Album review: HUMBLE PIE – I Need A Star In My Life

Cleopatra Records [Release date 02.09.22]

Humble Pie’s light shone for a few years in the early 1970s when – with Peter Frampton in the line-up – they released the classic live album ‘Performance Rockin The Fillmore’.

By 1974 the band’s more commercial focus had changed and ultimately Humble Pie imploded.

These recordings represent an album that was gestating in late 1974. Dave Thompson’s comprehensive liner note sets the scene. He quotes keyboard player Tim Hinckley: “Steve (Marriott) and I wanted to record an album with no restrictions at his home studio.”

A&M rejected the recordings and it was ‘Street Rats’ that was released in 1975, essentially the band’s swansong.

With guests including Boz Burrell and Ian Wallace (King Crimson), BJ Cole and Mel Collins, the core line-up of original members Marriott, Greg Ridley and Jerry Shirley also feature. Clem Clempson, who replaced Frampton in 1972, is the guitarist.

‘I Need A Star In My Life’ might be construed as the Humble Pie album that Steve Marriott always wanted to make, freed of the commercial expectation of the record label.

Unsurprisingly this is an album of mostly R&B/blues enhanced by an appearance from two-thirds of ‘The Blackberries’ , Vanetta Fields and Clydie King. Musically, various covers (‘The Shake’, ‘Mona’, ‘Be My Baby’) are mixed with originals such as ‘Street Rat’, ‘High And Happy’ and the ominous ‘It’s All Over’.

With later attempts to revive the Humble Pie name, by Marriott himself before his untimely death in 1991 and again by Jerry Shirley in 2018, this “lost album” is essential listening for both fans and those who wish to investigate more fully the band’s history.

It has previously been available as ‘The Scrubber Sessions’. Collectors might like to know that a 7″ single of ‘The Shake’ is accompanied by the rare track ‘Bluestalk’ featuring one-time Rolling Stone Brian Jones. ****

Review by David Randall

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