Product Description

Steve Marriott should, without doubt, be remembered as Britain’s – nay, the worlds greatest white soul singer. He was also one of the last great characters of the music industry - the sharp-dressed charming cockney who would have a joke for every occasion, a put-down for every rival.

As a rebellious urchin he burned down his school. His showbusiness debut was as a street urchin in the original stage production of Oliver!. He came to fame as the little East End ‘erbert who captured the very essence of the phenomenon that became know as mod, while fronting those darlings of Wapping Wharf, the Small Faces.

From 1965 to 1967 Marriott held the title of world mod icon – totally unchallenged. The Small Faces scored a string of top ten singles including the classics All Or Nothing and Tin Soldier. They all lived together in millionaire style at their chic Pimlico home, were whisked around by limousine, dated top models and actresses, and frequented London’s most fashionable clubs.

In 1968 Marriott and his band mates released a number one classic album Ogden's Nut Gone Flake and the world beckoned. But it was to be with another band, Humble Pie, that Steve achieved legendary status in the USA. Over 20 American tours in the space of four years including concerts at legendary venues such as Madison Square Gardens and Shea Stadium ensured their reputation as the finest touring band in the world.

After Humble Pie's demise, Marriott found himself at the sharp end of a rags-to-riches-to-rags story. With his money diverted by mafia associates and the Inland Revenue dogging his every move. While less talented contemporaries were esconced in Surrey mansions, Steve was reduced to raiding farmers' fields for vegetables. But his spirit, if bloodied, was unbowed and he gained as much pleasure from playing cash gigs at London pubs as he ever did on US Stadium stages. Tragically, the 44-year-old Marriott was on the verge of a major comeback when he was tragically killed in a house fire.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #393051 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

Daily Express, 18 June, 2004
A riveting account of the singer's life, crammed with entertaining stories of rebellion and debauchery...compulsive reading.

Daily Mail
One of the best books I've read about the backwaters of rock music.

Mojo
Compelling reading.

Customer Reviews

A wonderful talent but a very sad story
Paulo Hewitt & John Hellier's biography of one of England's greatest artists is long overdue. Much has been written about the Small Faces but less about the remainder of Marriott's career, especially the 1970s when he was huge, popularity-wise not height, in the US. This book has much in it that is new, even to myself as a Small Faces fan.

While Steve Marriott was an icon for his generation, and the subsequent generation to some extent, and produced many memorable songs, his story is very sad. His life was ruined by drink and drugs and he took on a schizophrenic personality that detroyed his three marriages and, ultimately, contributed to his early death in 1991. Despite his undoubted talent, he never received the rewards he earned but he did not look for the fame so many of his contemporaries enjoyed. Despite that, he envied or even resented the lesser talents who did "cash in."

This is a very well-written book that goes further into the Marriott legend than anything else I have read. Even the keenest Small Faces fans will find something new here. It has been well-researched with many interviews that span the course of his life. The conclusion seems to be that everyone loved and respected Marriott but his schizophrenia and hyperative behaviour made him very difficult to live with.

A superb read and an eye-opener in many ways.

LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE.
What is it about Steve Marriott? I've lived with him for some thirty-nine years now - a large portion of my life. It's certainly the longest relationship I've managed to sustain, apart from that with my sister Miriam. Why? What is it about this self-confessed "ugly bald headed squint-eyed midget" that has held my interest and affection for all these years? In a nutshell: part music, part human interest, and part personal. Numerous other musicians have died over the years, and the results have often been both shocking and sad. When news reached me that Steve Marriott had died, I was inconsolable. This time it went beyond bad news. This was personal. Miriam and I had met him on a number of occasions both on and off stage, and he had charmed us both. We loved him. He was, without fail, gracious funny and very smart. I still miss him. We both do.

Hot off the presses, Paolo Hewitt and John Hellier's All Too Beautiful...(327 pages) may be viewed as a companion piece to Ian McLagan's All The Rage, and Dan Muise's excellent Gallagher Marriott Derringer & Trower, in that it helps to add further pieces to the puzzle of Marriott's life already tackled in those two publications. This book adds its own overview of a life both stellar and troubled. The polarity of Marriott's forty-four years is never in doubt, and opinions on him are divided.

Only this week, in a review of The Faces' Five Guys Walk Into A Bar, Mac is quoted as follows: "After Steve Marriott left the Small Faces we never wanted to employ a lead singer again." To which an informed retort might well be: Listen pal, without Steve Marriott, no one would ever have heard of you.

Marriott was, of course, much more than singer and front man for the Small Faces. In him my generation had managed to capture lightning in a bottle. He was a unique individual, and - as this book helps to make clear - to a large extent he WAS the Small Faces; the life and soul of the group were in his hands. Furthermore, we are correctly reminded, not only was he possessed of one of the great voices of the age, but he was a songwriter of extraordinary insight and sensitivity, and a multi-instrumentalist of considerable talent. He was 60's mod personified. Gifted with killer cheekbones and perfect hairstyle, his clothes captured the moment just so, and always looked great on him. His image was one hundred percent spot-on, and the rest of us could only look on in wonder.

This is an easy book to read. The narrative style, with its tendency to veer between the cheerful gorblimey and the didactic, is well suited to its subject matter, and the authors' love of Marriott is obvious. Events are dealt with in strict chronological order, and numerous black and white photographs support the text. Most of the book rings true, and few punches are pulled. The musical and social zeitgeist of the era has been admirably captured, and the text is beefed up with hearsay and anecdotal material from numerous family, friends and fellow musicians.
With the benefit of judicious editing some of the irritating glitches of punctuation and syntax could have been avoided, and fine-tuning might have taken up some of the slack (do we really need to be told David Essex's real name?). There are one or two more glaring errors, and it is of little credit to the authors that lyrics to All Or Nothing (p 292) and Here Come The Nice (p149) are misquoted.

Ultimately Steve Marriott was very fortunate in being given two bites of the musical cherry, and this book cannot be faulted in its assertion that - though Humble Pie rose to the very top of the rock tree, and were an awesome live experience, Marriott never again wrote a song as exquisite as All Or Nothing or Tin Soldier. He may have come close, but - with ex-wife Jenny's absence from his life - that particular muse had vanished.

It is tempting to view the latter part of Marriott's life as a maelstrom of ever- diminishing returns; The Man hostage to a capricious personality and harnessed to a debilitating booze and drug habit. As with all things Marriott, however, this is too simplistic. He lived his life the way he chose, and he never sold out (Are you listening Rod Stewart??). And, despite it all, to the end of his life Steve Marriott remained a riveting presence on stage.

To paraphrase a quote from the book, and this is Steve speaking to his mother Kay, "No mangers, no record companies, total control... I can work when I want to and where I want to. I much prefer it this way. No big money means no hassles."

An interesting and informative read? Yes. A riveting read? Almost.

James Norrish

Forget The Grammar Feel The Width!
Knitpicking goes out the window when dealing with such a visionary and free spirit. Long overdue and hats off to Hewitt and Hellier for the exhaustive research. It's loving and evocative and that's all that matters to me. It's had me playing Tin Soldier, Afterglow, Eddie's Dreaming and Up The Wooden Hill To Bedfordshire on a loop since I read it. It's also got my kids asking all about this dude , which is what the sharing of culture is all about. Well done chaps. The Man's looking down on you with a wry smile on his small face.