Humble Pioe

Humble Pie's Official Bootleg Box Set Volume 1 is a raw testament to what this band did best; playing bluesy, gutsy, soulful and often hard rock, live on stage to an adoring audience. Drawn from a variety of mainly audience recordings that have previously only been available as "under the counter" pirate releases, this is an honest, and often unforgiving, tribute to a classic and much missed '70s supergroup. Originally emerging from the remnants of '60s beat heroes, The Small Faces, Humble Pie formed in 1969 when guitarist and vocalist Steve Marriott joined forces with Peter Frampton, drummer Jerry Shirley and bassist Greg Ridley, and signed to Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate label.

Humble Pie's Official Bootleg Box Set Volume 1 is a raw testament to what this band did best; playing bluesy, gutsy, soulful and often hard rock, live on stage to an adoring audience. Drawn from a variety of mainly audience recordings that have previously only been available as "under the counter" pirate releases, this is an honest, and often unforgiving, tribute to a classic and much missed '70s supergroup. Originally emerging from the remnants of '60s beat heroes, The Small Faces, Humble Pie formed in 1969 when guitarist and vocalist Steve Marriott joined forces with Peter Frampton, drummer Jerry Shirley and bassist Greg Ridley, and signed to Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate label.

Steve Marriott formed Humble Pie in 1968 with Greg Ridley, Peter Frampton and Jerry Shirley. Their debut single "Natural Born Bugie" became a hit in the UK Singles Chart and was followed by the album As Safe As Yesterday Is, which rose to number sixteen in the UK album charts. Their second album, Town and Country was released in the UK during 1969 while the band was away on its first tour of USA. This album featured a more acoustic sound and songs written by all four members.

Alternating hard-driving blues-rockers with country-folk numbers, Humble Pie neatly showcases the two sides of this band's personality on their first release for a major American label and third album overall. All of the elements are in place for the sound that would reach its studio peak with the next release, Rock On, and culminate with the classic Live at the Fillmore album. "Earth and Water Song" provides a blueprint for the acoustic guitar-based sound Peter Frampton would ride to multi-platinum success as a solo artist later in the decade. "One Eyed Trouser-Snake Rumba" and "Red Light Mama, Red Hot!" show the hard-rocking direction in which Steve Marriott would move the band after Frampton's departure the following year.

Anyone who thinks of Humble Pie solely in terms of their latter-day boogie rock will be greatly surprised with this, the band's second release, for it is almost entirely acoustic. There is a gently rocking cover of Buddy Holly's "Heartbeat," and a couple of electrified Steve Marriott numbers, but the overall feel is definitely more of the country than the town or city. "The Sad Bag of Shaky Jake" is a typical Marriott country ditty, similar to those he would include almost as a token on each of the subsequent studio albums, and "Every Mother's Son" is structured as a folk tale. On "The Light of Love," Marriott even plays sitar. Peter Frampton's contributions here foreshadow the acoustic-based music he would make as a solo artist a few years later. As a whole, this is a crisp, cleanly recorded, attractive-sounding album, totally atypical of the Humble Pie catalog, but well worth a listen.