Greg Ridley 1942 - 2003

This is the third installment in a series of profiles on some of Rock And Roll's most influential bass players.

One of the very first albums I bought when I started collecting LPs years ago was Humble Pie: Performance Rockin' The Fillmore. This album started my addiction for anything Pie. Humble Pie's founding members Steve Marriott on vocals and guitar, Peter Frampton on vocals and guitar, Jerry Shirley on drums and Greg Ridley on bass guitar comprised in my opinion one of the best Blues/Rock groups of the late 60' mid 70's.

At the time of the release of Humble Pie: Performance Rockin' The Fillmore in 1971 I was just becoming interested in playing music and bass guitar was my choice of instrument, so Greg Ridley naturally became one of my first guitar heroes.

Alfred Gregory "Greg" Ridley was born in Aspatria, Cumberland, England on October 23, 1942. Greg began his musical career as a member of a local band called "Dino & The Danubes" as well as other small club bands until longtime friend and classmate Mike Harrison asked him to join the "V.I.P.s" in 1964. The "V.I.P.s" did some recording and experienced a small amount of success but membership and name changes were the only real constant. In 1968 with the addition of American keyboardist Gary Wright and guitarist Luther Grosvenor the band finally decided on the name "Spooky Tooth".

Greg performed on both Spooky Tooth's debut album, It's All About and their second effort, Spooky Two. The band had developed a very strong following coming off these two releases and it looked like Greg and Spooky Tooth were heading in the right direction.

In early 1969 Greg was approached by former "Small Faces" front man Steve Marriott and asked if he would be willing to leave Spooky Tooth to join a new band. Marriott and Peter Frampton were just forming "Humble Pie" and with the recent addition of Jerry Shirley on drums a bass player was needed to round out the group. Ridley accepted the offer. From 1969 through 1975 Ridley was at the center of Humble Pie's sound as their bassist and along with drummer Jerry Shirley they made up one of the best rhythm sections in Rock music during this time.

In 1975 the members of Humble Pie disbanded to pursue other interests. Ridley actually left music for almost a decade after the break up.

In 2001 Greg participated in a concert organized in memory of Steve Marriott, who tragically died in April 1991 in a house fire. At that time Greg was very much involved with Jerry Shirley to reactivate Humble Pie with Humble Pie MkII guitarist and vocalist Bobby Tench. Out of this collaboration came the album Back On Track released in 2002. In 2003 during a tour of Germany in support the album Greg fell ill and the tour was cancelled. Unfortunately he wasn't able to recover.

On November 19, 2003 in Alicante, Spain Greg Ridley died from complications resulting from pneumonia. He was 56.