Steve Marriott - Small Faces

Small Faces

On 28 July 1964, Marriott first saw his future Small Faces partners, Ronnie Lane and 16-year-old drummer Kenney Jones. They were all performing at the Albion in Rainham, with their bands. Lane and Marriott met again by chance in the J60 Music Bar, a music shop in High Street North, Manor Park, where Marriott was working after his recent departure from the Moments. Lane came in looking to purchase a bass guitar, and afterwards was invited to Marriott's home to listen to his extensive collection of rare American R&B import records. With their shared love of R&B the trio were soon firm friends. Marriott was invited by Lane and Jones to perform with "the Outlaws" (previously called "the Pioneers") at the band's regular gig the Earl of Derby in Bermondsey. However the trio each ended up completely drunk and Marriott enthusiastically destroyed the piano he was playing, much to the amusement of Lane and Jones. The landlord sacked them and the band was finished. According to David Bowie on a 1999 episode of VH1 Storytellers, in 1964 he and his good friend Marriott planned to form an R&B duo called 'David and Goliath'. Instead, Marriott, Lane and Jones decided to form their own band, with Steve bringing along his acquaintance, Jimmy Winston (Winston was later replaced by Ian McLagan). Marriott's friend Annabel, an ex-student from the Italia Conti, came up with the band's distinctive name after commenting that they all had "small faces"; the name stuck in part because they were all (apart from Winston) small (none being over 5 ft 6 in tall), and the term "face" in English mod culture was the name given to a well-known and respected mod. Small Faces were signed to Don Arden within six weeks of forming and quickly became a successful mod band highly regarded by the youth cult's followers when their debut single "Whatcha Gonna Do About It" hit the UK singles chart. Later, they were said to be one of many influences on the formation and musical style of British hard rock group Led Zeppelin. Marriott is reputed to have been Jimmy Page's benchmark when selecting a lead singer, and there are unmistakable stylistic and timbral similarities between the voices of Marriott and Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin's lead singer. In fact, Plant was a fan of Small Faces and a regular at their early gigs where he also ran small errands for them. Zeppelin's classic song "Whole Lotta Love" is said by some to be a direct take of Marriott's version of the classic song "You Need Lovin'", originally written by Willie Dixon and recorded by American blues singer Muddy Waters. Small Faces would regularly perform "You Need Lovin'" in their live set, and the song also appears on their debut album Small Faces, released by Decca in May 1966.

"It was fantastic, I loved it, Muddy Waters recorded it but I couldn't sing like Muddy Waters so it wasn't that much of a nick. I was a high range and Muddy was a low range so I had to figure out how to sing it. So I did and that was our opening number for all the years we were together. Every time we were on stage that was our opening number, unless we had a short set. That's where Jimmy Page and Robert Plant heard it. Robert Plant used to follow us around. He was like a fan." – Marriott

However Marriott bore no animosity to Plant. He is quoted as shouting "Go on my son!" and wishing him luck when he first heard Plant's version on the radio. Arden paid the band a wage of £20 a week each, along with accounts in clothes shops in Carnaby Street. On Boxing Day, 1965, Arden arranged for them to move into a rented house, 22 Westmoreland Terrace, Pimlico. In his autobiography, McLagan describes the house as "party central", a place where the likes of Marianne Faithfull, Brian Epstein, Pete Townshend and other celebrities would hang out. Marriott was just 18 years old.

Marriott wrote or co-wrote most of Small Faces' hit singles. In an interview in 1984, Marriott was asked what his best Small Faces songs were: "I think 'All or Nothing', that I wrote, takes a lot of beating. To me, if there's a song that typifies that era, then that might be it. Words regardless, cos it's only a silly love song, but the actual feel and arrangement of the thing, and maybe 'Tin Soldier'". In 1967, Marriott wrote the evocative rock-ballad "Tin Soldier" to woo model Jenny Rylance. They first met in 1966 and Marriott was immediately smitten, but Rylance was dating up-and-coming singer Rod Stewart and so the two became friends. She later broke up with Stewart and had a brief romantic liaison with Marriott, but much to his disappointment ended it to go back to Stewart. Rylance and Stewart later split for good after a rocky four-year relationship; when Marriott found out he pursued her relentlessly, leading him to write "Tin Soldier". The song was a hit for the band in 1967 and for Marriott a personal triumph. He and Rylance were married at Kensington Register Office, London, on 29 May 1968.

His daughter, Mollie Marriott, is beginning to make a name for herself as a singer, appearing at Small Faces conventions and other gigs.

Later they moved into Beehive Cottage in Moreton, Essex. The property was jointly purchased with Ronnie Lane and wife Susan and was where Marriott established his music studio, "Clear Sounds". In 1967, after a dispute over unpaid royalties, relations between the Small Faces and Don Arden broke down and Arden sold them on to Andrew Loog Oldham, who owned the Immediate Records label. The band were much happier at Immediate, spending more time in the recording studio and far less time playing live; however, they lost the dynamic live sound that had made them famous. After the success of the group's number one hit concept album Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake Marriott was keen for the group to evolve and wanted to bring in ex-Herd frontman Peter Frampton, but McLagan, Jones and Lane refused. Marriott started to feel the band had reached the end creatively and began to spend more time with Frampton and Greg Ridley. After rumours in the press about the band splitting up, which were always officially denied, Marriott quit the group, storming off stage during a disastrous live performance on New Year's Eve, 1968. In a 1984 interview with NME reporter Paolo Hewitt on the subject of leaving the band, Marriott said:

"You grow apart for Christsakes. You're talking about people living together from the ages of seventeen to twenty-two and that's a growing up part of your life and we got to hate each other, no doubt about it. We didn't speak to each other for fucking years. Maybe ten years." – Marriott

Frampton claims that after Marriott's departure from the Small Faces, the remaining members, Lane, McLagan and Jones, turned up at his home and offered him Marriott's role in the band. (Ian McLagan vehemently denies this story).

"The following day after the Alexandra Palace gig (where Steve walked off), I was back home and I got a call from Ronnie Lane who said, Me, Kenney and Mac would like to come round and see you. I thought, Hello, what's all this about? Anyway, they all came round to my horrible little flat in Earls Court and asked me to join the Small Faces. All I could say was it's a bit late now. Why couldn't you have asked me while we were in Paris? We'd all be in the same band together and Steve wouldn't have left." – Peter Frampton.