Humble Pie

“Eating Humble Pie” is an expression that means to be submissive or apologetic. Its origin goes as far back as the 17th century. The lord of an estate would give the umbles (the less tasty parts of an animal) to his servants. "Umbles" in Middle English was derived from the word numble (after the Middle French nombles), meaning "deer's innards." Typically, they were made into a pie. This became associated with a lower social status.

I knew the phrase more as the name of a rock band.

1970 album

Humble Pie is an English rock band formed by singer-guitarists Peter Frampton and Steve Marriott in 1969. Often regarded as one of the first supergroups in music, Humble Pie experienced moderate popularity and commercial success during the 1970s with hit songs such as "Black Coffee", "30 Days in the Hole", "I Don't Need No Doctor", "Hot 'n' Nasty" and "Natural Born Bugie" among others.

The original line-up of members featured lead singer/frontman and guitarist Steve Marriott of Small Faces, singer-guitarist Peter Frampton of the Herd, former Spooky Tooth bassist Greg Ridley and drummer Jerry Shirley from the Apostolic Intervention.

Having been instantly labeled by the UK music press as a supergroup, the band chose Humble Pie in order to downplay such expectations.

Their debut album, As Safe as Yesterday Is, was released in August 1969, along with the single, "Natural Born Bugie"/"Wrist Job", which reached No. 4 hit in the UK Singles Chart. It is one of the first albums to be described by the term "heavy metal" in a 1970 review in Rolling Stone magazine. I always thought of them as being more "hard rock" than metal, but I'm not a critic. 

On 9 July 1971 Humble Pie opened for Grand Funk Railroad at their historic Shea Stadium concert, an event that broke the Beatles record for fastest-selling stadium concert, to that date. 

That year, Humble Pie released their most successful record to date, Rock On, as well as a live album recorded at the Fillmore East in New York entitled Performance Rockin' the Fillmore. The live album was certified gold by the RIAA. "I Don't Need No Doctor" became an FM radio standard in the US, peaking at No. 73 on the Billboard Hot 100 and propelling the album up the charts. 

By the time of the album's release, Peter Frampton had left the band and went on to considerable success as a solo artist. His live recording Frampton Comes Alive! (1976), had several hit singles, and has earned 8× Platinum by the RIAA in the United States.

The band went through many lineup changes. Steve Marriott died in a house fire in 1991. The band continued to tour and record and during 2018 Jerry Shirley (who still owned the Humble Pie name) created a new lineup that he would direct but not tour with and as of 2023 Shirley's "Humble Pie Legacy" lineup of Dave Colwell (guitar), Jim Stapley (vocals, guitar, Hammond, harmonica), Ivan Bodley (bass) and Bobby Marks (drums) were still actively touring.