“I think it took one take to record the backing track, then we sent off to the toilet to write some lyrics, because he did a lot of his best writing on the pot.” Meanwhile, Stills was taking a break from mixing the first Manassas album. One of the guests was Stephen Stills, who dropped by from the studio next door, and (though uncredited at the time) is the first voice heard on the track. The opening barnstormer, “Hot & Nasty” was even more spontaneous, written, and recorded on the spot. The music side fell together there and then.” He’d say, ‘What do you think of this: ‘Newcastle Brown can sure smack you down’? So when we got to Smokin’ I said to him, ‘What about that tune you were putting together last year?’ There was a little amp in the studio with a certain tremelo sound to it. It was written on the road, by Steve with help from each of us. “That one’s all about debauchery, drink and drugs and so on. According to Shirley, it was a song Marriott wrote in pieces and then forgot about. It’s not often you’ll hear such a good-timey song about spending a month in jail. “30 Days in the Hole” is in some ways the definitive Humble Pie song: It’s got the soul feel and the Marriott wails, along with the trademark, boozy camaraderie. Yet the album’s two anthems, and its two side-openers, were both developed in the studio. He had a jukebox going on in his head all day.” “C’mon Everybody” got more of an update, partly inspired by a similar job The Who did on Cochran’s “Summertime Blues.” The iconic Smokin’ hits Their version of “Roadrunner” was born that way: “It was driven by a rhythm section jam we were working up, and Steve’s vast knowledge of past rock & roll. Much to our financial chagrin later in life.” Many of the covers came out of band jams: If a riff started working and it fit with some vintage song that Marriott or the band loved, they kept it. Says Shirley, “We didn’t care if we wrote a song, or the local milkman wrote it. Smokin’ also includes two covers – Junior Walker & The All Stars’ “(I’m A) Roadrunner” and Eddie Cochran’s “C’mon Everybody.” Covers were by now a fairly large part of the Pie repertoire. “I used to get a sympathetic pain in my groin every time I heard Steve hit those notes.” “That middle eight is a real nut crusher, to put it mildly,” Shirley says. Everybody was doing that back then – the lead guitarist would play a blues solo somewhere in the set, and he was so good at it.” Also developed early were two riff-heavy rockers, “The Fixer” and “Sweet Peace & Time.” Bassist Ridley sings verses on the latter while Marriott goes full-throttle on the bridge. “That was done intentionally to give Clem’s blues lead playing a really good airing. “I Wonder” is one of the very few slow blues songs that Humble Pie ever put on an album – and it’s a monster, their longest studio track at nine minutes. Clempson wasn’t as much of a singer or acoustic player, but he was a powerhouse of a blues-based guitarist.Ĭlempson immediately put his mark on songs the band had developed as a trio. Enter guitarist Dave “Clem” Clempson, who was immediately hired after Marriott spotted a couple of hot solos on a Colosseum live album. After the first round of auditions for a new guitarist didn’t work out, they wrote a bunch of heavier songs and considered going out as a trio. “But he’d be the first to tell you that when he left and wound up opening for us, he was thinking ‘Oh dear, what did I do?’” The arrival of Clem Clempson “He could see that acoustic side of things was going to be sidelined,” Shirley now recalls. Frampton, of course, became a sensation with his own double live album, but it took some time. This paid off handsomely on the live album Rockin’ the Fillmore, with their classic take on Ray Charles’ “I Don’t Need No Doctor.” But shortly after its release, and just after the Shea show, Frampton jumped ship, realizing that the band’s direction was shifting away from his interests. So Humble Pie initially functioned as a democratic supergroup: Everybody wrote songs, everybody sang lead, and the sound seesawed from heavy rock to the acoustic direction of their second LP, Town & Country.Įventually, they acquired a US manager and booking agent – Dee Anthony and Frank Barsalona – who gave them a recipe for American success: More hard rock, more Marriott upfront. Bassist Greg Ridley and drummer Jerry Shirley, meanwhile, came from cult favorite hard-rock bands Spooky Tooth and Apostolic Intervention. When Humble Pie formed in 1969, everybody had something of a profile: Marriott had been in the Small Faces guitarist/singer Peter Frampton, fresh from the Herd, was known both for his chops and his good looks (the UK press called him the “face of ‘68”). It was also the sound of a band in transition, both in sound and personnel.
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