STEVE MARRIOTT: KILLED BY A CIGARETTE, DRUGS, OR THE MOB?

Steve Marriott and The Small Faces

Today out of nowhere Steve Marriott's life came into my mind. I wondered whatever happened to Steve. The official story is that Steve died from smoke inhalation in a huge fire at his large home in England. It was also rumored that he had ingested a lot of valium and alcohol on the plane returning from a US tour in 1991. Quite possible as I know how much I hate flying and have had other rockers tell me that they take various sleeping pills and alcohol to endure long overseas flights.

Steve's Bio: Stephen Peter Marriott was born at East Ham Hospital in London. At the age of twelve, he appeared as the Artful Dodger in Lionel Bart's "Oliver!" In 1965, he founded The Small Faces (so called because they were all under five foot four) with Ronnie Lane, Kenny Jones and Jimmy Winston, although the latter was soon replaced by Ian McLagan.

They became one of the leading bands of the late sixties, with twelve hit singles, including "All or Nothing" which reached Number One in August 1966, and the classic album "Ogden's Nut  Gone Flake".

Humble Pie In March 1969, Marriott left to form Humble Pie with Peter Frampton, Greg Ridley and Jerry Shirley. They continued until March 1975, with Dave Clempson replacing Frampton in 1971, and toured America twenty-two times. Marriott's later projects met with limited success, including an attempt to reform the Small Faces without Ronnie Lane.

On April 20th. 1991, he returned from a tour of the States to his house in Arkesden, near Saffron Walden in Essex, having taken a huge amount of alcohol and valium to overcome his fear of flying. The inquest was unable to determine whether he had been smoking in bed, or whether he had upset a candle, by the light of which he used to read before going to sleep, but the court heard that the fire had been so great that the smoke had filled the High Street of Arkesden, and that he had taken enough drugs and alcohol to kill him even if the house had not caught fire At least that is the "official story"

Steve Marriott Humble Pie 1973 Steve Marriott is the voice you hear on one of my most very favorite retro songs Itchycoo Park by The Small Faces. His voice was soft, clear and with a definite psychedelic edge. After the demise of The Small Faces Steve began Humble Pie. It was shocking to me at the time to realize the soft voice of Itchycoo Park was singing 30 Days in the Hole and I Don't Need No Doctor.

After reading many articles on Steve's career it came as no surprise to learn that he was nearly penniless and received almost no royalties from his music. This sadly is a similar story that I hear from lots of musicians from the retro era. Business vs creativity. Many artists left their business details to unscrupulous "managers". They trusted the wrong people or abused too many substances to notice they were being robbed by the very people that were trusted to care for them. Truly tragic, as a artist (oil painter) once told me, "The artist always gets screwed..."

I found this article which seems a bit far fetched... but I love a good mob conspiracy story! The mob did it! The mafia murdered Steve Marriott? Read this article below and see what you think.

The Steve Marriott Saga: How the Mob, Peter Frampton and Daddy Osbourne Snuffed Out The Small Faces and Humble Pie By Don Jacobson The other day I was listening to a great old album on WREK-FM, one of our better non-commercial, student-run stations, from Georgia Tech in Atlanta. 

 
The program was Stonehenge, WREK's weekly "deep tracks" classic rock show, and the album was Humble Pie's first effort, 1969's "As Safe As Yesterday Is."  It was so good, it got me wondering, why didn't Steve Marriott ever become the ultra-special hyperstar he should have been? What happened to him in the years between Humble Pie's break-up in 1975 and his premature, accidental death in a 1991 house fire? 

In my resulting research, there was a non-surprise: Marriott was totally besotted by cocaine and booze, which eventually led to an induced mental illness. But there was also something else that I wasn't aware of. In the long, ignoble history of musicians being ripped off by unscrupulous, power-mad managers, Marriott had to take the cake.

He never realized any kind of financial gain from his fabulous output of talent. Sandwiched around one visionary but unsuccessful handler (the Rolling Stones' Andrew Loog Oldham) were two other, uh, less-than-saintly guys, including Sharon Osbourne's daddy.

 Sharon Osbourne and father Don Arden 

Then, after Steve formed Humble Pie with Peter Frampton, he hooked up with Dee Anthony, one of the most important and powerful American rock managers. Anthony was indeed successful in getting the band a contract with A&M Records, and was the one who encouraged them to go the hard boogie, arena-rock route, a sound that turned them into one of the best live bands around and eventually yielded the hit "Thirty Days In The Hole." (Anthony later used the same formula for Frampton and his Comes Alive! album.) 

But, like a broken record, millions of dollars of royalties disappeared. Marriott, who was so poor he had been reduced to stealing food, thought Anthony had diverted the considerable Humble Pie royalties to push a now-solo Frampton, and demanded that Anthony tell him where the money was.

John Gotti Big Paul Castellano