Humble Pie

At the peak of the Pie's inscrutably monstrous success -- Performance: Rockin' the Fillmore -- amiable maniac Steve Marriott brandished one of the most annoying voices in rock: a hectoring, sandpaper parody of black authenticity. With the group's platform boots and troglodyte riffing crushing the subtlety out of blues standards, Fillmore featured a 16-minute slaughter of Muddy Waters' "Rollin' Stone" that typified the band's "appeal." Now unlistenable, this stuff then was considered soulful, perhaps as a populist headbanging antidote to the smarmy "good taste" of the singer/songwriters who dominated radio.

For Marriott, at least artistically, such tripe was a bringdown. Having begun as a snappy popster with Small Faces, he formed Humble Pie in 1968 as a progressive outfit whose first two albums weren't bad, no matter how fawning their homage to the Band. Rock On hit harder, but still nodded toward taste. Peter Frampton helped keep things tuneful. Formerly of the Herd and later to find megastardom as a heartthrob, Frampton on guitar balanced Marriott like sweet does sour. Soon enough, though, Humble Pie headed for the boogie wastelands, never to return.

With more than 30 cuts, Hot 'n' Nasty is enough Humble Pie for anyone; the King Biscuit CD features characteristic live work from 1973 -- powerful in a neanderthal kind of way. (P.E.)

From The New Rolling Stone Album Guide