Greg Ridley died on November 19, 2003. The Humble Pie co-founder played bass throughout the band’s original run, but his contribution also included singing, writing and helping turn ideas into finished arrangements. Records such as Rock On and Smokin’ preserve each side of that work.
He had started out performing under the name Dino, then worked as both a guitarist and bassist before joining Spooky Tooth. Ridley played on that group’s first two albums before moving to Humble Pie in 1969. Steve Marriott recruited him for a lineup completed by Peter Frampton and drummer Jerry Shirley. The new band had room for acoustic material as well as heavier blues rock, with songwriting shared across the lineup.
Rock On, released in 1971, gave Ridley room to write and sing his own material. He composed and sang “Big George,” with Marriott and Frampton supplying backing vocals. “Stone Cold Fever” was a different kind of collaboration: it began with a Frampton riff and featured Marriott’s lead vocal, but all four members received songwriting credits. In an interview first published by Classic Rock in 2013, Shirley explained that he and Ridley developed much of the jazzy middle section beneath Frampton’s guitar. “Greg and I would help arrange the whole song,” he said of their broader working method.
The original quartet also recorded the 1971 double live album Performance: Rockin’ the Fillmore. “Stone Cold Fever” appeared alongside “I Don’t Need No Doctor” and extended performances such as “I Walk on Gilded Splinters,” which occupied an LP side. The album brought the band’s stage arrangements to a wider audience. Frampton departed in 1971, and Clem Clempson took his place. That lineup made Smokin’ in 1972, taking some of its songs on the road before recording them. Shirley told Defenders of the Faith in 2022 that the album combined material they had played live with songs developed through spontaneous jams. At Olympic Studios, their equipment and drums were arranged on a riser as if they were playing a show. Ridley and Shirley remained the rhythm section through the change in guitarists and into those sessions.
Ridley’s voice had a place in that music, too. On “Sweet Peace and Time,” he sang verses while Marriott took the bridge. On “You’re So Good for Me,” his lower lead vocals alternated with Marriott’s, accompanied by female backing singers. Brett Milano’s account for uDiscover Music highlights those exchanges. Alongside the bass playing and shared arrangements, the album gives Ridley space as a lead singer.
Humble Pie’s original run ended in 1975, but Ridley and Shirley eventually recorded together under the band’s name again. With Bobby Tench and Dave Colwell, they made Back on Track, released in 2002. Shirley recalled taking that lineup on the road before Ridley’s illness brought the project to a halt. The reunion added a further studio album to the work they had begun together in 1969.
