#8: I Don’t Need No Doctor by Humble Pie

City: London, ON
Radio Station: CJOE
Peak Month: December 1971
Peak Position in London ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #73
YouTube: “I Don’t Need No Doctor”
Lyrics: “I Don’t Need No Doctor”

Humble Pie was a band formed in Moreton, Essex, England, in 1969. The co-founders of the band were Peter Frampton and Steve Marriott. Frampton was born in 1950 in Beckenham, Kent. By the age of 12, Frampton played in a band called the Little Ravens. Both he and David Bowie, who was three years older, were pupils at BromleyTechnical School, where Frampton’s father was Bowie’s art teacher. The Little Ravens played on the same bill at school as Bowie’s band, George and the Dragons. Peter and David would spend lunch breaks together, playing Buddy Holly songs. At the age of 14, Peter was playing with a band called the Trubeats followed by a band called the Preachers, who later became Moon’s Train, produced and managed by Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones. Frampton became a successful child singer, and in 1966 he became a member of the Herd. He was the lead guitarist and singer, scoring several British pop hits. Frampton was named “The Face of 1968” by teen magazine Rave.

The Herd had a #6 hit in the UK in 1967 titled “From the Underworld”. And in 1968, the Herd had a #5 hit in the UK titled “I Don’t Want Our Loving to Die”.  In 1969, when Frampton was 18 years old, he joined Steve Marriott from the band Small Faces to form Humble Pie. Marriott was born in 1947 in Plashet, Essex, England. In 1959, at the age of twelve, Marriott formed his first band with school friends Nigel Chapin and Robin Andrews. They were called ‘The Wheels’, later the ‘Coronation Kids’, and finally ‘Mississippi Five’. In 1961, he debuted in the London musical production of Oliver! In 1963, he appeared in the British Peter Sellers comedy film Heavens Above! That year Marriott also appeared in a rock film titled Live It Up! along with Kenny Ball and Gene Vincent. Two years later Steve Marriott was in the 1965 rock movie Be My Guest starring Jerry Lee Lewis and The Nashville Teens.

Steve Marriott concurrently formed a band called The Frantiks, The Moments and then the Checkpoints. By mid-1965, he joined the Small Faces by which time he left the movie business. The Small Faces had a Top 15 hit in the UK with “Whatcha Gonna Do About It”. In 1966, the Small Faces released “She-La-La-La-Lee” which reached #3 in the UK and #8 in New Zealand. The band had a number-one hit in the UK with “All or Nothing” later that year. And continued reaching the Top Ten in the UK with “Hey Girl”, “My Mind’s Eye”, “Itchycoo Park”, “Tin Soldier” and “Lazy Sunday”.

When Frampton and Mariott formed Humble Pie, after Marriott’s departure from the Small Faces, two other bandmates joined them. Jerry Shirley (born in 1952 in Hertfordshire, England) was recruited as drummer at age 17. Bass guitarist Geoff Ridley (born in 1947 in Carlisle, England) had previously been with Dino & the Danubes, the Ramrods, briefly with The Nice, and then the VIPS and Spooky Tooth.

In 1969, the band released their first studio album, As Safe as Yesterday is. It reached #6 on the pop album chart in the Netherlands. Humble Pie released a single titled “Natural Born Bugie” in 1969. It reached #4 in the UK, #6 in Ireland and the Netherlands, #9 in Belgium, #13 in Austria, and #20 in West Germany.

Peter Frampton left Humble Pie in the fall of 1971. Before he left the band released “I Don’t Need No Doctor” in the summer of 1971.

“I Don’t Need No Doctor” was written by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson. Ashford was born in 1941 in Fairfield, South Carolina. Simpson was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1946. Ashford was part of a gospel group in Ypsilanti, Michigan, in his late teens. It was in Harlem in 1964 that Ashford and Simpson first met at a Baptist church. In 1965, their song “Let’s Go Get Stoned” became a number-one R&B hit for Ray Charles in 1966. That year the Guess Who? recorded “Hey Ho, What You Do to Me”, which became a Top Ten hit in a number of record markets in Canada. Ashford and Simpson wrote several hits for Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell including “Your Precious Love”, “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing” and “You’re All I Need To Get By”.

Ashford and Simpson wrote “Reach Out And Touch” and “Remember Me” for Diana Ross, a number-one hits in 1978 for Quincy Jones (“Stuff Like That”) and Chaka Khan (“I’m Every Woman”).

As a recording act, Ashford And Simpson had Top Ten R&B hits with “It Seems to Hang On”, “Found a Cure”, “Love Don’t Make It Right”, “Street Corner”, and “Solid”. The latter was a #12 pop hit and a number-one R&B hit in 1984. At President Barak Obama’s 2009 inauguration, Ashford and Simpson rewrote their song, “Solid”, as “Solid as Barack”. They dedicated it to him at his inaugural festivities.

Between 1972 and 1989 Ashford & Simpson charted nine singles into the Top Ten of the Billboard R&B chart. Recording artists who took their songs to the studio include Aretha Franklin, the Marvelettes, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and Martha & the Vandellas. In 2011, Nick Ashford died at the age of 70 of throat cancer. in 2015, Rolling Stone ranked Ashford & Simpson among the 20 top duos in the rock ‘n roll era.

“I Don’t Need No Doctor” is sung from the point of view of a patient who knows something his doctor doesn’t know. In the song, a doctor puts a patient on “a critical list,” and prescribes “a medicated lotion” as a way of “keeping me safe from harm.” However, the patient exclaims “I know what’s ailing me…all I need is my baby.”

“I Don’t Need No Doctor” was released by Ashford in 1966 and was a flop. Ray Charles recorded the song later that year. In 1969, the Chocolate Watchband released a cover version in 1969.

“I Don’t Need No Doctor” peaked at #2 in London (ON) and Salt Lake City, #3 in Cleveland, Dover (ME), and Wilkes-Barre (PA), #5 in Campbell/Youngstown (OH), and Wichita (KS), #8 in Akron (OH), #14 in Washington DC, and Big Rapids (MI), and #15 in Buffalo.

In 1972, “I Don’t Need No Doctor” was recorded by New Riders of the Purple Sage. It has also been recorded by Great White, the metal band W.A.S.P. the punk band the Nomads, Styx, jazz musician John Scofield, and John Mayer.

In November 1971, Humble Pie released a live album titled Performance: Rockin’ the Fillmore. It included Peter Frampton along with the other original members.

Peter Frampton went solo in 1972 and by 1975 enjoyed a Top Ten hit in Canada, France, the UK and USA titled “Show Me The Way”. The single also topped the pop charts in Belgium, and the Netherlands. In 1977, “Baby I Love Your Way” reached #3 in Canada, #8 in Brazil, #12 in the USA and #14 in Ireland. And in 1977, “I’m In You” was a number-one hit in both Canada and the USA, and a strong seller in both Australia and New Zealand. In 1978, Peter Frampton appeared in a leading role in the film Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. In 2020 a memoir titled Do You Feel Like I Do? was co-authored with rock journalist Alan Light. In 2021, Peter Frampton released his eighteenth studio album – an instrumental effort, titled Frampton Forgets the Words. 

In 1972, Humble Pie released “Hot N’ Nasty” and the single was a modest hit in Canada and the USA. As well, the band’s fifth studio album Smokin’ was a #6 hit on the album chart in the USA, #9 in Australia, and #13 in Canada. It also sold well in the UK and West Germany.

In 1973, the band’s sixth album, Eat It, was also commercially successful. Humble Pie covered Chuck Berry’s “Rock and Roll Music” in 1975. That year Humble Pie went on a hiatus with Steve Marriott, Jerry Shirley and Greg Ridley dissolving the band.

Humble Pie reformed in 1980-81. They released a few more albums. Their fifteenth and final single release was in 1981 with the a cover of the Small Faces “Tin Soldier” written by Steve Marriott.

The 1980s saw Steve Marriott’s marriage dissolve. He formed Packet of Three (1984-86). Film composer Stephen Parsons asked Marriott to sing the title track “Shakin’ All Over” (popularized by Johnny Kidd and the Pirates in the UK in 1960) for the low budget horror film Gnaw: Food of the Gods II (1989).

By 1990 Marriott was playing an average 200 gigs a year, when Frampton flew into Britain and asked Marriott to reform Humble Pie to produce a one-off album and a reunion tour. The payment would be enough to allow Marriott to take things easier. He agreed, and they flew out to Frampton’s recording studio in Los Angeles on January 27, 1991. They began writing songs, but the project was never completed, as Marriott had a change of heart and returned home.

On April 20, 1991, Steve Marriott’s cottage caught on fire. It is believed that the most likely cause of the fire was that soon after arriving home, jet-lagged and tired, in the early hours, Marriott had lit a cigarette while in bed. Almost immediately he fell into a deep sleep. Since Marriott was found lying on the floor between the bed and wall, investigators concluded that he tried unsuccessfully to escape after being awakened by the blaze. It was ruled an accidental death from smoke inhalation.

When he left Humble Pie in 1975, Greg Ridley moved to Gloucestershire and lived in a stone cottage in the Forest of Dean with his girlfriend. He found the peace and quiet of country life a pleasant and refreshing change to touring and recording. He became involved in the antique furniture business, and throughout the 1980s, he was a low-key antique trader and stripped pine furniture for other traders as a business. On April 14, 2001, he appeared with Jerry Shirley, Peter Frampton and Clem Clempson, billed as a one off Humble Pie re-union, at a Steve Marriott Tribute Concert. Earlier that year, he had also become involved with a Humble Pie project initiated by Jerry Shirley’s reactivation of the group, and the enlisting of another former Humble Pie guitarist and vocalist Bobby Tench. This resulted in the album Back on Track, released in 2002, and a short tour of Germany with Company of Snakes during the early part of 2003. The project was cut short when Ridley became ill. He died of pneumonia later that year at the age of 56.

November 29, 2025
Ray McGinnis

References:
“Nick Ashford of Ashford & Simpson songwriting team dies at 70,” Los Angeles Times, August 24, 2011.
“Greg Ridley: Bassist with Spooky Tooth and Humble Pie,” Independent, December 6, 2003.
“Steve Marriott, 44, Musician, Is Killed,” New York Times, April 21, 1991.
“Jerry Shirley,” Humble-Pie.net.
Matthew Leimkuehler, “In his new book, Peter Frampton details how he ‘learned so much from failure‘,” Tennessean, December 2, 2020.
Peter Frampton and Alan Light, Do You Feel Like I Do?, (De Capo, 2020).

CJOE 1290-AM London (ON) Top Ten | December 10, 1971