Review: Performance - Rockin' The Fillmore (Humble Pie)

HUMBLE PIE
PERFORMANCE-ROCKIN' THE FILLMORE
1971-A&M
Produced By HUMBLE PIE

1. Four Day Creep
2. I'm Ready
3. Stone Cold Fever
4. I Walk On Gilded Splinters
5. Rolling Stone
6. Hallelujah (I Love Her So)
7. I Don't Need No Doctor

Maybe Peter Frampton should have just made live albums. Before he was a teen idol, he was a member of Humble Pie. On their 5th album, the band, led by former Small Faces guitarist Steve Marriott, recorded 7 songs (only one original) for a sprawling, jammed out, boogie laden 2 record live set. This is about as hard as anyone rocked in 1971...it's loud and the guitar work is sometimes amazing. Frampton keeps Marriott balanced, and the rhythm section is drum tight. Unfortunately, there's excess here...Marriott, with his awful voice, desecrates Muddy Water's "Rolling Stone" with no shame, and the 23 minute "I Walk On Gilded Splinters" proves that Humble Pie was no Allman Brothers Band.

Frampton left just before the album was released to start a puzzling solo career. He never rocked this hard again. It's worthwhile, if for nothing else, to see what he was capable of besides "I'm In You". Marriott died in a fire in 1991, just as he and Frampton had started working together again.

This is album #36 in an ongoing series.