Robert Fripp (born 16 May 1946) is a British musician, composer, record producer, and author, best known as the guitarist, founder and longest-lasting member of the progressive rock band King Crimson.

[5] Her earnings from working at the Bournemouth Records Office allowed his father, Arthur Henry Fripp (1910–1985) to start a business as an estate agent.

He became the guitarist in the jazz outfit The Douglas Ward Trio, playing in the Chewton Glen hotel in New Milton, followed by a stint in the rock and roll band The League of Gentlemen, which included two former Ravens members.

[11] At age 21, going back home from college late at night, Fripp tuned on to Radio Luxembourg, where he heard the last moments of the Beatles' "A Day in the Life".

Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Béla Bartók's string quartets, Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony, Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced and John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers.

[14] The band was tipped for stardom, but, due to growing musical differences between Fripp on one side and Giles and McDonald on the other, broke up after its first American tour in 1970.

Fripp was listed as the sole composer of the band's music during this time, which built on the first album's blueprint but progressed further into jazz-rock and free jazz while also taking form from Sinfield's esoteric lyrical and mythological concepts.

In 1971, Fripp ousted Sinfield and took over de facto leadership of King Crimson (although he has always formally rejected the label, preferring to describe his role as "quality control" or "a kind of glue").

With avant-garde percussionist Jamie Muir, violinist David Cross, former Family bassist and singer John Wetton and former Yes drummer Bill Bruford now in the ranks, King Crimson produced three more albums of innovative and increasingly experimental rock, shedding members as they progressed: beginning with Larks' Tongues in Aspic, progressing with Starless and Bible Black after Muir's departure and culminating in Red after Cross was fired.

He worked with Keith Tippett (and others who appeared on King Crimson records) on projects far from rock music, playing with and producing Centipede's Septober Energy in 1971 and Ovary Lodge in 1973.

[16] Prior to forming the Larks-era KC, he collaborated on a spoken-word album with a woman he described as "a witch", but the resulting Robert Fripp & Walli Elmlark: The Cosmic Children of Rock was never officially released.

"[25] The "B" side of the record, titled "Under Heavy Manners" featured a collaboration with bassist Busta Jones, drummer Paul Duskin, and David Byrne of Talking Heads (as Absalm el Habib).

[26] The sounds of this side of the record featured what Fripp called "Discotronics" which was defined as "that musical experience resulting at the interstice of Frippertronics and disco.

"[33] Fripp was offered a teaching position at the American Society for Continuous Education (ASCE) at Claymont Court in Charles Town, West Virginia in 1984.

[38] Fripp returned to recording solo in 1994, using an updated version of the Frippertronics technique that creates loops employing digital technology instead of analogue tapes.

Also in 1991, Fripp released an album with the project Sunday All Over The World, also featuring his wife Toyah Willcox, former League of Crafty Guitarists member Trey Gunn on Chapman Stick, and drummer Paul Beavis.

[39] During the early and mid-1990s Fripp contributed guitar/soundscapes to Lifeforms (1994) by the Future Sound of London and Cydonia (released 2001) by the Orb, as well as FFWD, a collaborative effort with the latter's members.

In addition, Fripp worked with Brian Eno co-writing and supplying guitar to two tracks for a CD-ROM project released in 1994 entitled Headcandy created by Chris Juul and Doug Jipson.

In late 1994, Fripp re-formed the 1981 line-up of King Crimson for its fifth incarnation, adding Trey Gunn and drummer Pat Mastelotto in a configuration known as a "double trio".

Although Levin immediately returned to the band, another hiatus followed until King Crimson reappeared in 2007 with the addition of Porcupine Tree drummer Gavin Harrison.

In 2006 Fripp contributed his composition "At The End Of Time" to the Artists for Charity album Guitarists 4 the Kids, produced by Slang Productions, to assist World Vision Canada in helping underprivileged children.

[citation needed] In May 2011, Jakko Jakszyk, Robert Fripp and Mel Collins released A Scarcity of Miracles: A King Crimson ProjeKct on the Panegyric label.

The album also featured contributions by Tony Levin and Gavin Harrison, leading to speculation that the project was a dry run for a new King Crimson lineup.

[56] When he started, he was tone deaf and had no rhythmic sense, weaknesses which led him later to comment that "Music so wishes to be heard that it sometimes calls on unlikely characters to give it voice.

[63] Fripp's guitar technique, unlike most rock guitarists of his era, is not blues-based but rather influenced by avant-garde jazz and European classical music.

He combines rapid alternate picking and crosspicking with motifs employing whole-tone or diminished pitch structures and extended sixteenth-note patterns in moto perpetuo.

[74] Nevill Drury details in Music for Inner Space: Techniques for Meditation & Visualisation that Fripp was interested in the Hermetic Qabalah, Wicca, German Renaissance philosopher Paracelsus, and George Gurdjieff via J. G.

[75] During the COVID-19 lockdowns, Fripp and Willcox uploaded many short, humorous videos to YouTube,[76] usually covers of well-known songs, and mostly titled Toyah and Robert's Sunday Lunch.

DGM has an aim "to be a model of ethical business in an industry founded on exploitation, oiled by deceit, riven with theft and fueled by greed.

Founded by Robert Fripp and David Singleton in 1992, its website is the home of all RF music, tour dates, diaries, news, as well as King Crimson's, among other related artists, groups, and initiatives.