“The sweetest fragrance, it brings a wind of change”
1
I bought “Rock On” in preparation of seeing Humble Pie at the Fillmore East.
But they were not the headliner, that was Lee Michaels, who is now only known for “Do You Know What I Mean,” but before that, he was a titan, of both the blues and rock. He had a unique stage show, it was just him and his organ, and a drummer. And it was a thunderous sound. “Barrel” is still one of my favorite albums, it makes me feel warm and connected when I listen to it. There was no hit, even though “What Now America” might have been one. Whereas Humble Pie…
Was a band formed by Steve Marriott and some guy who’d supposedly been a star in England, but we’d never heard of him, the fact that Peter Frampton was in the Herd didn’t register.
So the killer on “Rock On” is “Shine On,” it’s got a great sound, the studio take eclipses Frampton’s subsequent live renditions. It’s got a power that is just hard to replicate live.
So Humble Pie were pretty good. Little did I know that mere months later that weekend of shows would turn into the album “Rockin’ the Fillmore” and the band would become stars.
But this was after Frampton had left. As a matter of fact, Frampton said he was leaving before the tour, but it’s his fingers, his playing, that pushed “Rockin’ the Fillmore” over the top.
Frampton went solo in an era where we were paying attention, when rock was a movement, with mainstream and sideshow. Jethro Tull was now big as a result of “Aqualung,” the fourth Led Zeppelin album, with “Stairway to Heaven,” came out at the end of ’71.
Oh, I neglected to tell you, that Lee Michaels/Humble Pie show was in June of ’71, for context.
Meanwhile, Humble Pie, with the vastly inferior Clem Clempson replacing Frampton, substituting sludge for melody, put out “Smokin'” in March of ’72, and Frampton’s solo debut, “Wind of Change,” didn’t even come out until July of ’72, when I was doing the college rail trip of Europe. And at the time record stores were pilgrimages, everywhere you went you stopped in, and it was in the bins in London that I saw “Wind of Change.”
2
I woke up this morning singing “(I’ll Give You) Money” in my head. I have no idea where these songs come from, but it made me think of Frampton’s fourth album, the great leap forward after the walk in the woods, the figuring it out of the previous two albums. It’s “Frampton” that contains the original “Show Me the Way” and “Baby, I Love Your Way,” when Peter was still seen as credible, before he became a teenage idol with the double live album, which was a complete surprise to those of us who’d been following him. However, I must note that at this point my favorite cut from the LP is the opening track on side two, “Nowhere’s Too Far (For My Baby),” that change in the middle of the chorus slays me.
So I’m singing “(I’ll Give You) Money” in my head and it switches to “Wind of Change.” How did that happen? I don’t know. But one thing you’ve got to know is Frampton’s solo debut had no impact. Humble Pie was flourishing, and most Americans still had no idea who Peter Frampton was, but that first album…it existed in its own rarefied atmosphere, if you had it you loved it, and I had it.
The opener, “Fig Tree Bay,” was an invitation. Mellow, when most albums started off with a rocker, like the Stones, a single.
But it was the second side opener, “All I Want To Be (Is By Your Side)” that creeped up on me. This is not the acoustic number from the live album. That’s good, but this is different. The original studio version of “All I Want To Be (Is By Your Side)” is a tour-de-force. It’s electric, and it evolves, from the original lyrical beginning to an instrumental second half that would still turn heads today, if anybody still made this kind of music. Then again, the Atlanta Rhythm Section’s “Another Man’s Woman” never penetrated. Hell, people think that’s a soft rock band, when just the opposite is true.
But the title song…
“The sweetest fragrance, it brings a wind of change”
Now this song starts off acoustic, it would fit perfectly on “Frampton Comes Alive,” which it ultimately did.
“Take me away, take me away
Faking my way through
Take me away, take me away
Faking my way through”
The track goes from acoustic to electric and back again, something that Zeppelin specialized in. You were suspended in tranquility, and then the afterburners kicked in and you felt the jolt and it felt so good.
“Because all I do is for you”
Obviously Peter was singing about somebody, but at this point we had no idea who it was. But in truth, he was singing for us. A small coterie who’d followed him from Humble Pie, who were interested in where he’d go next. And rather than beating us over the head, like Humble Pie did with “Smokin’,” Peter went the opposite way, the road less taken, the one much harder to get people’s attention. At this point every burg had an FM rock station, and free format programming had given way to Lee Abrams’s consolidation. So this was a great period of album rock, you purchased albums that never got airplay, that were personal, that were yours alone.
And “Wind of Change” never became iconic, so I still own it. When it goes through my head, it’s only me. I’ve got no memories of music television performances. It’s a head game, one in which you always emerge victorious.
And the warm glow of success lasts forever.
Spotify playlist: https://tinyurl.com/3s9r48dc
