04. Humble Pie As Safe As Yesterday Is 1969 (Immediate)
Blues Rock
A sweaty sounding crawler.
Overview
Fronted by the diminutive Steve Marriot who had already achieved fame in the Small Faces, Humble Pie would be the project that would take him onto a much heavier sound and greater all round artistic freedom. He was joined by ex-Herd guitarist Peter Frampton who would of course go on to become one of the most famous guitarists of the 1970s. Greg Ridley from Spooky Tooth (an early purveyor of heavy music) and session drummer Jerry Shirley. Right from the word go, Humble Pie were in the loose sense "A Supergroup" but with a very workmanlike attitude. The group even before they recorded, were a major influence on the then emerging Led Zeppelin, who would lift so much of the Humble Pie sound and make it their own. In fact Led Zep guitarist Jimmy Page had been so impressed with Steve Marriot as a vocalist back in his Small Faces' days, that he made Steve Marriot the benchmark for when he was looking for a vocalist to front Led Zeppelin. In fact the ties between the two groups ran even deeper, because back in their Small Faces days, Robert Plant was a hanger-on around the band and would usually run-out on errands for them, I wonder what for!!! Anyway, the debut album by Humble Pie was unique in its mixture of heavy blues rock and pastoral folk with American roots music.
Steve Marriot- Guitar/Organ/Vocals
Peter Frampton- Guitar
Greg Ridley- Bass
Jerry Shirley- Drums
Production- Andy Johns
Album
Desperation- A Steppenwolf cover and the perfect introduction into the crushing rock sound of the band.
Stick Shift- Peter Frampton penned and probably the weakest track on the album.
Buttermilk Boy- Loud and fun as the band crank it up again and I'm certain Deep Purple lifted elements of the song for "Anyone's Daughter".
Growing Closer- Almost Jethro Tull in style with its flute.
As Safe As Yesterday Is- The title track and typical of the slow burning style of the album, and highlighted by its heavy outro.
Bang- One of those filler tracks, but still catchy when it wants to be.
Alabama 69- Practically a Southern Rock song with Peter Frampton on slide guitar.
I'll Go Alone- A 6 minute penned Peter Frampton song.
A Nifty Little Number Like You- One of the best tracks on the whole album.
What You Will- One of the band's more heartfelt compositions. Some versions of the album have the single "
Natural Born Bugie" which reached number 4 in the UK singles chart.
Verdict
The album is often seen as a mixture of musical ideas rather than one cohesive effort, but I often disagree with that and think the band were right there with their sound from the word go and quickly introduced us to their sweaty sounding blues based style of hard rock. But what I will agree with, is the fact that the album order can be found wanting at times and could've been arranged better. The album is actually a very original sounding piece of work, despite the fact that its heavily indebted to the 1960s and moves along at a very slow pace at times, which may put some listeners off, but that was the style of the band. The more you listen to this album, the more you realize that a number of future glam rocks acts of the 1970s had also lifted chunks off it as well. In terms of popularity, the group had been beaten to the line in 1969 by Led Zeppelin who had stolen the march on them and back then position and getting somewhere first seemed far more important than it does in today's music industry. Humble Pie would go on to become one of the big hard rock acts of the 1970s, but they wouldn't achieve the mega-famous status of fellow British luminaries such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. They would though, occupy the next strata in popularity just below, along with bands such as Free, UFO and Uriah Heep etc. Amazingly just a few months later, the band would release their sophomore set the impressive
Town and Country (finished outside my top 10) which was largely an acoustic set and remains the atypical release in the band's discography. Humble Pie were always a band that needed repeated listens to really appreciate the quality of their work.