Into that vanguard of creative English rock talent – The Beatles, The Kinks, the Rolling Stones, The Who – which so illuminated mid-60s pop music, it is not too big a stretch to also include The Small Faces.
With a succession of innovative, superbly crafted singles and one breathtakingly audacious album (‘Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake‘), for a short time these four sharply dressed youths from East London, reigned as the definitive ‘mod’ band – at whose core lay the imagination and extraordinary vocal talent of guitarist Steve Marriott.
Style icon, hedonist, song-smith, anti-authoritarian, wastrel (all shot through with an aversion to compromise on any level), in 2004 music journalists Paolo Hewitt and John Hellier joined forces for a Marriott biography entitled ‘ALL TOO BEAUTIFUL‘ – the title a line from ‘Itchycoo Park,’ one of many superb songs he wrote for The Small Faces in conjunction with bass player Ronnie Lane.
Hewitt and Hellier trace the Steve Marriott story from his East End roots through early brushes with fame as a child actor, his contribution to the development of British rock through his Small Faces involvement, years spent playing to vast audiences as a member of Humble Pie, ill-fated reunions with both acts, a solo career and personal life blighted by poor choices, missed opportunities and bad habits – all of which lead to a tragic death at the age of 44 in April 1991.
Having spent the past week devouring ‘All Too Beautiful‘ there is no doubting the efforts two fine writers went to in presenting Marriott in all his gifted yet flawed glory, a man, who despite flashes of brilliance had a tendency to frustrate and annoy – of which the same could be said for this 300 page study of his life and times.
Which is not to say ‘All Too Beautiful‘ fails to engage the reader. Indeed, it excels in describing the kaleidoscope world of 60s pop in which The Small Faces were a prime force – the initial 1965-1968 period of their existence, when Marriott was at the height of his creativity, drawn with superb fluidity.
Neither do they pull any punches in portraying him as a reckless, often acid-tongued individual whose capacity for self-destruction resulted in a career that for long periods existed in the margins as others, less obstreperous in nature, took opportunities which came their way and reaped the rewards.
Naturally Marriott views this as ‘selling out,’ a view for the most part supported by the writers, who target Rod Stewart with a couple of unnecessary cheap shots, blind to the fact that even in 1976/77 Rod was still capable of writing at least a couple of good songs per album – while Marriott, despite his undoubted talent as a vocalist, clearly was not.
In making a strong, if obvious case for Marriott producing his most accomplished work with The Small Faces (completed by drummer Kenny Jones and keyboardist Ian McLagan) Hewitt and Hellier can do little to dispel the notion Marriott regularly floundered thereafter.
Humble Pie, the band he formed on leaving The Small Faces in 1969 with guitar whiz-kid Peter Frampton, proved a no-nonsense hard rock attraction, where power rather than panache was the order of the day. To the unconverted some of the material they recorded actually sounds nonsense, Frampton wisely quitting after four largely undistinguished albums.
In trying to assign Humble Pie a degree of credibility they manage to include a quote from long-time Marriott ‘acquaintance’ (but not one of his three wives) Manon Piercey who in recalling the 1974 Charlton open-air festival, opines: ‘Humble Pie were awesome, The Who couldn’t follow them.’
Your genial host also laughed out loud at this point, the most surprising thing being no exclamation marks follow such a ludicrous comment – this being a place to warrant them, as irritatingly they often appear at the end of an anecdote as if to prompt laughter.
One late-60s tale involving David Bowie is genuinely funny, but others not so, despite what feels stage direction to laugh.
The chaotic 1968 Small Faces/Who tour of Australia is covered with aplomb – Keith Moon and Marriott a maniacal offstage double act – and so too is the 1975 opportunity he receives in auditioning to replace Mick Taylor in the Stones.
From Keith Richards (Marriott being his preferred candidate) he receives advice on how to handle the audition with regard to the sensibilities of the lead singer – but Steve still manages to alienate Mick Jagger, so Ron Wood receives the nod instead.
Earlier in the book, when Marriott and his Humble Pie cohorts find themselves on the same bill as the Faces – Lane, McLagan and Jones carrying on with Wood and Stewart after dropping the ‘Small’ moniker – he taunts his former band mates with ‘took two to replace me,’ the authors chipping in with, ‘it was the truth and he never tired of reminding them. Never.’
Much closer to the truth, however, is that in terms of charm and bonhomie, the Faces were streets ahead of Humble Pie and even if their albums could be wildly inconsistent they still had the edge on anything Marriott and co recorded. Was his chiding evidence of a wicked sense of humour – or just plain bitterness? Either way the comment sounds somewhat hollow in light of Wood becoming a Stone and Stewart (who receives more Marriott bad-mouthing in a later chapter) a global superstar.
While the man in question is clearly the subject of extensive research, beyond Marriott the time line sometimes goes askew (Kenny Jones not in The Who in August 1978, Keith Moon still alive at this time), but the point is well made on how influential Marriott, based on his Small Faces achievements, would be on a number of notable bands who emerged through the 90s.
Sadly, however, Marriott would not be around to see his legacy develop, dying in a fire at his cottage in the south of England on April 21 1991, the blaze apparently starting after he fell asleep with a lighted cigarette in his hand.
‘I’ll be famous when I’m dead,’ remarked Marriott toward the end of his relatively short but eventful life, this theory expanded upon in an affecting passage near the end of ‘All Too Beautiful‘:
‘If Steve had managed to keep himself together, he would not have been able to move for requests to appear on people’s albums. (Paul) Weller, Ocean Colour Scene, Oasis and The (Primal) Scream would have been the first in line. Many others would have followed. All would have sought to have located in him his great talent for creating records of such power and grace.’
Not even Steve Marriott could find a caustic response to that.
This article was first published on 13/7/2020.
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NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of ‘MONTY’S DOUBLE‘ – an acclaimed thriller available as an Amazon Kindle book.