Steve Marriott: All Too Beautiful by Paolo Hewitt

Author:Paolo Hewitt [Hewitt, Paolo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Autobiography, Biography, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Genres & Styles, Music, Pop Vocal, Rock
ISBN: 9781905139279
Google: CxhzCgAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1905139276
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2010-05-01T23:00:00+00:00

Part Three

Heavy Makes You Happy

Chapter Seventeen

What You Will

Steve Marriott sits in Tony Calder’s office at 11 Gloucester Place, the two men discussing the sleeve for the first Humble Pie album, As Safe As Yesterday Is. It is hoped that the album will shake up an increasingly moribund albums chart. That year, 1969, music was badly faltering. The year’s best selling album was the The Best Of The Seekers, followed by the film soundtrack for The Sound Of Music. Abbey Road by the Beatles was at four but then look what’s behind it at numbers twelve and fourteen; The World Of Mantovani and The World Of Val Doonican. It was like the late ’50s all over again. Only the singles charts, with ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ by Marvin Gaye, ‘The Israelites’ by Desmond Dekker, ‘Harlem Shuffle’ by Bob and Earl, ‘Honky Tonk Women’ by the Rolling Stones and ‘Time Is Tight’ by Booker T and the MG’s, gave any cause to celebrate.

Meanwhile, Marriott and Calder have differing views on how best to present the debut Humble Pie album. Calder tells Marriott that Immediate want to make a big splash with the group, really push them. You’re an important band he tells him, massaging his ego, and elaborate record sleeves are one way of reflecting that.

Marriott vehemently shakes his head, is firmly against the idea.

One, it will further delay the album’s release.

Two, he is absolutely determined that the band will be presented in the most low-key fashion possible. That means no fancy designs for the album sleeve, a la Ogden’s, and no band photo on the cover. And he is serious. In an industry where public recognition is required to sustain a career, Steve Marriott now wants to remain as anonymous as possible.

Sod being a pop star, sod screaming girls who send you letters of hate and broken records and sod the bands and the critics who won’t give you respect.

So, he tells Calder, let’s fuck all their heads up. Let’s put each album in a brown paper bag and wrap it with a length of hemp. The listener can untie the goods and then smoke the hemp whilst listening to the music. That’ll fuck their heads up.

Marriott is still a keen psychic warrior, still up for advertising the joys of the high, but these inclinations have been superceded by his desire to stay out of the spotlight.

That’s why his taste in clothes has now significantly changed. No longer will Marriott dress like a dandy, stand out in the crowd. No longer will he dress to be regarded as a ‘Face’ around town. Mod is gone. So has his youth. New rules now apply.

Today, he favours a smart hippie look, dark jeans and simple cotton style tops, the kind of clothing he wore for the inner photo of the album that is under discussion.

Calder is in favour of Marriott’s sleeve ideas. He loves controversy. Makes lots of lolly, doesn’t it? But he has a problem. The logistics of putting every album in a paper bag are impractical.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.