Humble Pie’s breakthrough to wide acceptance via 1971’s Performance: Rockin’ the Fillmore was a stark contrast in style and sound to their two earliest studio efforts. The sophomore likes of Town & Country, from just two years earlier, was a natural progression from the quartet’s 1969 debut As Safe As Yesterday Is.
With the hindsight of fifty-five years, however, both those records contain only hints of the increasingly more complex approach that evolved through the fittingly-titled third LP Rock On, the last studio effort released before the live title to follow a few months later.
Dubbed a supergroup by including Peter Frampton (of the popular English group The Herd) and Steve Marriott (from the much more well-known Small Faces), Humble Pie consciously or unconsciously positioned itself as the point of convergence for two major strains of contemporary rock.
Beginning their earliest live shows the British quartet played an acoustic set that presaged the sensitive singer /songwriters of the next decade before embarking upon renderings of electric music that predated heavy metal. Thus, their 1969 releases form the foundation of their style.
Legalities kept the foursome from recording and touring in short order after their formation, but they used the time wisely to write a plethora of original material and rehearse their stage presentation (and adopt a name for themselves designed to play down public expectations).
Accordingly, beginning with the organ-dominated drama of “Desperation” (a cover of Steppenwolf), there’s a fairly wide range of style among the ten cuts and forty-seven-plus minutes of playing time of their first of two long players within a twelve-month span (none of which selections appeared on the double live title).
Nimble rhythm work from bassist Greg Ridley and drummer Jerry Shirley prevented bombast, while tradeoffs in vocals between Frampton and Marriott were somewhat deceiving in terms of the principals’ overall participation: besides co-authoring the title cut, the former only contributed two songs of his own, “Stick Shift” and the short, sitar-festooned “I’ll Go Alone,” while the latter penned the rest of the originals on the record.
That disproportionate workload between the two was a sign of things to come. After The Pie’s original label in Britain, Immediate Records went under, they signed with A&M under the tutelage of manager Dee Anthony. Even more significantly, in the wake of that turning point, the late Marriott’s R&B leanings rose to great volume in the mix, as did his guitar, a shift in emphasis contrary to the careful balance within As Safe As Yesterday Is.
The initial Humble Pie is, in fact, a well-wrought combination of Marriott’s soul with Frampton’s eloquence. This composite is further highlighted with varied instruments, including prominent keyboards on some fairly conventional pop-oriented material such as “Buttermilk Boy.” In addition, the initial strains of acoustic guitars, flute, and harmonica appear on “Growing Closer,” a tune chipped in by (Small) Faces keyboardist Ian McLagan.
With production by the late Andy Johns (younger brother of the better-known Glyn), the band’s arrangements defied some expectations, even if, in the case of the latter selection, they too closely resembled some early Traffic tunes. Rounds of lead singing from Frampton, Marriott, and Ridley, plus the three’s harmony vocals, distinguish cuts like the title track.
The hammer-down latter section of that cut–used to bludgeoning effect in later concerts–is an ever-so-slight exception to a rule of self-restraint and intelligence in play on the As Safe As Yesterday Is. Besides inviting more than a few revelations in comparison with Humble Pie’s first record, 2013’s four-disc box set Performance: The Complete Recordings fully documents Humble Pie’s two-night/four-show run at the late Bill Graham’s historic New York venue and, in so doing, confirms the metamorphosis of the foursome.
In retrospect, it’s certainly telling that Peter Frampton had departed the band by the time the live album was released. He went on to what is still a viable solo career today, notable for its similarly-conceived concert pinnacle (Frampton Comes Alive), but more distinguished in artistic terms, beginning with the elegance of the initial effort under his name, the aptly titled Wind of Change.
Subsequent efforts by a revamped Humble Pie led by the diminutive Marrott (who passed in 1991) emphasized his preferred genre influences. But records like 1972’s Smokin’ (with guitarist Clem Clempson in tow) only succeeded in presenting an ensemble (often enlarged with backup singers) that sounded more heavy-handed and anonymous.
Notwithstanding its prevalent sturm und drang, Humble Pie’s Fillmore ought to receive some credit for ushering in the era of the live album. After all, The Allman Brothers’ seminal release from the same venue was issued less than six months before that title in the same year. Accordingly, Frampton, Marriott, and company’s fifth overall long-player shouldn’t relegate previous work like their debut to a mere footnote in rock history.
Still, with the hindsight of a half-century plus, there’s no denying that the former’s aforementioned career breakthrough, after a handful of his own LPs, fully overshadows his own (lengthening) discography and that of his former group.
