History recalls them as the runt of the litter. In their prime, they were considered to be one of the greatest live acts in the world, but they never quite captured that energy and excitement on record, and thus got left behind in the Great British Rock Boom of the late 60s and early 70s. Yet Humble Pie bestrode the era with a confidence and swagger that few could match.
The band formed in 1969 around 22-year-old former Small Faces singer/ guitarist Steve Marriott and 19-year old former pretty-boy guitarist-singer with The Herd, Peter Frampton, augmented by previously unknown 17-year-old drummer Jerry Shirley and 21-year-old former Spooky Tooth bassist Greg Ridley, and the initial idea was to play a mashup of post-psychedelic pop, earth-bound blues, a whisky-tumbler of country roots, and heavy-as-a-hammer rock with a capital ‘R’.
