guitarist and vocalist Jakko Jakszyk, long-time bassist Levin, and saxophonist and flautist Mel Collins, who was a mainstay of the group from 1970-1972.
Watch King Crimson perform in 2015
When King Crimson tours, tickets are available here and here.
For his 75th birthday and their 35th wedding anniversary on May 16, 2021, Fripp and his wife, Toyah Willcox, released a clip in their ongoing series of videos, recorded during lockdown.
Watch them perform “Born to Be Wild”
And here are the duo in May 2024, days before his 78th birthday…
Related: Our Album Rewind of King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King
1 Comment so far
Jump into a conversationI wish there was a cleaned up version of “In the hall of the Mountain King” available. The one on the LP is horrid.