Still they come to 22 Westmoreland Terrace, the boys and the girls with their cameras and love, to stand outside the black door, to imagine Stevie Marriott and his Small Faces bouncing out of the black front door, full of colour and life and smiles, waving only to them.
Thirty-seven years after he moved out of this house, Steve Marriott still holds a sizeable chunk of the public consciousness. He once told his second wife, Pam, ‘When I’m dead, that’s when I’ll be famous.’ He was wrong. Since his passing, he is yet to achieve the level of stardom that Humble Pie afforded him.
Yet, instinctively, he knew his work would live on, take hold after his passing.
As of writing (October 2003), the last album to be released bearing his name was Castle Music’s The Small Faces – Ultimate Collection. It sold 64,000 copies, went top thirty. To promote it, Mac and Kenney, the remaining band members, spent two hours at HMV on Oxford Street signing autographs. As we all know, 64,000 Small Faces fans can’t be wrong.
Some would argue that these impressive facts actually bear witness to the shabby state of contemporary music. They may be right. There are few contemporary bands creating music as potent and as inventive as the Small Faces did. But there is also another different story, one of a group actually gaining more respect as the years pass.
Since the 1990s, the Small Faces reputation as a key band has grown enormously, helped by a mini industry dedicated to examining and celebrating the ’60s, the decade they contributed so strongly to.
These include a proliferation of labels re-issuing its music and a rash of music publications such as Mojo, Uncut and The Word running in-depth articles on its history. Book companies have published a slew of books covering the times, TV has weighed in with numerous documentaries. As the spotlight has increased in its intensity, the Small Faces music is now seen in a far deeper critical light, their position in the scheme of things a lot higher than before.
In retrospect, this process should not surprise us too much. After all, the group’s music and look is timeless and Mod, the source they sprang from, is Britain’s most enduring youth cult. Every time it takes on another member it is odds on that the Small Faces will appear somewhere in that person’s journey. They always do.
Another reason for their continued presence may be traced back to 1966, the day the Small Faces played the Atlanta club in Woking, Surrey. As they did so, at nearby Stanley Road lived an eight-year old boy enjoying an idyllic working class childhood.
Like Steve Marriott at that age, Paul Weller was transfixed by music. Music made life magical, wonderful, took him out of the world and deep into his own imagination.
He formed his first band, age 14 in 1972. Four years later he was a top 20 artist. By 1979, his band, the Jam, were one of the biggest in the land. Musically, Weller aimed high. Through his songs, he sought to enter the national consciousness, capture society’s prevailing mood.
Steve Marriott played a notable part in the realisation of his dream. The two had much in common. Working class, brought up in a tight-knit family, energetic, impatient, tremendous lovers of American R&B, perfectionists, blunt, temperamental, clothes obsessed.
The real difference was age. Marriott grew up in the Fifties, became a significant part of the Sixties when Weller was just a boy. By the time Weller had reached his teens, the Sixties was gone, the party finished.
As most contemporary music bored him, he soon found his way back to there, became a Mod. He had loved Small Faces records as a child but in his early twenties they played a much more significant role in his life.
In fact, by the start of the ’80s, Weller was so heavily reflecting Steve Marriott’s ’60s style that even the man himself couldn’t help notice.
Asked for his view on the boy wonder, Marriott told the NME in 1984, ‘Look, I’ll be honest with you. I’ve only seen the Jam once on a video and I thought it reminded me of me in the old days. So for me to say that – sure, I like me [laughs]. It’s not like I can really judge them. They looked exactly like we did and played similarly. At the same time, I admire their taste [laughs].’
Musically, Marriott had his most influence on Weller in the Jam’s later years – the period that saw the Jam’s leader returning the band to their original R&B roots. The Jam not only covered ‘Get Yourself Together’, but looked to records such as ‘Don’t Burst My Bubble’ to seek the best way forward.
With the advent of his solo career in the early ’90s, Weller again turned to the Small Faces for inspiration. Hear his song ‘Out Of The Sinking’ for proof. Look at how singer Carleen Anderson, once of the Young Disciples, became his P.P. Arnold – she turning up on his records, Weller writing and producing for her.
Ironically, he was playing the Brixton Academy on the day of Marriott’s death. It was the end of a solo tour and, as Marriott’s people grieved his loss, Weller walked out onstage, said ‘This one’s for Steve,’ and opened his show with a version of ‘Tin Soldier’, a song he had been playing for weeks.
In the audience that night was one Noel Gallagher.
Noel was a member of the Stone Roses-obsessed generation that had grown up in the ’80s despising the pop music of their times. Like Weller previously, Noel turned backwards, found inspiration in the decade of magic. One of the names he found there was Steve Marriott.
When the first ever Small Faces biography, The Young Mods’ Forgotten Story, was published, the back cover carried tributes from Primal Scream, Oasis, Blur, Ride and Paul Weller.
That fact alone tells us that if Steve had managed to keep himself together, he would not have been able to move for requests to appear on people’s albums. Weller, Ocean Colour Scene, Oasis and the Scream would have been the first in line. Many others would have followed.
All would have sought to have located in him his great talent for creating records of such power and grace.
And it wasn’t just the musicians the man’s talent was affecting. In 1994, Steve Chamberlain and Stuart Wright started The Darlings Of The Wapping Wharf, a fanzine dedicated to the Small Faces. They ran it for four issues and then gave up due to financial reasons.
The fanzine was taken over by one of their contributors, John Hellier. He turned it glossy and took its circulation quickly from 100 to a 1,000. It now reaches five thousand people. Every year, 600 fans converge on the Ruskin Arms for the annual Small Faces convention, organised by John and close friend, Dean Powell. 2005 saw the launch of Wapping Wharf Records, a label set up especially for Small Faces related rarities.
In May 1996, the Small Faces were awarded the prestigious Ivor Novello ‘Lifetime achievement’ award at the Grosvenor Park hotel on London’s Park Lane. Steve’s award was presented to his mum, Kay, and sits proudly in the living room of the house that Steve bought for her in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire.
No doubt these same people are aware of the two biographies and two TV documentaries that have appeared, helping change the band’s fortunes and standing. 1999 saw the release of the US documentary The Life and Times of Steve Marriott, produced by Gary Katz along with Wapping Wharf’s John Hellier.
On the 20th April, 2001, John Hellier, in conjunction with Chris France and Toni Marriott, staged a memorial concert for Mod legend Marriott at the London Astoria. The main man had died ten years ago to the day and the event was sold out six weeks before. It attracted a star-studded cast that included Paul Weller, Noel Gallagher and Humble Pie, as well as the two remaining Small Faces, Kenney Jones and Ian McLagan. The concert was filmed and recorded for CD and DVD.
Meanwhile, the band remain a staple of compilation companies everywhere, prompting us to think that maybe Marriott would have finally received at least some of the financial rewards that were taken from him, the money he desired towards the end of his life to secure his future.
Even the cinema was not immune to his appeal. In August 2003, London’s National Film Theatre hosted a season of ’60s related films under the banner of The Cool World. One night was given over to Steve Marriott and the Small Faces.
The night began with clips from his work as a child actor. Then came the band’s appearance on Dateline Diamonds, their wonderful performance on the 1966 Morecambe and Wise Show, videos of ‘Itchycoo Park’, ‘Get Yourself Together’ and ‘Lazy Sunday’, their explosive rendition of ‘Ogden’s’ on Colour Me Pop, a Len Brown directed documentary, and, to end, footage from Bill Marriott’s home movies.
In the audience that night sat Steve’s mother and sister. Bill, his father had passed away in 1996. After every film clip, the audience applauded, filled that darkened room with huge love and respect. It was such a special sound.
Afterwards, Kay Marriott sat in the Green Room with her daughter Kay and grandson, Stephen. She looked tired, happy but so wistful. All this love and recognition for her son, and he wasn’t there to experience it. So sad.
Until mother and son met again, she knew life would never be complete, so best to try and put things aside, get on with things best she can.
Yesterday is gone now but not tomorrow.