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<\/p>\nA new release of little-heard Humble Pie music, Joint Effort<\/i> documents a strange period in the lifespan of the British hard rock group. Made not long after its lead singer briefly quit and returned, the collection of songs found the four band members contributing to various degrees. Falling somewhere between a proper album and a home recording project, Joint Effort<\/i> nonetheless expands listeners\u2019 understanding and appreciation of some of the qualities that made Humble Pie special.<\/p>\n
From the perspective of British music fans, Humble Pie was a supergroup; its four members all came from previously established bands. Guitarist Peter Frampton had been a member of the Herd, scoring three UK Top 40 singles, two of which cracked the Top 10. As leader and front man of Small Faces, the group best known for \u201cItchycoo Park\u201d and \u201cTin Soldier,\u201d Steve Marriott enjoyed a dozen hit singles in the UK. Bassist Greg Ridley had been a member of Spooky Tooth for its first two highly-regarded albums. And while the youngest member of the group, drummer Jerry Shirley, had played in a band\u2014Apostolic Intervention\u2014that only released one single, his powerhouse timekeeping earned the attention of some of the biggest figures in British rock (he played on both of former Pink Floyd guitarist Syd Barrett\u2019s solo LPs).<\/p>\n
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Humble Pie got off to a bit of a slow start; while the debut album (1969\u2019s As Safe as Yesterday Is<\/i>) reached #32 on the British album charts, the band\u2019s next two full-length releases didn\u2019t chart at all. It\u2019s worth noting, however, that all three records earned positive critical notices. The band hit its stride with 1971\u2019s Performance: Rockin\u2019 the Fillmore<\/i>, a 2LP document of a successful run at New York City\u2019s famed Fillmore East. Thanks to heavy touring in the U.S. and powerful hit singles like \u201cI Don\u2019t Need No Doctor\u201d and \u201cHot \u2018n\u2019 Nasty,\u201d Humble Pie built a solid stateside following. The band\u2019s brand of bluesy hard rock has worn well over the decades; the landmark Performance<\/i> has received several reissues, the most notable and comprehensive being a 4CD set released in 2013 by Omnivore Recordings, Performance: Rockin\u2019 the Fillmore \u2014 The Complete Recordings<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Customary creative differences and internal dissension made Humble Pie\u2019s lineup a volatile mix. In 1971, Frampton was the first to leave, embarking upon what would eventually unfold as an enormously successful solo career. His position was filled by guitarist Clem Clempson. Marriott, Ridley and Shirley would remain until 1975, but even prior to that, Humble Pie was occasionally in chaos. At one point, lead singer Marriott left, and the band began the process of searching for a replacement.<\/p>\n
\u201cDerek Green, head of A&M in England, was aware of the fact that we\u2019d had a bust-up and Steve was potentially \u2018on his bike,\u2019 on his way out,\u201d recalls Jerry Shirley. But the drummer, Clempson and Ridley already had a replacement in mind: singer-guitarist Bobby Tench, a highly-regarded journeyman musician who had (among other notable credits) been a member of the Jeff Beck Group.<\/p>\n
But when the band members told Green of their choice, \u201che went pale,\u201d says Shirley with a chuckle. \u201cPoor Derek Green said, \u2018No, I don\u2019t think so. That\u2019s not going to work.\u2019\u201d The label head went on to explain to them that he had just signed Tench to a recording deal with a band called Hummingbird, featuring other ex-Beck band mates.<\/p>\n
Things got weirder and more frustrating from there. \u201cBizarrely,\u201d says Shirley, still incredulous at the idea, \u201cour management suggested Billy Joel. In rock \u2018n\u2019 roll terms, that\u2019s a bit like suggesting Engelbert Humperdinck! I can\u2019t imagine Humble Pie rocking out on \u2018Just the Way You Are.\u2019\u201d The idea was summarily dismissed, and soon thereafter, Marriott returned to the group.<\/p>\n
With monies earned from its record deal, Humble Pie had built a proper recording studio of its own in Steve Marriott\u2019s home. It was there that the sessions for what would eventually come to be known as Joint Effort<\/i> would be recorded in 1974-75. The band had first used its new studio to record its sixth LP, 1973\u2019s Eat It<\/i>. But there were problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a proper 16-track with a Helios desk,\u201d Shirley recalls. \u201cEverything was top notch and cost a fortune. Unfortunately, the mix for Eat It<\/i> suffered because\u2014bless his heart\u2014Steve was putting too much bass and low end on it.\u201d What sounded perfectly fine on high quality studio reference monitors ended up hopelessly muddy on consumer-grade stereo speakers, and nobody involved recognized the problem. \u201cThere was a lot of \u2018Peruvian love dust\u2019 flying around at the time,\u201d Shirley acknowledges.<\/p>\n
The mix would be corrected on subsequent pressings of Eat It<\/i>, and the band learned from its technical mistakes when making its next LP, Thunderbox.<\/i> But other complications were causing difficulties. \u201cWe were still playing great, and we were still getting along great,\u201d Shirley emphasizes. \u201cBut we were falling foul to our vices; cocaine was doing our thinking for us.\u201d As a result, songwriting wasn\u2019t made the priority that perhaps it should have been. \u201cWe were doing a lot of covers,\u201d Shirley says.<\/p>\n
He recalls that it was about this time when \u201ccertain people around us\u2014record company people and even band members\u2014were starting to doubt the wisdom of recording at home. It invited trouble. And that was the environment under which Joint Effort<\/i> was made.\u201d<\/p>\n
The group members were turning out a lot of recorded material at the time. \u201cWe were making incredible amounts of music,\u201d Shirley says. \u201cSteve had about four different projects all going on at the same time; it was just constant recording, and he wasn\u2019t giving himself a minute to take a breather.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joint Effort <\/i>was one of those projects, made with core personnel that Shirley describes as Marriott plus \u201cGreg and some others. Clem was involved, and I was involved peripherally.\u201d But he still characterizes the sessions as a Humble Pie project. \u201cAll four of us paid for it,\u201d he points out. \u201cSo in that sense, anything that was made there was a production of something that we all made together, whether we were on the record or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
The liner notes for the 2019 release of Joint Effort<\/i> don\u2019t include detailed session notes, but Shirley recalls that vocal group the Blackberries were involved, along with Mel Collins from King Crimson. \u201cWe used to call him \u2018All Horns\u2019 because we would overdub him doing the baritone, the tenor, and the alto to make a brass section,\u201d Shirley says.<\/p>\n
Marriott himself played drums on some of the Joint Effort<\/i> tracks, as did, Shirley suspects, Ian Wallace, also from King Crimson. While Shirley did play drums on a few cuts, still other tracks feature a drum machine. The technology was still in its infancy in the \u201870s, so the results aren\u2019t always as spirited as they might have been with a human drummer. Still, Shirley expresses admiration for one of the drum-machine tracks, a rousing cover of James Brown\u2019s \u201cThink.\u201d The album\u2019s standout cut is a reading of the Beatles\u2019 \u201cRain\u201d that totally reinvents the psychedelic song as a cosmic blues rocker.<\/p>\n
When Marriott presented the finished mixes for Joint Effort<\/i> to A&M, the executives were not pleased with what they heard. \u201cThey rejected it out of hand,\u201d Shirley says. \u201cThey said, \u2018No, this is far below your regular standard.\u2019 Greg and Steve were devastated.\u201d He says that despite all of the turmoil that was going on in and around the band, Ridley managed to maintain a semblance of levelheadedness. \u201cGreg was quite proud of what was being made, because he could just put all that other stuff to one side and see the music, if you like.\u201d<\/p>\n The semi-bootleggers of this earlier release couldn’t be bothered to place the photo properly, so Humble Pie has left-handed players. Alas.<\/p><\/div>\n The tapes from the Joint Effort<\/i> sessions did eventually find their way into the listening public\u2019s hands. The ten songs from that master had begun circulating among bootleg collectors, and in 1999 a release of somewhat dodgy provenance was released as Running With the Pack<\/i>. That release was sourced from a tape of unknown generation, with fidelity to match. The new, officially-sanctioned Joint Effort<\/i> is taken from the best quality masters available. \u201cIt\u2019s not from the studio 16-tracks,\u201d Shirley concedes. \u201cWhat they are probably working from is that original cassette that was handed to A&M. But of course, in today\u2019s world, you can take [a recording] that is not that great and return it to its original glory.\u201d<\/p>\n Early copies of the new Joint Effort<\/i> release\u2014including copies sent to reviewers\u2014went out with the wrong cover art. Those copies featured photos of Humble Pie circa 1971, a time when Peter Frampton was still in the group. The error has since been corrected, and the current cover features a live photo of the band live onstage. Shirley\u2019s face is hidden in the shot, but he doesn\u2019t seem to mind. \u201cI\u2019m just glad it\u2019s finally been released as Joint Effort<\/i>,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was something that Steve and Greg wanted and something that we all did contribute to one way or another. And there are some nice pieces on there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A new release of little-heard Humble Pie music, Joint Effort documents a strange period in the lifespan of the British hard rock group. Made not long after its lead singer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16632,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,62,64],"tags":[1024,3820,2054],"class_list":["post-16631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-rawk","category-reissue","tag-humble-pie","tag-jerry-shirley","tag-steve-marriott","cat-41-id","cat-62-id","cat-64-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16631"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23515,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16631\/revisions\/23515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/humble_pie_rwtp.jpg\")