Immediate Records - The "I'm In Love With That Song" Podcast - Music Commentary, Song Analysis & Rock History

Humble Pie is often overshadowed by bands like Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, and Queen, but they were a considered a “supergroup” when they formed in 1969– fronted by Steve Marriott from the Small Faces and Peter Frampton from The Herd. Their first 2 albums are a mixed bag, but by the time they signed with A&M Records in 1970 they had refined their style down to a bluesy, hard-rockin’ sound. Rock On (1971) was their most successful album to date and features “Stone Cold Fever“, which is itself a stone-cold classic.

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TRANSCRIPT:

I’ve got a Stone Cold Fever, but I don’t need no doctor! Welcome to the “I’m In Love With That Song” Podcast. I’m your host, Brad Page. In each episode of the show, I pick one of my favorite songs and we explore it together, looking at it from every angle, trying to get a handle on what makes the song work, and why do I like it so much? Musical knowledge or experience is not a prerequisite here. We don’t get technical. This show is for anyone who loves music.

This episode, we’re taking another look at one of the best hard rocking bands from the 1970’s, a band that’s kind of overlooked now. They’ve been overshadowed by groups like Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Deep Purple, Queen… those all became iconic bands, but for a while there, Humble Pie was right up there with them. This time out, we’re digging into a song that’s one of their classics, from a pivotal album in their career. This is “Stone Cold Fever” by Humble Pie.

Humble Pie were somewhat of a supergroup when they formed in 1969. Steve Marriott had been the front man for the Small Faces, and Peter Frampton was the breakout star from a Band called The Herd. They got together and formed a new band with Greg Ridley on bass– He’d been playing with Spooky Tooth– and a young drummer named Jerry Shirley. He was only about 17 when he joined Humble Pie.

Now we’ve discussed Humble Pie, and the Small Faces. on this show before, so I’m not going to rehash everything again, you can go back and listen to those episodes. But essentially, both Marriott and Frampton wanted to be taken more seriously as musicians. They were tired of being perceived as pop stars, so Humble Pie was their shot at credibility.

They signed with Immediate Records and released their first album, “As Safe As Yesterday Is”, in August 1969. Interestingly, one of the earliest uses of the term “heavy metal” appears in a review for this album. I don’t think anybody today would describe this album as anything close to “heavy metal”. In reality, this record is kind of a mixed bag with some rockers, but also some bluesy numbers, acousticy folk, and even a touch of post-psychedelic rock.

Their second album, “Town And Country”, was released just a few months later, in November 1969. This one was more acoustic than the first album, but Immediate Records was in financial trouble and they quickly went bankrupt. So this album, “Town And Country”, was never even released in the US at the time.

After the collapse of Immediate Records, they signed a new deal with A&M Records, and the band refocused. Most of the acoustic stuff was gone. They developed a harder, heavier sound and they concentrated on the American market, determined to break through here. Their first album for A&M, which most people in America thought was their first album period, was just called “Humble Pie” and came out in July 1970. It features a great version of the Muddy Waters classic “I’m Ready”.

They continued to refine their sound, and in March 1971, they released their strongest, most successful album yet, “Rock On”. There’s a half-dozen rock-solid songs on this album, including “Stone Cold Fever”. Most of the tracks on “Rock On” had been part of their live set for a while, so they’d worked out all of the kinks and they were well rehearsed by the time they hit the studio to record this album.

The album was produced by the band along with Glynn Johns. All four band members share songwriting credit on “Stone Cold Fever”. The song was performed by Peter Frampton on guitar and backing vocals, Greg Ridley on bass and backing vocals, Jerry Shirley on drums and Steve Marriott on guitar, harmonica, keyboards and lead vocals. The track begins with the guitar riff– and what a great guitar riff this is. It’s played by Peter Frampton in the left channel.

After two times around, the rest of the band starts coming in, including Steve Marriott’s guitar in the right channel.

They add these little trills to the guitar riff. Marriott does it first in the right channel, and then Frampton adds a harmony to it.

Let’s back it up a bit and we’ll play into the first verse. It’s an interesting vocal sound on this track. I used to think that they just used some heavy slapback echo on the vocal to get that sound, but now, listening to it more closely, I think that Steve Marriott actually double-tracked his vocal; he sang it twice. So, the natural inconsistencies in any human performance keep the tracks from sounding 100% identical, which produces the sound we hear on the final mix.

So, let’s try to isolate each one of these vocal performances. Here’s the first one.

And here’s the second vocal.

Now, they sound pretty much the same when you listen to them in isolation, but if we can combine them together, you can hear how those slight differences between the two tracks provide the sound we hear in the final mix.

All right, let’s go back, put that all together, and hear that verse again in the final mix.

That leads us into a new riff. The first time through, Marriott and Frampton play it in unison. The second time around, Frampton plays a harmony which climbs with each cycle.

Next is a short harmonica solo played by Steve Marriott over the main riff. Also notice Jerry Shirley’s banging on a cowbell in the background.

Let’s go back and listen to the two guitars during that verse. They’re essentially playing the main riff, but each of them are playing it pretty loosely, improvising around it as they go along. They’re not trying to play it exactly or perfectly, and they’re not trying to match each other. This gives the recording a spontaneous live feel. Again, its Frampton in the left channel, Marriott in the right.

And that brings us to the second riff with the harmonica.

After that nice drum fill by Jerry Shirley– and remember, he was only about 19 when they made this record– that fill takes us into a jazzy section featuring a fantastic guitar solo by Peter Frampton. Frampton’s name doesn’t often come up when listing the great guitarists, but I absolutely think he’s one of the best. So, let’s hear just his guitar first.

Frampton is an incredibly tasteful player, and his jazz-influenced licks are really distinctive. There’s no one else who really plays quite like him. Now let’s hear how that solo works in the final mix.

Then we get a short harmonica break before the guitarists return with another riff.

The next riff is accentuated with some backing vocals. Let’s hear those backing vocals first.

And now let’s hear that in context.

“Stone Cold Fever” by Humble Pie.

“Rock On” was their best-selling album up until this point, but Peter Frampton was feeling frustrated. He was fine with the harder rocking material, but he wanted more than that, too. And he wanted to be more than just the guitar player; he wanted more opportunity to write and sing. And let’s face it, Steve Marriott was not the easiest guy to deal with. So later in 1971, just after they had recorded a live album, “Rockin’ The Fillmore”, Frampton left to pursue a solo career.

When “Rockin’ The Fillmore” was released, it became a big hit. It’s still the album that Humble Pie is most remembered for, and as Frampton watched his former band’s album climb the charts while he struggled to get his solo career off the ground, he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made a big mistake. But things worked out for him a few years later, though. That’s a topic for another podcast.

As we’ve mentioned on previous podcasts, Steve Marriott died tragically in a fire, in April 1991, age 44. One of the greatest vocalists of his generation.

Greg Ridley died in November 2003 from complications from pneumonia. He was 56.

Peter Frampton suffers from a somewhat rare progressive muscular disorder called Inclusion Body Mitosis. He initially announced his retirement from music, but he’s still been able to play, so he’s kept going. Above all, he is a true guitar player at heart, and he’ll play for as long as he can.

Jerry Shirley is still with us, and thankfully, as far as I know, he’s still healthy and still playing drums today.

Thanks for joining me here on the Pantheon Podcast network for this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. If you’d like to support the show, and I hope you do, zip on over to oldglory.com and buy a t-shirt or two. They carry shirts and merchandise from all of our favorite bands, and if you’re like me, you can never have too many t-shirts. So support your favorite artists, wear their shirts with pride. And when you use our discount code, “lovethatsong”, you’ll get a nice discount and you’ll be helping out this show. That website is oldglory.com and the discount code is lovethatsong. Thanks in advance.

I’ll be back in about two weeks with a new episode, so I’ll see you then. In the meantime, catch up on all of our previous episodes– there’s over 180 of them now– on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or find us in your favorite Podcast app.

Now go dig out some Humble Pie records and rock on with “Stone Cold Fever”.

RESOURCES:

Humble Pie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humble_Pie

Peter Frampton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Frampton

Steve Marriott
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Marriott

Rock On album
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_On_(Humble_Pie_album)

Glynn Johns
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyn_Johns

Rockin’ the Fillmore
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_Rockin%27_the_Fillmore

Inclusion body myositis
https://www.mda.org/disease/inclusion-body-myositis

Immediate Records
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immediate_Records

A&M Records
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%26M_Records

Small Faces
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Faces

The Herd
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Herd_(UK_band)

Spooky Tooth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spooky_Tooth

You may not know her name, but I guarantee you’ve heard her voice. When acts as diverse as Graham Nash, Peter Gabriel and KLF are in need of a soulful vocal, PP Arnold has been a top choice. Her voice has graced dozens of songs & albums for over 50 years, though she’s never had a hit under her own name in the US. On this episode, we take a brief look at her career and examine a great lost track, featuring Eric Clapton and the Derek & The Dominos band, recorded in 1970 but didn’t see the light of day until 47 years later.

Got time for more podcasts? Listen to dozens more on the Pantheon Podcast Network, the #1 source for music-related podcasts! (And don’t forget to follow this show, so you never miss an episode.)

TRANSCRIPT:

Well, hello there! Come on in, don’t be shy. It’s good to have you here. You’ve found your way to the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. My name is Brad Page, and each edition of this podcast, I come to you via the Pantheon Podcast Network with another one of my favorite songs to explore and examine, as we attempt to understand what goes into making a great song.

I’m going to start by playing eight short clips from eight different artists, spanning five decades of music. What is it that all of these songs have in common? Let’s start with:

Ike and Tina Turner’s “River Deep, Mountain High”
The classic 70’s band Humble Pie
Nick Drake
New Orleans legend Dr. John
Roger Waters from Pink Floyd
and then there’s Oasis
KLF
and Peter Gabriel

All of those songs featured the voice of a woman named P. P. Arnold. She was an American soul artist transplanted to London in the 1960’s, where she was able to carve out a career, though she never cracked the charts in the US.

On this episode, we’re talking about P. P. Arnold and her version of a song called “Medicated Goo”.

Patricia Anne Cole was born in Los Angeles in 1946. She started singing in public when she was just four years old. She came from a family of gospel singers. She got pregnant very young and got married, and may never have pursued a career in the music business; she already had her hands full working two jobs, but a friend convinced her to audition for the gig as one of the Ikettes, the backing singers for Ike and Tina Turner. When she returned home late after that audition, her abusive husband hit her. That was enough for Patricia. She grabbed her two kids, handed them over to her mother and hit the road with Ike & Tina Turner.

In 1965, the Rolling Stones booked Ike & Tina Turner as their opening act for their UK tour. And that’s what brought Patricia to England. She quit the Ikettes in 1966 and stayed in London. Mick Jagger took a liking to Pat. In fact, they supposedly had a fling. But it was the Rolling Stones piano player Ian Stewart who recommended Pat to producer Glenn Johns, who then introduced her to Andrew Oldham, who signed her to his record label, Immediate Records.

It was around this time when her stage name had been changed to “PP Arnold”, a name she didn’t really like. I mean, who wants to be called PP? But it stuck. And she still goes by PP Arnold today.

She wasn’t the first black artist to discover more opportunity and better treatment overseas than in her home country. Actually, the fact that she was a real Black American singer in the gospel tradition, in a country filled with a lot of pretenders and wannabes, may have helped her career. She was a rarity. The real thing.

She released a couple of singles on the Immediate label that didn’t really get off the ground. But in 1967 she had her first hit in England with a song written by Cat Stevens: “The First Cut Is The Deepest”.

She toured opening for the Small Faces. She had an ongoing affair with Steve Marriott for a while, and he wrote the song “Tin Soldier” originally for her, but then decided to keep it for the Small Faces, though she did contribute significant backing vocals to that song. We covered “Tin Soldier” in detail back on Episode 54– if you haven’t heard that episode, go back and check it out.

She recorded a duet with Rod Stewart called “Come Home Baby” that was produced by Mick Jagger, with a band that included Keith Richards, Keith Emerson, Ron Wood and Nicky Hopkins. How’s that for a lineup?

She released her second album, “Kafunta”, in 1968, which featured string arrangements by John Paul Jones. That album was a mix of originals and cover songs, including her version of “Angel of the Morning”. It was Merrilee Rush who had the big hit with that song in the US, but in England, it was PP Arnold’s version that was the hit.

By the end of the 1960’s, Immediate Records imploded. She tried working on a new album with Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees producing, but the project fell apart and only a couple of songs were released. The rest went into the vault.

When Eric Clapton went on tour with Delaney and Bonnie, PP Arnold was tapped to open the show. She put together a killer band for that tour that included Steve Howe on guitar and Tony Ashton on keyboards. After the tour, she went back into the studio with Eric Clapton producing and Delaney and Bonnie’s backing band, who Clapton was about to turn into Derek and the Dominos. She cut three tracks with Eric Clapton, but they too weren’t released and those went into the vault too.

Her time in the spotlight seemed to have passed. She did some musical theater and started picking up work as a session vocalist and a backing singer on tours. She moved back to Los Angeles in the mid ‘70’s, and after her daughter was killed in a car accident, she withdrew from public life for a while. And who could blame her?

Eventually she moved back to England. Throughout the ‘80’s & ‘90’s, she continued working as a session vocalist, cutting many tracks, including the ones we heard at the top of the show. In 2001, all of her recordings for Immediate Records were compiled and released on one CD called “The First Cut: The Immediate Anthology”. That’s a great place to start if you’d like to hear all of her early work.

And finally in 2017, after decades of legal wrangling, her recordings with Barry Gibb and those tracks cut with Eric Clapton were finally released– almost 50 years after they were recorded. That album was called “The Turning Tide”, and the song that opens the album is “Medicated Goo”.

“Medicated Goo” was written by Steve Winwood and Jimmy Miller, and originally recorded and released by Traffic as a single in December 1968.

P. P. Arnold’s version was recorded in 1970. It was produced by Eric Clapton and performed by the Derek and The Dominos crew. Check out this band: Eric Clapton on guitar, Carl Radle on bass, Bobby Whitlock on keyboards, Jim Gordon on drums, Bobby Keys on saxophone, Jim Price on trumpet, and Bobby Whitlock and Rita Coolidge on backing vocals. The song opens with the bass and the piano in the center channel, one guitar track on the right doubling the bass part, and another guitar on the left playing some licks. Let’s listen to some of those guitar licks.

Carl Radle and Jim Gordon were a pretty legendary rhythm section. Let’s listen to the groove they’re laying down on the bass and drums.

Now let’s bring in the piano and the organ and see what they add.

And then we’ll bring back the guitar parts. One in the left, one in the right.

All right, let’s hear it in the final mix with the vocals.

Here’s the second verse. This is where the horn section comes in. They’re playing a simple part, but it really adds a lot.

Love how the backing vocals join in for just that one line there. That’s great.

Here’s the next chorus, and this time let’s focus on the vocals, starting with PP Arnold’s lead vocal.

Now let’s listen to just the backing vocals.

After that chorus, they break it down, sort of a repeat of the introduction.

That leads into the third verse. And yes, I get that this song is basically just one chord progression repeated through the whole thing. That may bug some people, but not me. If it’s a good groove, a great feel, and the band is hot, they can work the same part all night, it’s fine with me. Let’s bring up her vocals again for this verse.

And let’s bring up all of the vocals for a minute.

Here’s one last break before the final choruses. I like the piano licks in the background and the way the organ swirls in at the end as they hit the chorus again.

There’s a nice little guitar lick that Eric Clapton plays there. I love how Pat sings that line. And there’s another cool little guitar lick from Clapton in there, too.

“Medicated Goo” by P. P. Arnold

“The Turning Tide” album, which finally brought to light all of these tracks that she originally recorded in 1969 and 1970, came out in 2017, and in 2019 she released her first album of new material in over 50 years. It’s called “The New Adventures of PP Arnold”.

This is a woman who’s seen it all, done it all, and lived to tell the tale. She is a survivor.

Thanks for listening to this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. New episodes come out on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so I’ll see you back here on the Pantheon Podcast Network in about two weeks. Until then, you’ll find all of our previous episodes on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or on your favorite podcast app.

Your reviews and comments are always welcome. And do me a favor– go tell a friend about this show. Your help in spreading the word is better than any advertising.

Remember to support the artists you love by buying their music, especially independent artists like PP Arnold, who count on fans like us. And thanks again for listening to this PP Arnold episode on that good old fashioned “Medicated Goo”.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
PP Arnold
https://www.pparnold.com/

Medicated Goo (Traffic song)
https://www.discogs.com/Traffic-Medicated-Goo/master/367906

Ike and Tina Turner
https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/ike-and-tina-turner

The Rolling Stones
https://www.rollingstones.com/

Immediate Records
https://www.discogs.com/label/

Immediate
6— Cat Stevens
https://catstevens.com/

Small Faces
https://www.thesmallfaces.com/

Rod Stewart
https://www.rodstewart.com/

John Paul Jones
http://www.johnpauljones.com/

Eric Clapton
https://www.ericclapton.com/

Derek and the Dominoes
https://www.discogs.com/artist/

New Adventures of PP Arnold (album)
https://www.pparnold.com/discography/the-new-adventures-of

Tag: Immediate Records

Humble Pie – “Stone Cold Fever”

P.P. Arnold – “Medicated Goo”