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HUMBLE PIE: Natural Born Bugie (7″, Immediate IM 082, 1969)

Humble Pie - Natural Born Bugie

Ahhhh, this record takes me back. Not to 1969 when it was released, obviously, as I was yet to be born then, but to my excitable youth, delving into the world of the 1960s and pseudo-mod culture at around the age of 18 or so. My listening to the Small Faces led to my listening to the Faces, which inevitably lead to Humble Pie, the band that briefly took up Steve Marriott’s time in between. The three bands are a clear line drawn from the ramshackle mod excitement of the early ’60s to the boozy, rockin’ late ’60s. Humble Pie, of course, also feature legendary curly-haired rocker Peter Frampton, who you will have seen – whether you realise it or not – on the Frampton Comes Alive cover, looking all starry-eyed and airbrushed.

Around the time when I was right into this stuff, I briefly dabbled in a covers band with some friends, which included my singing of the Small Faces’ ‘Song Of A Baker’. If you don’t know me, that won’t mean much; if you do know me, it might be hard to imagine. It’s hard for me to imagine. I still have a recording on tape somewhere – it will never, ever be aired.

The B-side of this single is ‘Wrist Job’, which features some extraordinarily warm, beautiful Hammond organ swells, all Leslie-speakered up to the eyeballs. I love it. An old friend of mine in the mid-90s bought a Hammond organ with some Leslie speakers and installed it in his bedroom in our shared student house. Now, I can’t play the keyboard for toffee, but I can – and did – get countless hours of enjoyment warming up the ol’ Leslie valves and giving it some random chord thumping. Happy days!

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