However, despite having clothing accounts at boutiques and appearing to be absolutely loaded from their success, The Small Faces barely saw a penny of the money they were due. Their manager was Don Arden, formerly known as Harold Levy, a Jew from Manchester, and father of Sharon Osbourne, wife of Ozzy Osbourne, singer for Black Sabbath who Arden also managed.
Marriot is credited on most of the original work by The Small Faces. After The Small Faces he formed another successful band, Humble Pie. Yet he died penniless. So what happened to Steve Marriot's money?
Then, after he formed Humble Pie with Peter Frampton, Marriott 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. At that point, Marriott was taken into a meeting that included John Gotti, Paul Castellano and other members of the Gambino crime family, at least according to Marriott's official biography, All Too Beautiful. That ended his impertinent money questions.
In addition to his borderline mental illness and his never-really-conquered substance abuse (he died from smoke inhalation in a fire caused when he passed out and dropped a lit cigarette), Marriott's nightmarish experiences with the record industry were a big reason he never tried to make a comeback in the 1980's, when, after all, he was still only in his 30's. While other British Invasion-era stars were reveling in a second wave of adulation from a new generation of admirers - and perhaps making up for how completely they were ripped off the first time around and in many cases curing their "overlooked" status - Marriott never did. He was so wary of record companies that he preferred to play the rest of his career in small English pubs and acoustic venues, where the pariahs of the industry would leave him alone. He chose penury and obscurity rather than than sell out to a corrupt music biz machine. That makes him a hero in my book.
And, unfortunately, that's also why he's more or less a footnote nowadays despite being one of the key talents of the rock era. It makes you wonder if his drug and personal problems were fueled by his shabby treatment as an artist. Whether or not that's true, I think anyone who ever wants to make a case for why major labels and the gigantic corporations that now control them are poor stewards of our civilization's precious musical heritage need only look at the horrible fate of Steve Marriott to see why the demise of the record industry can't come fast enough.
[source : The Steve Marriott Saga: How the Mob, Peter Frampton and Daddy Osbourne Snuffed Out The Small Faces and Humble Pie, The Beachwood Reporter, http://www.beachwoodreporter.com/music/steve_marriott_humbled_by_the.php, 26th November 2007]
Marriot's soul can be heard here:
Humble Pie Live - King Biscuit Flower Hour (Audio)
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