STEVE MARRIOTT: ALL TOO BEAUTIFUL BY PAOLO HEWITT AND JOHN HELLIER Reviewed by Jamie Edwards    Small Faces biographies are a difficult find these days, so when I discovered Paolo Hewitt and John Hellier's book on Steve Marriott, All Too Beautiful, I jumped at the chance to read it. Marriott fronted the Small Faces, the quintessential Mod band of the 1960s, and was also a member of Humble Pie with Peter Frampton in the 1970s. He played guitar, sang and came into his own as a songwriter during the Small Faces period. The most amazing thing about Marriott was the power of his voice. When listening to songs like “All or Nothing” or “I've Got Mine” from his earlier catalogue, at first it’s hard to believe that those amazing soulful vocals belong to a short, skinny seventeen-year-old Cockney kid who wore frilly shirts with vests and tight velvet trousers symbolic of the Mods. Even “Sha-La-La-La-Lee,” a song that the members of the Small Faces hated, was belted out with such fierce intensity and soul that Marriott could have sung next to any of his favorite American R&B acts of the time and kept up.Marriott became well-known in America for being a part of the “supergroup” Humble Pie, but it was the Small Faces that cemented his name in music history. Hewitt and Hellier are clearly Mods and Small Faces fans, as the first half of the book is dedicated to this period of the musician's life, which only actually covers up until he was 21-years-old. The book is an easy read in part because Hewitt and Hellier detail the people and things surrounding Marriott and his bands so that the reader isn’t left wondering who and what everything is. There is plenty of juicy information about managers Don Arden and Dee Anthony, Andrew Loog Oldham's label Immediate Records, all of the musicians that were significant to Marriott throughout his life and the book even keeps a close eye on the musical trends of the time. The second part of the book is devoted to Marriott's time in Humble Pie in the 70s, his various other projects and his solo work. Towards the end of his life, he was performing in pubs around London with various musicians to make ends meet. He was on the brink of a comeback when he died in a house fire in 1991, after falling asleep with a lit cigarette in his hand. Hewitt and Hellier obviously did their homework. The biography includes quotations from Marriott's family, childhood friends, fellow musicians who worked with and admired him, fans from every stage in his career, bandmates, wives and girlfriends, children, old interviews with Marriott himself, just about everyone except the milkman. This allows Hewitt’s and Hellier's fanboyish-ness to be put on the backburner occasionally for others to really rip into Marriott. In doing so, they avoid placing him on a pedestal. As Marriott would often tell others, he was just a regular guy. Though the authors are quick and eager to praise Marriott the musician whenever they can, they do delve into the darker side of Marriott's personality as well. Marriott was foul-mouthed, difficult to work with and tended to tell you exactly what was on his mind. Like most of the musicians of the 60s, he became involved with drugs and alcohol, addictions that he sustained throughout his life. In the foreward, we are introduced to Melvin, the bald-headed wrestler, who was a violent part of Marriott's personality that emerged after a long night of drinking and partying, to the horror of the women he went home to. He was Jekyll and Hyde - not always an ideal person to be around, especially if he didn't get his own way. Yet even with his harsh personality traits, people were drawn to him because he was immensely talented and his music and ideas were appealing. Clearly Hewitt and Hellier want to convey that one of the best things about Marriott was that he made music because he loved it. He just wanted to play the music that he loved for people who appreciated it. He didn't get into music for the money. One of the most heart-breaking aspects of his life was that he was literally broke throughout most of it. Managers swindled him out of money and labels couldn't deliver on their promises either. Money became so scarce that at at one point he and his second wife were forced to steal food from neighbor's farms in order to eat. The best he ever had it was when the Small Faces had an account in every store on Carnaby Street and could buy clothes in every style and every color. Even if he couldn't afford a new guitar, at least he could look the epitome of Mod fashion while haggling for the instrument. All Too Beautiful is an intriguing look into the life of one of music's forgotten legends. This book will certainly appeal to Small Faces fans, perhaps less so to Humble Pie fans due to Hewitt and Hellier’s primary focus on the band Marriott shot to fame with. Marriott's life is at once inspiring and tragic. To rise to such success and harbor such incredible talent at such a young age, only to fall victim to bad business decisions has allowed Marriott's legacy to fade as generations pass. |  |
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