Humble Pie Performance: Rockin’ the Fillmore (1971)

From thequietus.com

Peter Frampton sliced out of Humble Pie shortly before the original release of 1971’s Performance: Rockin’ the Filmore. Singer and guitarist Steve Marriott’s controlling nature and hyperactivity had become too much for him – same as it had for many of Marriott’s collaborators before and after. In fact, during the stint at the Filmore East, prankster Marriott took the liberty of urinating in Frampton’s hotel closet, leaving him to “put up with the stench for several days,” he told Rolling Stone in 1977. Tensions came to a head shortly after and Frampton left to pursue a solo career, forced to watch regretfully as Rockin’ climbed the charts and brought the band their first taste of international success. Those regrets didn’t last long however, with his subsequent solo success and the release of quintessentially 70s talk box monster Frampton Comes Alive! in 1976. It’s perhaps testament to Frampton’s stage prowess that his most successful album in Humble Pie and his biggest solo effort are both live recordings.

But he is not the standout star of Rockin’. Initially slapped with the label of ‘supergroup’, Humble Pie were born out of Marriot and Frampton’s wishes to escape the teeny-bopperdom of their previous groups (The Small Faces and The Herd, respectively) and find success based on musical merits. Therefore, no opportunity is missed when it comes to demonstrating virtuosity. Rounded out with former Spooky Tooth member Greg Ridley and the young can basher Jerry Shirley, the band were a bluesy and boozy romp that dipped a toe into prog rock waters. Rockin’ shows the band at their full-tilt peak, but highlights the group’s shortcomings as well as their strengths. The highs being their incredible crowd domination, tightly woven lead guitar lines and unique mix of vocals; the lows being the lack of original material, dragged out tangents and occasional sloppiness – though that does bring a touch of ramshackle authenticity. A plus for this particular reissue is that the producing on the release was done by the remaining personnel: lead guitarist Frampton and drummer Jerry Shirley. (Marriott died after falling asleep with a lit cigarette in 1991 and Ridley succumbed to pneumonia in 2003). The four-discs contain the sets of four shows performed at New York’s Fillmore East over two days in May 1971, with 15 previously unissued performances and one completely unheard-before first set from May 28th.

The sound (mixed by engineer Ashley Shepherd) is phenomenal – a noticeable difference from the original mix. It left me tempted to empty my wallet at the next shop I saw stocking studio-grade headphones and clear my schedule. The band’s total control over the crowd is accurately put on show. At times when the blare reduces to a hush, the clarity of even an airy hum by Marriott is crisp and clean. The separate dirty tones of the two guitars can be effortlessly distinguished and no one singer’s voice is muddied in the mix.

The timbres of Marriott, Frampton and Ridley carry a comparable grit and lay on top of one another seamlessly. Frampton’s distinctive tenor is firmly sandwiched between Marriott’s soulful belting on the high end and Ridley’s masculine low tones – though Marriott is the one true acrobat and hits more notes than a bank robber over this sprawling collection.

Drummer Jerry Shirley was just 19-years-old when the recordings were made, but proves a solid backing for the expansive twiddling – certainly more suited to the job than the groggy style of Small Faces drummer Kenney Jones. Perhaps most importantly, Shirley doesn’t get in anyone’s way. The highlight track of the album, a cover of Ray Charles’ ‘Hallelujah (I Love Her So)’, is a warm hug each of the four times the band launches into it on this collection, following their famously lengthy interpretations of Dr John’s ‘I Walk On Gilded Splinters’. ‘Hallelujah’ braves the ages the best and benefits unbelievably from Shepherd’s mix – the first notes crunch like a car being trash compacted in comparison to the original, even if the quality of the guitar soloing isn’t always consistent (re: CD 3’s version).

On the negative side, you can nearly get through any one of the Ramones’ first four albums in the time it takes to sit through a single Humble Pie rendition of ‘Gilded Splinters’. The four versions on this box set range in length from 26:06 to 27:34. And while there is some excellent Frampton guitar work and the forboding ascending intros are juxtaposed beautifully with the audience’s quiet banter/guttural outbursts, this is just too much. The difference between the versions is not notable enough to justify them all save for completion’s sake. But then again, the simple creation of this collection is going to appeal most to completists. The analytical fan will revel most in comparing the improvised sections of the different versions. Marriott in particular still has a thriving and passionate fanbase, members of which will love hearing him on fine cockney-jabbering form here. And thanks to this excellent mix, you can hear every shriek, every shout of “sing it Steve” and even perceive the distances of spattered laughter from the crowd during Marriott’s blues rap-riffing during the versions of Muddy Waters’ ‘Rolling Stone’.

The only one drawback of the transformed sound is that the strain on the three men’s voices is painfully obvious. The scratchiness is so vivid it sounds like they have been gargling razors. You may find your hand moving to your throat in sympathy.

Another disappointment with this release – well, with the original too – is the lack of self-penned material. Four Humble Pie albums predate Rockin’ and each contains just one cover version. So it seems a shame that ‘Stone Cold Fever’, albeit a tasty slice, remains the only pure Humble Pie original on this, their most famous record of the Frampton era. It was a fact never disputed, but still a sad truth.

Yet with the un-sequenced and unedited purity of the original sets preserved, this is a great addition to any Pie fan’s shelves because it is documentation of the original work. The listener can judge the consistency and improvisational skill of all the musicians involved across the performances and the result is an accurate feel for who this band was at the time. The mistakes are all left in. The only real difference is that now you can hear them better than ever.

Humble Pie Performance – Rockin’ the Fillmore: the Complete Recordings (2013)

From popmatters.com

The double live album was a staple of rock and roll in the early years of the 1970s, and many of those recordings were captured from the stage of the Fillmore East.

From the Allman Brothers to Frank Zappa and the Mothers, the Fillmore East in New York City was the place to record a band in front of an enthusiastic crowd. So it made sense that Humble Pie, an English super group with a sizzling live reputation but less than stellar US sales, would choose that venue for their own chance to bottle the lightning that had evaded them in the studio. They recorded four shows over two nights at the end of May 1971, and from those recordings crafted the double live album Performance – Rockin’ the Fillmore.

Released that November, it was the breakthrough Humble Pie had hoped for, reaching #21 on the Billboard charts and Gold sales status from the RIAA. For over 40 years, that double album has been the definitive document of the original Humble Pie lineup of Steve Marriott, Peter Frampton, Greg Ridley and Jerry Shirley. Now Omnivore Recordings has released a box set of those four complete shows and displaced that prior construction as the pinnacle of the original Humble Pie.

When they left the studio for the stage, Humble Pie became something different altogether. Freed of the strictures of three minute long radio-friendly material, the four musicians came into their own. No longer was it Frampton extracting pop melodies from Marriott’s heavy R&B sensibilities, or Marriott dragging Frampton into a blues framework on a track-by-track basis. As this recording shows, their live partnership wasn’t a capitulation of one’s style to serve the other’s needs.

It was two artists constantly pulling away from each other, with the tension of their inherently different approaches held in equilibrium by the rhythm section of Ridley and Shirley. Jerry Shirley’s ability to both pound heavily when playing blues and to sit off the beat for a jazzier feel allowed him to buttress whichever guitarist had stepped to the fore. Greg Ridley’s bass playing was limber yet solid like Shirley’s drums, and alternated that support role with the drummer like one instrument. Their fluid approaches to rhythm let Frampton and Marriott follow where their muses took them without sacrifices from either frontman.

Though there isn’t much variety in the songs played over the four sets (understandable, given the need to cut and splice between different shows for the planned album), that doesn’t mean the performances of those compositions don’t differ from set to set. Sometimes, it’s merely an unrepeated ad-lib from Marriott or a slightly miffed return to a full band chorus from one of Frampton’s solos; more often, there are changes in approach and feeling that lead to substantially different takes.

For example, “I Walk on Gilded Splinters”, the Dr. John cover that is the heart and soul of each show, is entirely different not in structure or length but in the way the band plays it. The solos are in the same order and places and last roughly the same amount of time, and the subtle nod to Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen” appears at the same point in each recording. In the first set they’re aggressive yet unsure, and the result is a puffed out, chest-beating version of the song, more power than precision. That take is loud not lyrical.

The second is more comfortable, all jitters gone and worries laid aside. They sound proud of their precision, and though the power’s still there, it’s contained. This is a band that knows just how good they can be, and knowing they had reached that peak. The third version, from the first set on the second night, is nearly as tight, but the band dialed back the fury another notch to allow for greater elasticity. This sounds like a band listening to each other, where vocal lines, guitar licks, or drum fills all prove to be launching pads for the next piece of improvisation.

By the last set, Humble Pie knew they had at least two excellent versions of the song to choose from for the eventual album. There is no pressure to achieve greatness. The result is the most laid back, lyrical, fluid and fun rendition of “I Walk on Gilded Splinters” they recorded. Unsurprisingly, this final version is the one they chose for Performance – Rockin’ the Fillmore back in 1971. It’s sublime. All 27 minutes of it.

Twenty seven minutes. That’s the elephant in the room, and one that must be addressed. This box set is a mere 22 songs, and lasts just a bit over four hours. Each show is five or six songs, lasting between 50- and 70-odd minutes. The music is not intricate suites, broken into many parts, each with huge compositional differences or changes that keep the ear and mind constantly alert. It’s simple blues-rock taken to epic lengths through multiple solos. This is excess at its most basic, where each member stepped to the front and had their moment in the spotlight.

That the audiences sat in rapt attention, cheering each bent note or soulful wail, seems odd in this day and age. But that very fact is what makes this so compelling. It actually deserves and rewards that kind of attention, the close listening that seems antithetical to an increasingly distracted and distracting world. It may be an artifact of a bygone era, one that in all reality lasted only a few short years, but it’s one of the best.