Frustrated with a number of things but mostly his image as a teen idol, Steve Marriott finally had enough. It was New Year’s Eve, 1969, when he threw down his guitar and walked off the stage at London’s Alexandra Palace, quitting his band, Small Faces. Marriott was a talented musician and vocalist who wanted to be taken seriously for his music, not his looks.
After quitting, Steve Marriott called two friends – one was Peter Frampton – another frustrated teen idol who had recently quit his band, Herd – and the other was 17-year-old drummer Jerry Shirley. Marriott asked his friends if he could join the band they were forming and, to sweeten the pot, said he’d bring with him Greg Ridley, a well-respected bass player from the band Spooky Tooth, who was also looking to make a change. Well, of course, Frampton and Shirley couldn’t turn down an offer like that and so the newest “supergroup” (as the press called them) was created. The guys in the band hated being called a supergroup … they were worried about expectations being set too high and dooming them to failure. In retaliation they chose a name they were more comfortable with: Humble Pie.
Their debut album, “As Safe As Yesterday Is”, was released in August 1969, along with the single, “Natural Born Bugie”. “As Safe As Yesterday Is” was one of the first albums to be described by the term “heavy metal” in a 1970 review in Rolling Stone magazine.
In 1971 Humble Pie released their most successful record to date, “Rock On“, as well as a live album recorded at the Fillmore East in New York entitled “Performance Rockin’ the Fillmore”. Culled from four sets recorded on May 28 and 29, 1971 (the original LP was essentially a sampler of songs from several raucous shows), “Performance Rockin’ the Fillmore” was released that November as a double album set. Humble Pie was second on the bill, after Fanny and before headliner Lee Michaels, a fact hardly anyone seems to remember. I will testify to that because I was in the audience at the Fillmore East on May 28, 1971 and the only group I remember seeing was Humble Pie. That was just one month before the legendary Fillmore closed its doors - the end of an era in the history of rock.
Peter Frampton’s final recording with Humble Pie in 1971 was, by some irony, the band’s most successful, and is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential live albums of the decade. Humble Pie produced 11 studio albums and 2 live albums.
“I Don’t Need No Doctor” from “Performance Rockin’ the Fillmore” was an R&B song written by Nick Ashford, Valerie Simpson and Jo Armstead, first released by Ashford in August 1966; it went nowhere. The song has been recorded by Ray Charles, John Mayer, rock bands New Riders of the Purple Sage, Great White and Styx, metal band W.A.S.P. and others. Humble Pie’s version became an FM radio standard in the US. From: https://theelephantstrunk.org/2024/04/25/let-them-eat-pie/
