Humble Pie

Humble Pie were a supergroup before anyone had worked out what that meant. In 1969 in Moreton, Essex, Steve Marriott, fresh out of the Small Faces, joined forces with Peter Frampton from the Herd, with bassist Greg Ridley, late of Spooky Tooth, and drummer Jerry Shirley from Apostolic Intervention holding down the bottom end. Marriott and Frampton both sang and played guitar, and Ridley sang too, so the band had voices to spare.

Once Frampton left in 1971 and Clem Clempson took his place, the Pie sounded like a greasy, stomping hard rock machine with Marriott howling like a soul shouter lost in a biker bar. Smokin', in 1972, is the proof: "30 Days in the Hole" rolls in on a filthy, loping riff and a gang-vocal chorus. "I Don't Need No Doctor", "Black Coffee", "Hot 'n' Nasty" and "Natural Born Bugie" filled out the run of songs that made the early '70s theirs.

Marriott kept a version going into the '80s, with Bobby Tench on board, and Shirley revived the name later, with Ridley and Tench back in the fold before the band wound down in 2002.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.