Artist

Humble Pie

Moreton, United Kingdom • 1969 – 2002

Humble Pie is a music group from Moreton, United Kingdom, active 1969–2002. Their discography on Gatefold includes 24 records.

Start your shelf →Open in app

Albums tracked

In collections

1969

Since

Biography

Humble Pie is a British rock band originally active from 1969 to 1975, with later reunions and lineups continuing into the 21st century. The group is noted for its hard rock sound and dynamic live performances, particularly during its early 1970s period on A&M Records. The band was formed in 1969 and initially consisted of Steve Marriott (formerly of Small Faces), Peter Frampton (from The Herd), Greg Ridley (from Spooky Tooth), and Jerry Shirley (from The Apostolic Intervention).

The Arc of Humble Pie

The pivots — what forced Humble Pie to reinvent.

The Essex Cottage Days
The 1969 debut As Safe as Yesterday Is sounds like a band trying to shake off the pressure of being in the spotlight. They were hiding out at Marriott's Beehive Cottage, swapping instruments and leaning into an Americana-adjacent sound that predated the heavy blooze-rock label people eventually gave them. You can hear the lack of polish in the acoustic layering and the weird, pastoral harmonies that felt like a British answer to The Band. It’s the sound of four guys playing for themselves before the stadium tours forced them to turn the volume up.
The Frampton Exit
By 1971, the tension between Marriott’s desire to be a soul shouter and Frampton’s jazz-influenced melodicism reached a breaking point during the Performance Rockin' the Fillmore sessions. Frampton was already halfway out the door, tired of the volume wars and wanting to explore the smoother textures that would eventually make him a superstar. When Clem Clempson replaced him for the Smokin' record, the band lost the light-and-shade contrast that made them unique. It became a pure, greasy blues-rock outfit, heavier and simpler, which sold more records but lost the experimental edge.
The Soul Obsession and Decay
Marriott brought in The Blackberries—a trio of female backing singers including Venetta Fields—to turn the band into a full-blown R&B revue on the Eat It double album. He was chasing a sound that was half-Stax and half-asylum, pushing his voice into a territory that most humans can't reach without permanent damage. The labels were getting pissed off because the records were getting harder to market, eventually leading to the disjointed Street Rats sessions in 1975 where Marriott was basically finishing tracks alone. It was a messy, drug-fueled decline that signaled the end of the band's relevance before they tried a brief, slicker comeback in the eighties.

Influences

The Band — Marriott explicitly cited Music from Big Pink as the blueprint for the early Humble Pie sound. You hear it in the rural, multi-instrumental approach on Town and Country. They wanted that communal, ego-free songwriting dynamic before the Marshall stacks took over.
Ray Charles — Marriott lived and died by Brother Ray’s phrasing, often covering him in live sets and during the Scrubbers sessions. The way Marriott stretches vowels and uses that sandpaper grit is a direct attempt to channel Charles' gospel-drenched soul. It’s why he eventually brought in the Blackberries to mimic the Raelettes.
Muddy Waters — The band covered 'Rollin' Stone' on their 1971 Rock On LP, stripping the Chicago blues original down to a heavy, feedback-laden stomp. This is the foundation of their entire live identity. They took the primitive Delta structure and electrified it until it could fill an arena.
Otis Redding — Marriott was obsessed with Redding's intensity, which led the band to record a blistering version of 'I Can't Stand It' on the Street Rats album. The vocal delivery on the Fillmore tapes is a straight lift of Otis' rhythmic grunts and 'got-ta, got-ta' ad-libs. He didn't just want to sing the songs; he wanted to inhabit the sweat of the Stax era.
The Byrds — Early on, the band leaned into the twelve-string jangle and vocal harmonies found on Younger Than Yesterday. You hear this specifically in Frampton’s early contributions before his guitar tone became more saturated. They were chasing that West Coast psychedelic-folk clarity before they got obsessed with volume.