Peter Frampton [ tickets ]'s smash "Frampton Comes Alive!" was released on Jan. 6, 1976. Later that month, it topped the Billboard album chart, where it would sit comfortably for 10 weeks. It sold 8 million copies that year--and 18 million to date--to become the biggest-selling live rock album ever.

Now, 25 years later, the album has been re-mixed, re-mastered and re-sequenced, and four additional tracks have been added. The result is "Frampton Comes Alive! (The Special Edition)" (A&M/Universal).

"It was scary, and the best thing that could have happened to me," Frampton said of the near-instant fame he attained with the album’s release. "It was well and good when the album was number one. It was a dream, and a dream come true.”

But Frampton admitted that he wasn’t prepared for the overwhelming scope of the album’s sales success.

“I got a call when it passed [Carole King’s] 'Tapestry' [which had been the best-selling album ever at the time], but it was bittersweet,” he said. “I was happy on one hand, scared s---less on the other hand. It was a huge weight on my shoulders. I had to compete with myself. I went through the ceiling and found myself all alone."

Frampton's career was on the upswing at the time of the album’s release, but he was by no means a household name. After the British guitarist/vocalist left Humble Pie in 1971, he released three solo albums that, as he recalled, sold in the 40,000-70,000 range. His 1975 release "Frampton"--the album on which he debuted his crowd-thrilling Talkbox guitar effect--was a breakthrough of sorts, initially moving around 350,000 copies.

Then it was time for the obligatory live album. "The label and management agreed to a live album, but I was only just starting to sell records,” Frampton said. “We didn't think they would go for a double album. We finished a live album with just five songs on it, and after Jerry Moss [the M in Frampton’s label A&M Records] heard it, he said, '[where’s] the rest of it?'"

Frampton then recorded more concerts to cull enough songs to fill four sides of vinyl. Eight shows in various venues were eventually recorded, and the best songs were chosen. Interestingly, the album’s two biggest hits--"Show Me the Way," which went to No. 6 on the Billboard singles chart, and "Baby, I Love Your Way," which went to No. 12, weren’t on the one-disk album that Frampton originally gave to the label.

On the special-edition CD, three more songs from those 1975 concerts have been added: "Just the Time of Year," "Nowhere's Too Far (For My Baby)," and "White Sugar." Additionally, a live studio performance of "Days Dawning," captured during the same time period, is also included. "This [special-edition CD] was basically our live set then," Frampton noted.

With the success of “Frampton Comes Alive,” the performer went from a supporting act who could headline only in New York, Detroit and San Francisco to a marquee name headlining arenas and stadiums.

Frampton has yet to duplicate the runaway success of “Frampton Comes Alive!” He has, however, continued to make music. Frampton recently received a Grammy nomination in the Best Rock Instrumental Performance category for "Off the Hook" from his third live album, "Live in Detroit" (CMC International).

"I would've liked [the success of ‘Frampton Comes Alive!’] to have been a lot slower, yet I wouldn't be here 25 years later without that record, and have a Grammy nomination today," Frampton said.

Now a free agent, Frampton, who has not recorded a studio album in five years, said he is talking to some major, independent and Internet companies for a forthcoming album.