Why Peter Frampton Left Humble Pie Before ‘Rockin’ the Fillmore’

When one thinks of the best live rock ‘n’ roll live, Humble Pie‘s Performance: Rockin’ the Fillmore surely comes to mind. The double LP, recorded at the Fillmore East in New York City in May of 1971 and released the following November, was a No. 21 hit on the Billboard 200.

Performance contains just one original song, “Stone Cold Fever,” and the rest of the set is dedicated to covers. But in those days, live albums could send a relatively obscure band, as the English-born Humble Pie was at the time to American audiences — into stardom, particularly when recorded the right way.

“The Fillmore had a unique sound,” drummer Jerry Shirley recalled to The Vinyl District in 2013. “It was brilliant for audience interaction, and the actual ambient sound in the room, if you knew how to capture it — if you stepped back and used the ambient mics as well as opposed to just the sound coming off the amps — that’s what made the Fillmore sound so good.”

And as guitarist Peter Frampton has insisted, Humble Pie was a different animal when playing live.

“In the studio sessions, it was a great band with great material, and we played great together and we made great records, but as soon as we stepped on to the stage it was like the gloves came off,” he said to MusicRadar in 2013. “I often explain it to people that if you listen to a Who record, and then go see the Who live, it’s like two different bands. That’s how Humble Pie worked. We were definitely a lot more ferocious live because of the energy that the entire population of us had.”

Peter Frampton’s Departure From Humble Pie

But just before Performance was released, Frampton chose to leave Humble Pie, just in time to watch the album rise to the upper levels of the charts. Many years later, Frampton would recall this period of his career as “the worst year of my life.”

“This is it, I’ve gone and done it,” he recalled in 2011, thinking back to that time. “I’ve been very lucky so far with my gut instincts, but this was wrong.”

But Frampton could also see the writing on the wall — there was a future for him in music that didn’t involve Humble Pie.

“Steve [Marriott] and I were starting to butt heads a little bit,” he explained to Guitar World in 2022. “I think I was coming into my own. Even though I knew that [Performance] Rockin’ The Fillmore would be our biggest record so far, I had no idea it would be their first gold record because I’d done a lot of the mixing with Eddie Kramer in New York for that album.

“But no, I just decided in the end that this would be the best time, before they really break. Otherwise, if I had stayed in the band, I would have still been in Humble Pie, I think. It was just I wanted to be in charge of my own destiny finally and not have the band.”

Listen to Humble Pie’s ‘I Don’t Need No Doctor’ Live at the Fillmore East

And the direction Humble Pie was heading in sounded heavier and heavier to Frampton, which wasn’t necessarily a problem, “but the more acoustic side of Humble Pie was being reduced,” he later explained to Guitars Exchange, “and I wanted to be able to run the gamut as opposed to doing just one kind of thing. I think I proved that on Wind of Change, my first solo album, which ran the gamut from acoustic guitar to Billy Preston and full rocking.”

A Decision for the Best

Another part of the issue, as Shirley saw it in retrospect, was the band’s increasing exposure to drugs, cocaine in particular.

“We were told it was harmless, that it was a ‘soft’ drug, that you didn’t become dependent on it, and all this nonsense,” he said. “And it destroyed the relationship that we had between us as individuals and our management…we were such a tight-knit little unit in the beginning. The heaviest thing we got involved in was a little bit of hash smoking. We weren’t even big drinkers!

“And then once Peter left and we let ourselves loose a lot more. He never indulged himself in any of that stuff. I think had he stuck around, he would have probably kicked up a bit more fuss about how much of a using band we had become.”

READ MORE: 45 Years Ago: ‘Frampton’ Shows Peter Frampton the Way to Success

Shirley admitted: “I didn’t see [Frampton’s departure] coming, and was completely shocked. Of course, looking back I can see why he did what he did, but at the time…I could see what was upsetting him, but I didn’t think it was strong enough to make him leave. But it did.”

Not that Frampton ever doubted the capability of Humble Pie, even as his own solo career took off.

“I am so lucky to have been part of that band, I can’t tell you,” he said to Classic Rock in 2024. “It did more for my musicality, my playing, my writing, my sense of how a band should be. Humble Pie just brought it all together for me.”

Listen to Humble Pie’s ‘Stone Cold Fever’ Live at the Fillmore East