Stephen Peter Marriott was an English guitarist, singer and songwriter.
83 Facts About Steve Marriott
2.
Steve Marriott co-founded and played in the rock bands Small Faces and Humble Pie, in a career spanning over two decades.
3.
Steve Marriott was inducted posthumously into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012 as a member of Small Faces.
4.
In Britain, Steve Marriott became a popular, often-photographed mod style icon.
5.
Steve Marriott returned to his music roots, playing in pubs and clubs around London and Essex.
6.
Steve Marriott died on 20 April 1991 when a fire, which was thought to have been caused by a cigarette, swept through his 16th-century home in Arkesden, Essex.
7.
Steve Marriott was 44 and posthumously received an Ivor Novello Award in 1996 for his "Outstanding Contribution to British Music", and was listed in Mojo as one of the top 100 greatest singers of all time.
8.
Steve Marriott came from a working-class background and attended Monega Junior School.
9.
Steve Marriott showed an early interest in singing and performing, busking at local bus-stops for extra pocket money and winning talent contests during the family's annual holiday to Jaywick Holiday camp near Clacton-on-Sea.
10.
In 1959 at the age of twelve, Steve Marriott formed his first band with school friends Nigel Chapin and Robin Andrews.
11.
From a young age, Steve Marriott was a huge fan of American singer Buddy Holly and would mimic his hero by wearing large-rimmed spectacles with the lenses removed.
12.
Steve Marriott wrote his first song, called "Shelia My Dear", after his aunt Shelia to whom he was close.
13.
Steve Marriott was a cheeky, hyperactive child, according to his mother Kay, and well known by his neighbours in Strone Road for playing pranks and practical jokes.
14.
At the age of thirteen, Steve Marriott auditioned for the role.
15.
In 1961 the Steve Marriott family moved from Strone Road to a new council flat in Daines Close, Manor Park.
16.
Steve Marriott's parents were devastated and his decision to give up acting caused a family rift.
17.
In 1963, Steve Marriott wrote "Imaginary Love" and touted it around the big record labels in London.
18.
Steve Marriott's first single was a song written by Kenny Lynch, "Give Her My Regards", with Steve Marriott's self-penned song as the B-side.
19.
Craine did not invite him to audition because he knew Steve Marriott wanted to be lead vocalist.
20.
Between leaving the Moments and joining The Small Faces, Steve Marriott joined The Checkpoints.
21.
Steve Marriott got us to learn James Brown numbers, which at the time we weren't very up in.
22.
Steve Marriott was listening to us, making sure we got the backing right, so he didn't put himself out vocally.
23.
Steve Marriott always had a small case with his harmonicas in.
24.
Steve Marriott seemed to me to be a bit of a loner.
25.
Steve Marriott was quite a heavy smoker as I recall.
26.
Steve Marriott had no guitar, he would use our lead guitarist's red Fender Strat.
27.
Steve Marriott would put many guitar breaks in the James Brown songs.
28.
On 28 July 1964, Steve Marriott first saw his future Small Faces partners, Ronnie Lane and 16-year-old drummer Kenney Jones.
29.
Lane and Steve Marriott met again by chance in the J60 Music Bar, a music shop in High Street North, Manor Park, where Steve Marriott was working after his recent departure from the Moments.
30.
Steve Marriott was invited by Lane and Jones to perform with "the Outcasts" at the band's regular gig the Earl of Derby in Bermondsey.
31.
The trio each ended up completely drunk and Steve Marriott enthusiastically destroyed the piano he was playing, much to the amusement of Lane and Jones.
32.
Steve 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 Steve Marriott and Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin's lead singer.
33.
Steve Marriott wrote or co-wrote most of Small Faces' hit singles.
34.
In 1967, Steve Marriott wrote the evocative rock-ballad "Tin Soldier" to woo model Jenny Rylance.
35.
Steve Marriott 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.
36.
Rylance and Stewart later split for good after a rocky four-year relationship; when Steve Marriott found out he pursued her relentlessly, leading him to write "Tin Soldier".
37.
Shortly after leaving Small Faces, Steve Marriott joined the newly formed rock band Humble Pie with Peter Frampton, drummer Jerry Shirley and bassist Greg Ridley.
38.
Dee Anthony pushed Steve Marriott to take more of the on-stage spotlight, something he had, up to then, been sharing with Frampton and Ridley.
39.
Steve Marriott had regularly taken amphetamines and smoked cannabis in his days in the Moments and Small Faces, and in the latter half of the 1960s he tried LSD.
40.
Steve Marriott was married to his music and I didn't mind that especially in the early years when he would play me new songs on an acoustic guitar but what didn't make me happy was when he was in the home studio, out of his brain, trying to come up with the next album because he was being pressurised into it.
41.
Steve Marriott never slept and there would be all sorts of strange people in there with him.
42.
Steve Marriott claimed that after Marriott confronted Anthony about the missing money, she and Marriott were summoned to a meeting at the Ravenite Social Club on Mulberry Street in New York's Little Italy district.
43.
Steve Marriott was informed that he would not be getting any money and was warned to drop the matter.
44.
Steve Marriott has acknowledged Anthony's connections and a lot of the stories being folklore.
45.
Steve Marriott released his first solo album, Steve Marriott, in 1976 and moved back to Britain.
46.
The money from Humble Pie's farewell tour soon ran out, and Steve Marriott was reduced to stealing vegetables from a field next to his home.
47.
Steve Marriott went on to form the Steve Marriott Allstars with ex-Pie bassist Greg Ridley, drummer Ian Wallace and ex-Heavy Metal Kids' guitarist Mickey Finn, and found a new manager, Laurie O'Leary.
48.
Steve Marriott knew Steve would never stay in the background.
49.
Steve Marriott agreed to pay in monthly instalments, but disappeared after making just one payment.
50.
Steve Marriott did not make any money out of the venture.
51.
Steve Marriott's earnings were used to extricate him from old management contracts.
52.
O'Leary, Steve Marriott's manager, advised him to leave Britain or go to prison.
53.
Steve Marriott sold the house in Golders Green and moved to California.
54.
Steve Marriott was by now completely broke and forced to collect empty glass bottles to redeem them for small change.
55.
In 1980, Steve Marriott contacted Jerry Shirley, who was living in New York City, to discuss a Humble Pie reunion.
56.
Steve Marriott's marriage was almost over and after he broke his wrist in an accident and was hospitalised with a suspected burst ulcer, whilst opening for Judas Priest and the new Humble Pie line-up disintegrated.
57.
Steve Marriott went through several guitar players that year including Tommy Johnson, and Phil "Duck" Dix.
58.
The new lineup only lasted 24 hours and Steve Marriott decided to return to the UK.
59.
Steve Marriott formed Packet of Three, again playing the pub circuit.
60.
Steve Marriott insisted on being paid for each gig in cash as the Inland Revenue were still pursuing him for back taxes.
61.
Steve Marriott contacted longtime friend Manon Piercey, and they quickly developed a close relationship and rented a house together.
62.
In 1985 Steve Marriott was still touring with Packet of Three playing Canada, the US and Europe.
63.
Kenny Lynch persuaded Steve Marriott to get involved, and the single was released under the collective name the Spectrum.
64.
In 1985, Steve Marriott ended his relationship with Piercey when he met Toni Poulton at a Packet of Three gig.
65.
Steve Marriott became well-known locally, often popping into the pub opposite his home to buy bottles of brandy and borrowing glasses.
66.
Steve Marriott once turned up wearing trainers and a dressing gown and became something of an eccentric figure, playing pranks, particularly on the owner of the pub.
67.
Steve Marriott had health problems, was overweight, and had a scruffy appearance.
68.
The payment would be enough to allow Steve Marriott to take things easier.
69.
Steve Marriott agreed, and they flew out to Frampton's recording studio in Los Angeles on 27 January 1991.
70.
Steve Marriott had liaisons with many women and had four known children with four of them, including one of his three wives.
71.
Steve Marriott met American air hostess Pam Stephens in 1975 and their son Toby was born in 1976.
72.
Steve Marriott was adopted but later found out who her father was and has been accepted by her siblings.
73.
Steve Marriott's third daughter Mollie Mae was born in 1985 when Marriott was with his childhood friend Manon Piercey.
74.
Later Steve Marriott moved into Beehive Cottage in Moreton, Essex, a property he had bought jointly with Ronnie Lane and wife Susan and where he established his "Clear Sounds" music studio.
75.
Steve Marriott started to feel the band had reached the end creatively and began to spend more time with Frampton and Greg Ridley.
76.
Poulton finally fell asleep and later woke to discover that Steve Marriott had taken a taxi to his home in the nearby village of Arkesden.
77.
Since Steve Marriott was found lying on the floor between the bed and wall, investigators concluded that he tried unsuccessfully to escape after being awakened by the blaze.
78.
Disorientated and confused after inhaling large amounts of thick smoke, Steve Marriott had turned left instead of right towards the bedroom door and safety.
79.
Steve Marriott had been unable to rectify his mistake before being overcome by smoke.
80.
Steve Marriott's blood was found to contain quantities of Valium, alcohol and cocaine.
81.
Steve Marriott was like a brother to me and I was devastated when he died.
82.
Steve Marriott always lived on the edge and I was always waiting for a 'phone call to say that he had died but I never dreamed it would be under those circumstances.
83.
The Small Faces song "All or Nothing" was played as the requiem at Steve Marriott's funeral held on 30 April 1991, at the Harlow crematorium.