Hard, Heavy and a Classic 1972
Humble Pie Smokin’ 1972 (A&M)
Boogie Blues-Hard Rock
Hot and sweaty boogie blues at its very best.
The Album
There always comes a time when you’re doing projects like this, when you think should this artist make the list or not and this was one such time. Up until now Humble Pie have been regularly featured in this journal, but as albums went by the band seemed to gradually embrace more and more of their blues and R&B roots, which was really in stark contrast to a lot of the other bands featured so far who were gradually doing just the opposite. This album
Smokin’ their fifth release is indeed heavy, but I felt that it didn’t qualify for the main list this time, as the band were moving into a more boogie dominated sound thus making their ‘heavy status' more of secondary label for the band. This change in sound had seen guitarist Pete Frampton leave the band after the live album
Performance Rockin’ the Fillmore the previous year. Frampton had wanted the band to continue in more moderate vein with songs mostly centred around more melody and acoustic sections (which would have moved the band from the main list anyway) while singer/songwriter Steve Marriot had wanted to move into a more heavier boogie blues sound, which in some ways could’ve have been seen as a throwback to the late 1960s and this was the direction that band took along with a strong dosage of soul. So with each passing year the dominance of blues directly into either a hard rock or heavy metal was fast becoming extremely diluted as certain bands were shedding their heavy credentials, in order to create a more mainstream sound.
The album itself, probably stands as the band’s best ever studio release, the songs are focused despite the fact they sound like the songs from an album that should’ve been recorded circa 1969/1970 and Pete Frampton’s replacement on guitar Peter 'Clem' Clempson ex Colosseum gave the band the type of guitar that was required for the sound that Steve Marriot had envisaged on this album, Clem Clempson was a fantastic guitarist in the blues tradition and he often got overshadowed by the fact that he was Peter Frampton's replacement in the band.
Smokin’ was produced by Steve Marriot himself and his involvement in the album became something of an obsession at the time and that passion or obsession certainly comes across throughout the album, whether it’s on the heavy bluesy tracks like the superb almost nine minutes of “I Wonder” a track that early Led Zeppelin would’ve been proud of to call their own or the superb cover choice on the album Eddie Cochran’s “C’mon Everybody” and the excellent album closer "Sweet Peace and Time" The album would also be the band's biggest commercial release as well, by reaching the Top 10 of the US Billboard Chart of 1972 and the band would continue throughout the rest of the decade in this boogie blues style.
Steve Marriot- Guitar/Vocals
Peter Clempson- Guitar
Greg Ridley- Bass
Jerry Shirley- Drums
Production- Steve Marriot