Steve Marriott
Born a month premature and weighing in at just over 4 lbs, Steve Marriott was small in stature but huge in life. Hailing from a working class family in the UK, a young Steve Marriott learned about the two things that would define his music career -- performing and hustling.
His father, a pub performer, bought a young Steve Marriott a ukelele and a harmonica. Steve not only taught himself how to play both instruments, he then took his talent to the streets, busking on corners and winning talent shows. By the time he was 12, Marriott had formed his first band with a couple of school friends.
Marriott also showed a talent for drama. After winning a role in Oliver!, Steve toured with the production for a year and recorded some of the lead vocals for the official album. He studied drama at the Itali Conti and continued to find acting work in film and television. But he eventually decided to focus on his true love, and he left acting to pursue music.
Steve Marriott's music career started off quickly, but without much fanfare, and he spent the next few years in and out of various projects with different artists. His first single came and went, and he was dropped from a band because they decided he was too young to be their frontman. But his luck turned around when, instead of teaming up with David Bowie, he decided to form his own band, Small Faces. (We think he probably would have done okay with David Bowie, too).
Within the first six weeks of getting together, Small Faces was signed, and their single "Whatcha Gonna Do About It" debuted as a hit. The success of their debut brought them into the spotlight as a respected Mod band. Marriott wrote most of the material for Small Faces, and his musical sensibility and vocal style created a sound that would influence generations of musicians to come. Like Led Zeppelin.
But nothing lasts forever, and when the band broke up, Steve Marriott went on to form Humble Pie in 1969, with Peter Frampton, Greg Ridley and Jerry Shirley. Not surprisingly, the Marriott-inked song, "Natural Born Boogie", became the band's biggest hit.
Unfortunately, along the road to success, Steve Marriott developed a substance abuse problem that would hamper him until he was killed in a housefire in April 1991.
Although he made several attempts to make a comeback, his dependency issues, his general distrust of the music business, and his untimely death, prevented him from ever really finding his way back into the limelight.
Our Steve Marriott T-shirts are fully licensed, endorsed and made from the softest, prewashed and shrunk cotton jesery. They faithfully reproduce the original article as tracked down by Worn Free from archive images.
Vintage Rock T-shirts for today.
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