Running With The Pack

When singer Peter Frampton left Humble Pie in 1971 and became a full-time solo artist, it was a major blow for the British band, but not a fatal one. Some of Humble Pie's post-Frampton LPs were uneven, but some were solid. Assembled in 1999, this British release takes a generally enjoyable, 65-minute look at singer Steve Marriott's post-Frampton work with the British outfit. Running With the Pack contains four live performances (all of them from a December 1973 show in Philadelphia) and ten early-'70s studio recordings -- and there is a major difference between the two. Taking the stage in Philly, Humble Pie gets into a heavy, guitar-powered hard rock/boogie groove on "Stone Cold Fever," "C'mon Everyday," "I Don't Need No Doctor," and "Four Day Creep" (which gives the impression that Marriott had been paying a lot of attention to Robert Plant's singing with Led Zeppelin). Much of the studio material, meanwhile, takes a funky, soul-drenched approach to rock -- sort of Ike & Tina Turner meets Janis Joplin meets Otis Redding meets Rare Earth. And Marriott sounds like he is enjoying his soul obsession tremendously on Brown's "Think" as well as original material like "Snakes & Ladders," "Charlene," and "Midnight of My Life." But as John Hellier points out in his liner notes, the other members of Humble Pie didn't share Marriott's enthusiasm for this blue-eyed soul direction -- and the result was a return to the heavier, guitar-powered hard rock/boogie mindset that one hears on the Philadelphia performances. All things considered, Running With the Pack paints an attractive, if imperfect, picture of Humble Pie's post-Frampton work. ~ Alex Henderson|