Recording of the Month

Humble Pie: Smokin'
Analogue Productions APP 168 (LP). 1972/2024. The Pie, prods.; Alan O'Duffy, Keith Harwood, Kevin Gray, engs.
Performance ****
Sonics ****½

A question that gains urgency as more audiophile reissues arrive and prices rise is, are they worth the price? The answer depends on the answer to another question: How much better is a $100-or-more reissue gonna sound than the original, major-label 150gm pressing? Add to this the fact that the word "audiophile" has become an en vogue marketing buzzword, which in the case of the ever-increasing number of European public-domain labels serves as a fig leaf for slapdash, low-quality reissues.

Whatever your musical taste and attitude toward price, it's just empirically true that today's vinyl reissues are usually transparent about their sources and careful about quality. For example, though not everyone agrees, most of Music Matters' exceptional catalog of Blue Note reissues are superior to original copies in VG+ condition. Engineer/producer Joe Harley's current Tone Poet series on Blue Note continues that standard of excellence. Depending on your ears and—again—the size of your wallet, the current One Step craze is either murky and prohibitively priced or the best thing to happen to vinyl reissues.

The ultimate indication that an audiophile reissue is worth paying for lies in its resale value on the secondary markets, especially eBay and Discogs. If there are lots of copies for sale that are open and played, it's usually a sign that folks are disappointed. On the other hand, if a reissue title—and this covers Analogue Productions' 2009 reissue of Humble Pie's Smokin'—routinely fetches upwards of $100 on the secondary market (and sealed copies above $200), it means, first, that the pressing has probably sold out (a good sign) and, second, that it's probably worth the lucre.

In October 2024, AP repressed its much-sought-after 180gm reissue of Smokin', mastered by Kevin Gray from a ½" flat-tape copy of the original master tape. As this review was being written, copies were still available. It comes packaged in a Stoughton Printing tip-on jacket. It's a high-quality product all around.

Built around the guitars of ex–Small Faces member Steve Marriott and future rock superstar Peter Frampton, Humble Pie released four studio albums between 1969 and 1971: As Safe as Yesterday Is, Town and Country, Humble Pie, and Rock On. Rock On is now considered by many fans to be the band's masterpiece.

The trouble was, none of the records sold well, even in their native UK, with only Rock On (#118) scraping the bottom rungs of the US charts. Finally, their fifth album, 1971's Performance: Rockin' the Fillmore, became a solid hit, rising to #32 in the UK and #21 in the US. It was clear that the band needed a strong studio follow-up. Complicating matters was the fact that Frampton left the band after the Fillmore sessions.

Recorded at Olympic Studios in February 1972 and produced by the band, Smokin' features the voice and irrepressible energy of Marriott, the chops of new guitarist Clem Clempson, and the steadiness of the original HP rhythm section: Greg Ridley on bass and Jerry Shirley on drums. Smokin' is not as musically varied as the earlier albums, but a slow version of Eddie Cochran's "C'mon Everybody" is solid blues rock. The Ridley/Marriott original "You're So Good for Me" is countrified folk with a gospel-like flavor. The Junior Walker hit "Road Runner," written by the Motown creative engine of Holland-Dozier-Holland, here morphs into "Road Runners G Jam," with Stephen Stills adding backing vocals. It's a funky success.

Whether this reissue of Smokin' is worth $40—modest by current standards but more than most VG+ originals on Discogs—doesn't hinge on the quality of the repress, which is excellent. The hype sticker on the outer bag affirms "Less than 1,000 records per stamper," certainly far fewer than the original A&M issues.

What's at issue here is, how good is the music? Smokin' is most famous as the album that split HP fans into two groups. Fans of the earlier records scoff that Smokin' is when the band dumbed down into hard rock, with Marriott's boogie-band impulses given free reign. Yet Smokin' is also the best-selling HP album, live or from the studio. Released in March 1972, it reached #6 on the US Billboard 200 chart. Its electric guitar–heavy edges, which differed considerably from the band's earlier hippie-rock stylings, won a new generation of fans, who went on to propel the band's subsequent albums, Eat It, Thunderbox, Streets Rats, On to Victory, and Go for the Throat—each album worse than the one before—onto the US charts.

At the center of Smokin's appeal are the singles "Hot'n'Nasty" and "30 Days in the Hole." Neither is a monument to lyrical brilliance—"30 Days" is about Marriott's arrest for various illegal substances ("Chicago Green, talkin' 'bout Red Lebanese/A dirty room and a silver coke spoon")—but they do possess an appealing grit, and in the case of "30 Days" an enticing funky bounce. Marriott died in 1991, in a fire seemingly caused by smoking in bed, but part of his wild and unruly spirit will always live on in the loud, raunchy grooves of Smokin'.—Robert Baird