Humble Pie - Town and Country (Vinyl LP) * * *

Humble Pie's 1969 Sophomore Album Town and Country on LP: Newly Remastered

A 1969 rarity finally remastered! Humble Pie's critically acclaimed second album Town and Country was all set to launch the band into superstardom when their label Immediate Records suddenly collapsed, taking the LP out of UK record shops just four months after going on sale. In the USA, the LP was not even released. Town and Country was released barely three months after As Safe as Yesterday Is to capitalize on the debut LP's Top 30 success, a No. 4 hit single and huge media coverage by journalists fascinated by the new "supergroup" formed by Steve Marriott, Peter Frampton, Jerry Shirley and Greg Ridley. But the real reason for Immediate putting the new LP out so soon was the label's cash flow problems. New product meant much-needed income while Humble Pie wowed crowds on a two-month US tour. Luckily, the band had recorded over two albums worth of material, enabling Town and Country to be rush-released on November 7, 1969. The music press welcomed the LP as "an unqualified success!" and praised it's more personal, striped-back sound. While success was cruelly halted (albeit temporally) in America and the UK as Immediate fell into liquidation, Humble Pie soon became one of the best-loved, best-selling and hardest-rocking bands of the 1970s with new label A&M. The newly mastered LP sounds incredible and reproduces the original Hipgnosis designed sleeve and rare inner lyric bag plus adds a fully illustrated 4-panel insert. Exclusively released on Kenney Jones' Nice Records, a new reissue label set up by artists for artists.