Jul 162011
Sounds of the Hall in roughly 33 1/3 minutes!
In this week’s edition of Saturday Night Shut-In Mr. Moderator attempts to more fully explain the, uh, humble delights of Humble Pie to the questioning Townsman misterioso by playing the band’s 1969 Town and Country album in its entirety, with accompanying commentary. If this doesn’t help mistorioso value the good in Humble Pie, perhaps no effort will.
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/RTH-Saturday-Night-Shut-In-37.mp3|titles=RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 37][Note: The Rock Town Hall feed will enable you to easily download Saturday Night Shut-In episodes to your digital music player. In fact, you can even set your iTunes to search for an automatic download of each week’s podcast.]
I’m going to try to write my thoughts in real time as I listen to Humble Pie’s “Town and Country”, inspired by Mr. Moderator providing narration over the album.
First song. This doesn’t sound like it’s gonna rock. Shit, I forgot beer. Beer makes things better. Be right back. Fantastic, the first song is over!.
Uh oh. A cowboy number about buying a gun. Doesn’t he know Mick Jagger has a patent on fake-ass Southern nonsense? Jon Bon Jovi would have killed himself if he had had to sing that Shanky Janky song.
And didn’t they program this record at all? Cowboy ballad followed by sitars? But of course, they’re *English* so my guess is that they figure this is what is meant by playing cowboys and Indians.
Dear God…now a “rock star life on the road is so hard” song? And he wants her loving, not her money? Honestly, what kind of money does a rock star’s wife have? Isn’t the probably his money in the first place, so his wife would just be giving it back to him? Or is this a metaphor because he already feels like a whore for doing what needs to be done to succeed in the record business and if his wife gives him money, then gives him lovin’, it makes it literal?
They’re not cool.
Waving him goodbye? Mississippi queen? New Orleans? Bayou? Oh no, not a daddy that’s gonna kill him! Please lord, let her daddy have good aim!
Oh. My. God. They’re fucking up Buddy Holly. Incidentally, Showaddywaddy made Heartbeat a top ten UK hit. So maybe Humble Pie was onto something.
Tender jive? I hope he doesn’t start singing about his wife again. It’s a mercy killing for the Marriott estate.
Damn, this sounds like a Dark Side of the Moon outtake fell through a time warp.
Okay, the title track isn’t too bad, although rhyming cry and why is cheating, oh wait…they added “goodbye” to it as well. Sheesh. Strap me in a ship that flies? What, an *airplane*? They’re starting to lose me. Uh oh. Soulful break. Oh, I see…it’s autumn, and what you have can never die, because autumn is the season when things die, but love isn’t one of them. Thank you high school poetry. Rock on, an extended instrumental ending! Oh no. Oh hell no. There’s a coda? Or is this the song which opened the album? I’ve forgotten already.
Mod, thanks for this. Really. This level of effort is genuinely appreciated.
In fairness, I will say that at least a couple of the songs are not as awful as most of what I have heard before. I had no idea, to tell you the truth, that they had kidnapped Winwood and forced him to sing a couple of songs that could well pass for Traffic b-sides. This is meant as a vague compliment: I prefer them in light Traffic mode.
Somehow, Small Faces (love ’em!) plus Traffic (like a lot!) should add up to something but this is by no means a case of doubling your pleasure. The whole ends up being far less than the sum of the parts. And this is the good album, right?
Bostonhistorian–excellent commentary. Cracked me up.
Yes, as far as I can tell this is the “good” album. Can you believe the influence this mixing of Traffic b-sides and late-period Small Faces had on Paul Weller? Can you forgive both of those bands for what others did in their wake.
And yes, bostonhistorian’s commentary was spot-on!
I always knew the Traffic/Small Faces influence was huge on Weller’s early solo work (esp. Wildwood and Stanley Road) but no, I had no real appreciation of the Humble Pie influence. Unless he simply bypassed HP but that is doubtful. I guess in the end it comes down to talent, or whatever you want to call it: Winwood did great things with the sort of material Marriott did mediocre things with.