You may find this as King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents Humble Pie In Concert which was released four years earlier with a different cover and added “I Don’t Need No Doctor” to the track list. But no matter what version you have, the material comes from a concert at San Francisco’s Winterland Theatre in either May or June of 1973. So, that means we are dealing with the post-Frampton/Clempson/Blackberries lineup of the band, which is interesting, in that we get to contrast between that and the “super group”/Fillmore live album and see what happens. In some respects, there is no contrast at all. Many of the characteristics of Fillmore – Steve’s singing banter between songs, the carryover of material itself, the sheer energy of the experience – are either firmly in place or only further amplified. But I do sense one big difference between Fillmore and Winterland – desire. No doubt the band playing the stage at Winterland is still big, tough, meaty, and packs tons of thunder, but at the end of the day, it’s a Vegas-revue compared to the hungry, make-or-break bunch that stormed the stage at the Fillmore East. At one point, Marriott introduces the Blackberries and I feel like all of their names should be flashing behind them in lights and sparkles. This is just before they cover the ‘Stones “Honky Tonk Women”. It all smacks vaguely of Elvis and the jump suit crowd, not the rough and tumble Humble Pie I’ve come to know. However, the band does deliver where it matters most – in the music department. I do, by and large, like most of these songs, and furthermore, the quality of recordings is very nice and clear. You just have to understand, compared to the Fillmore experience, this is the slicker, more professional sounding Humble Pie on stage now – far more concerned with sheer audience interaction and back-and-forth bantering than putting any new spin on overplayed material like “30 Days in the Hole” or “C’mon Everybody”.

This rather roughshod document is a collection of 20 tracks from Marriott’s Clear Sounds studio. “The Scrubbers” were a loose collection of musicians Steve had brought together – Humble Pie and others – in order to record what was supposed to be his solo album. The end result was brought to A&M Records. Upon hearing it, their reaction was not a good one, and what ensued was the fits-and-starts ending of Humble Pie, which consisted of the Street Rats album and corresponding tours. The material contained within has ended up in various re-recorded forms on Street Rats, Marriott’s first solo album, and Small Faces reunion which happened later in the 70s, although those are albums I have yet to hear and I am going off of literature I have read in other quarters. The first few times I heard this I was really mystified, mainly at the sheer volume and scope of the work. I could see why his record company was aghast – on many of the tracks Marriott’s general attitude was quite the reverse of his normal fan-friendly Humble Pie persona. If anything, it was like he had immersed himself in a ton of Funkadelic and Sly Stone, including Sly’s crazy lifestyle. Upon further listens, not only was the above the case, but it’s probably the last interesting change for this multi-faceted artist before, the downhill slide really started to take hold. That, and well, it came off a bit like a big party with a bunch of his long-time bros is somewhat commendable, at least in the modesty department. Whatever the case, there is so much material of note – good, bad, cleanly or horribly recorded, nicely or intentionally ill-executed – that it is nearly pointless to trot out individual standouts or bad songs. I should point out, though, I really do not think there is a stereotypical “bad” song on this disc. It’s hard to say what is bad or good, when these guys are essentially tweaking around on various levels for the hell of it, see what works, what might go here, there, et cetera. But I think the base ideas are winners. Yes, you are bound to come across a track that makes you wonder what the hell was happening while tapes rolled – the cover or “Be My Baby” or “Lend us a Quid” comes to mind – but for every hare-brained experiment there is something to redeem it. The version of “I Need a Star in My Life”, for example, far outweighs what was eventually cut for the Marriott album. It shines like a beautiful beacon here. On the flip side of this streak of beauty, there is the grittiness of this version of “Street Rat”, which contains far more desperation and ugliness than the album version ever did. And that is the general game you can play with Scrubbers. Pick out one or any number or tracks, compare them to the versions on whatever proper album they were released, and odds-on, it’s better heard on this album than any other.

For the second reconstituted Pie effort Marriott seemed like he was in better physical shape, yet the whole thing ended much like the original run – crashing and burning. However, it is a bit cover reliant, starting from the first track, “All Shook Up”, then later cribbing a couple of songs from Aerosmith associate Richard Supa (“Restless Blood” and “Chip Away the Stone”) which end up sounding far too generic on this record. Furthermore, in an attempt to trade past glories for future gains, they trot out Marriott’s own “Tin Soldier” from way back in the Small Faces’ days! It gets better, or worse, or just plain stranger, depending on your point of view. “Driver” is a really goofy “La Grange” knock off, of all things. What is disappointing is there are some good tracks here – “Teenage Anxiety”, the title track, and especially “Lottie and the Charcoal Queen” are experiences that could have fit in with earlier Pie records, IMHO. There is something in the moods and textures of these three tracks in particular, which makes me wonder if Marriott and Shirley were not thinking about “going for the throat”, but crying out for help instead. I’m pretty sure, during the initial run of the band, neither of those guys would have green-lit such a cover as the one that grossly adorns this one, but something tells they did not have much of a say or there were not many moves left to play. There is also an even worse shot inside the liner notes, of the rest of the group feigning putting Marriott in a choke-hold, but the sad thing is, it’s perfectly indicative of how cheap and rough-shod the whole Humble Pie enterprise really had become.

Steve Marriott's solo effort is similar to Humble Pie's last album from its original run, in that it is a jumble of tracks borrowed and/or rehashed from different projects from the general period. If you are really interested in this stuff I point all newcomers to the late 90's compilation The Scrubbers Sessions. That said, Marriott the album has some intriguing content, but was regarded as an afterthought in the wake of label mate (and former band member) Peter Frampton's then-runaway success. Divided into a British and American side, the material is over-the-top even by Marriott standards, and there seemed to have been a concerted attempt to put him over as a marketable white soul musician, going by the material on the slicker, more Cosmopolitan sounding American side. The first (British) side is definitely more familiar to Humble Pie fans, but a few tunes into it, Steve runs out of gas, resorting to a lackluster version of "Wham Bam, Thank You Ma'am" to close things out.

Now, Ridley, Clempson, and certainly not Peter Frampton would concern themselves with attempting to revive an old, broken-down hulk like Humble Pie. This time around, only Marriott and Jerry Shirley would be participating, along with Bobby Tench and Anthony “Sooty” Jones. It’s pretty easy to take both albums and throw them into the same basic bar-boogie bargain bin, but then again, isn’t that what the critics have done to the Pie for years, in general? I can agree neither album matches up to the classic super group lineup output, but there is a big reason for that, and it has nothing to do with the new additions with Tench or Jones. The saddest development here is Marriott and his hard-living drug and alcohol demons finally catching up to him. Vocally, mentally, performance-wise – all the way around you could tell this guy was aging far faster thanks to the hard living he had done up to this point in his life. When I first heard this one my hopes were up hearing the initial track, “Fool for a Pretty Face”, which honestly is one of the better singles from Steve and the Pie in a long time. I was really young at the time so I do not remember the exact circumstances, but the song scraped the edges of the Top 40, I think. Getting back to the album, though, the band follows up this tour-de-force with…” You Soppy Pratt” …which on the one hand, shows off the old Marriott spunk, but on the other hand, you cannot get over the feeling that the act is long beyond tired. Overall, the impression I got here was a group of guys half-heartedly trying a bunch of different things to see if they work or not. For example, there is a reggae song here (“Savin’ It”), which I do not have a problem with, but it’s pleasantly sloppy and more like a drunken sing-along gig.