It’s been 35 years since the release of “Frampton Comes Alive,” but bassist Stanley Sheldon still snickers when he remembers the advice he gave Peter Frampton in the months before the release of what would become, for a long time, the biggest-selling live album in music history.

“I was the one who advised against a live album, actually,” Sheldon said with much laughter during a recent phone interview from a bench in Balboa Park in San Diego, where he was passing time before a tour stop that night. “I’ll go down in history as … ‘Peter, we need to do another studio [album]. We need a studio hit.’ That was my advice.

“So Peter, he doesn’t take my advice anymore on those types of decisions.”

Sheldon may have been way off the mark in that piece of career advice, but the bassist’s timing in joining Frampton’s band couldn’t have been more spot on. He signed on just two months before recording the show at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco that made up the bulk of the “Frampton Comes Alive” release.

It was Sheldon’s mastery of the fretless bass — he was one of only a handful of musicians with that ability at the time — that earned him a memorable audition with Frampton, whose solo career was just beginning to show signs of taking off after a string of so-so-received studio album releases.

His audition was in Frampton’s hotel room at the famed Beverly Wilshire in Los Angeles.

“I drove a car over, pushed my amp through the lobby, [and] got on the elevator with my little amp,” Sheldon said. “I rolled it in there and people were looking at me, ‘Who is this? What’s going on?’ I mean, this is the Beverly Wilshire — Warren Beatty lived there!”

It was while the two were jamming in that audition that Sheldon realized there was a special musical chemistry happening.

“I remember, I looked at Peter’s eyes at the Beverly Wilshire and I just knew. I felt something, just some chemistry,” said Sheldon, who got the gig and joined his new bandmates shortly thereafter. “When I rehearsed two weeks later in New York, I knew instantly, man, this band has chemistry, all four of us. It was an amazing four-piece band.

“We had such a great band. It was really magical.”

The other members of the band were “Bob Mayo on the keyboards, Bob Mayo” — as Frampton famously introduced him on the “Comes Alive” hit “Do You Feel Like We Do” — and John Siomos on drums.

The amazing chemistry that the foursome immediately generated heightened their expectations of success, even though they had no idea at the time that they would dominate the charts and concert circuit in the ensuing two years.

“We were already stars in our own eyes because we knew something was going to happen,” Sheldon said. “Who could have known THAT was going to happen? We knew we had a great, great band, suffice it to say.”

Sheldon said he didn’t even know the band was recording the Winterland show until after it was over — something he remains grateful for, since he can’t help but wonder if he might have over thought his playing had he been aware they were rolling tape that night. Frampton and Mayo listened to a first playback and excitedly retrieved their bandmates for a listen as well.

“We all went out and listened to a little bit, and we were startled, too,” said Sheldon. “It just jumped out of the speakers.”

“Frampton Comes Alive” has always been lauded as one of the truly live albums, one that wasn’t completely re-recorded in the studio to cover mistakes or the product of other studio magic. Still, there are some who wonder just how “live” the album is.

“People talk about it and, yeah, that’s one of the achievements that Peter and I, and Bob and John, were most proud of,” said Sheldon. “We didn’t touch … the only thing that really got changed was a tiny little vocal part of mine, ’cause I’m not a great singer. I don’t like to sing when I play the bass. My part was maybe the only thing fixed that I know of.”

 Sheldon remained onboard for the 1977 follow-up, “I’m in You,” and also appeared on several tracks for 1979’s “Where I Should Be.” By then, the group’s meteoric success dissipated almost as quickly as it began. “I’m in You” was not the rocking follow many fans expected and Frampton made a complete misstep by starring with The Bee Gees in the 1978 feature film “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” which was a commercial and critical flop.

Sheldon quit the band sometime after “Where I Should Be,” citing his growing substance abuse issues and a “clash of egos” as the main reasons for his departure.

“It was a combination of just bad career decisions and drug use, and, you know, not being really quite right in any of our decisions at that time because of the drug abuse,” Sheldon said. “For some reason, it was a clash of egos, and I felt like maybe I wasn’t getting paid enough probably. Just stupid things that we never thought about when we first started making music as youngsters, you know? And now, how I feel, I don’t really care so much about the money. It was just stupid things. Looking back, with all I’ve been through after I left his band, it went bad for me after that.”

Sheldon has had some highlights over the years. He toured with Warren Zevon on his “Excitable Boy” tour. He worked with ex-Foreigner vocalist Lou Gramm on a solo project. He formed the band Ronin with other well-known studio musicians. And he recently toured as the bassist for Delbert McClinton’s band.

In between all those projects, Sheldon stepped away from the touring business while working on a master’s degree in Latin American studies at the University of Kansas. As part of his degree, he traveled to South America and studied Latin jazz, immersing himself in the rhythms of music from Brazil, Cuba and Puerto Rico, among other places. He even lived in Costa Rica for a year. It took him 10 years to finish his degree, but he said the experience has absolutely influenced his playing for the better.

“It’s made me a much deeper player because I did have the time to study this other music,” he said. “I kind of made these decisions by default back then, about going to the university. ‘Well, what do I do now?’ But as it turned out, it happened to be the most fulfilling thing I ever endeavored to do — get that degree and go down there and study that music.”

It was the deaths of Siomos and Mayo — coming a month and a half apart in early 2004 — that led to Sheldon reconnecting with his former frontman.

“That’s really what brought Pete and I together on a closer basis,” Sheldon said. “We started talking more, you know, talking about the things that get more important as we get older.

“It’s a lot deeper now,” he said of the pair’s relationship. “We both have grown up a lot and been through a lot in the last 35 years, you know? Speaking for myself, becoming clean and sober was a big, big, big thing. … And Peter, I can say that much on his behalf. It’s a much deeper relationship — we were actually coherent, if you know what I mean.”

Sheldon collaborated on a track for Frampton’s 2006 Grammy-winning album, “Fingerprints” and was then asked to rejoin the band for the current “Frampton Comes Alive 35” tour, which will be making a stop at Red Butte Garden in Salt Lake City on Wednesday.

The move brings Sheldon’s legacy with Frampton full circle, something which is not lost on the bassist after all these years.

“Believe it or not, I’m having more fun now than I did then,” he said of playing the “Frampton Comes Alive” material on stage again. “It’s hair-raising stuff for us, especially the first couple times we hit the stage. … It really hasn’t gone away. Every night has been really special. It’s really cool.”

For even more from Doug Fox’s interview with Stanley Sheldon, visit his blog at http://theeditingroomfloor.blogspot.com/.