Rock On

Humble Pie’s fourth album (and last to feature guitarist Peter Frampton) is a winning amalgam of junky Stones riffs, Stax-styled soul, Band-esque country, and Zeppelin’s dirty-white-boy blues. The pure sex and strut of “79th and Sunset” capture said influences in all of three minutes—remarkable considering the lyric, which metaphorizes a young U.K. rock star’s longing for an American hit into longing for a California girl. (After his mid- to late-’60s beginning in The Small Faces, Pie singer Steve Marriott never had lucrative American hits.) “A Song for Jenny” is the most musically dynamic in the Pie catalog, lifting pedal-steel melodies and acoustic guitar wisps to shutter-rumble choruses of booming organs and soaring background vocals; the tune is a rock ’n’ roll equivalent of spiritual release and a cheerful selfie to a band just finding its worldly feet (“Today it’s Albuquerque/Tomorrow it’s the world”). The whole album bounces beautifully between those kinds of hard-rock highs and folksy tender lows, where there’s always a beating heart. Rock On is also one of producer Glyn Johns’ finest productions.