Mojo - The Music Magazine

A pint-sized prince of rock and soul, Steve Marriott lit up the '60s and'70s with his rich holler, fiery guitar playing and the sheer power of his personality. The cover star of this month's MOJO magazine (on sale now) made legendary music with the Small Faces, defining Mod's soul-rock attack before embracing psychedelic horizons on 1968's exquisite Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake album, setting the seal on one of the most impactful and influential catalogues of the rock era.

Chasing the blues power that originally drew him to music - away from an acting career that had blossomed with child roles in Oliver! and the like - Marriott left the group in 1969 to form Humble Pie with The Herd's rising guitar star, Peter Frampton, and tasted Stateside success. Great music came of the split, on both sides, but at a cost. "I don't think any of us really forgave Steve," Small Faces drummer Kenney Jones tells MOJO in our 14-page extravaganza. "It hurt."

In a month when the original Small Faces albums emerge in remastered incarnations, and the Small Faces and The Faces are both inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, MOJO tells Marriott's story - musically conflicted, emotionally love-lorn - and in this digital taster/appendix compiled and annotated by MOJO staffers, we provide the audio-visual soundtrack.

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1. Steve Marriott - Consider Yourself (1960)

An authentic East End Artful Dodger. Better than cloying Jack "HR Pufnstuf" Wild, any day.

2. Heinz (with Steve Marriott on drums) - Don't You Understand (1964)

Marriott is feisty foil to dreamy-eyed David Hemmings in Lance Comfort beatsploitationer, Live It Up. Musical direction by (of course) Joe Meek.

3. Marriott - acting in Be My Guest (1965)

Marriott and Hemmings reprise their roles as unlikely bandmates in Comfort's follow-up. This time the latter's mum and dad run a failing hotel - failing, that is, until their son's beat combo starts packing them in! Thankfully, Marriott realised his future lay beyond the Pinewood stage. "Pop had taken over his life," his mother Kay tells MOJO in this month's revelatory cover story.

4. Small Faces - I've Got Mine (1965)

This time Marriott is joined by fellow Small Faces in "pop and cop" B-flick, Dateline Diamonds. Pre-Mac keyboardist Jimmy Winston pretends to be familiar with a Rickenbacker (yes, he's too tall). Meanwhile, manager Don Arden's grand plan to use the goup's cameo to promote their second single (released in November '65) came a cropper when the film's release was delayed by six months...

5. Small Faces - Watcha Gonna Do About It (1966)

Showing the roots of the Pistols in a raucous reading of their first single, live in a TV studio. Dig how Steve Marriott wrestles the announcer out of the way to begin. Some of the "kids" look a tad bemused, though.

6. Small Faces - Hey Girl (1966)

Promo for Swedish TV show Popside. Ian McLagan gets down - literally. Marriott models fur titfer.

7. Billy Nicholls - Would You Believe (1967)

The Small Faces back Immediate labelmate Nicholls on Germany's Beat-Club show.

8. Small Faces - I'm Only Dreaming (1967)

Marriott unsure as regards how seriously to take the miming of his affecting vocal. The actor, soul man and scamp all in evidence, and extreme close-up.

9. Small Faces - Tin Soldier (1968)

The Small Faces and P.P. Arnold rip it up on their greatest single. From Belgian TV pop prog, Bouton Rouge.

10. Small Faces - selections from Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake (1968)

All of their legendary Colour Me Pop episode. Links by the genius that was Stanley Unwin.

11. Small Faces - Song Of A Baker (1968)

From French TV, New Year's Eve, 1968, a perennial MOJO YouTube fave-rave. Miming doesn't get any more exciting than this. And look for Pete Townshend really getting into it.

12. Small Faces - The Universal (1968)

Steve, missus Jenny Rylance and Ronnie "Plonk" Lane lark about, home movie-style. Rather fitting for jug band clatter of penultimate SF single.

13. Humble Pie - I Walked On Gilded Splinters (1969)

Marriott's bid to escape the pop game meant turning his hand to a raft of 'grown-up' covers in Humble Pie, including this mesmerizing take on the Dr John classic at Belgium's Bilzen Festival. Later reprised by Marriott devotee Paul Weller.

14. Humble Pie - Sad Bag Of Shaky Jake (1969)

The second track from the Pie's second album, Town And Country is an outlaw's tale penned by Marriott, while this Beat-Club performance showcases Marriott, Peter Frampton and bassist Greg Ridley's vocal tag-team in full effect.

15. Humble Pie - For Your Love (1970)

This acoustic arrangement of the Graham Gouldman/Yardbirds classic was a cornerstone of the early Humble Pie set. The band would even open a show with it (as they did at Los Angeles' Whiskey A Go-Go in December '69).

16. Humble Pie - Say No More (1972)

Though meaty rock was the Pie's main course onstage, Marriott never ceased to pen sensitive material, including this tune - "written for a very sweet lady who cut my hair this morning" - delivered here in simple acoustic form with Frampton replacement "Clem" Clempson on guitar. From the BBC's Full House strand; a studio version kicked off side three of the Pie's 1973 double album, Eat It.

17. Humble Pie - Black Coffee (1973)

Impossibly soulful, crackling with sensuality, an Old Grey Whistle Test performance that Bob Harris remembers like it was yesterday ("This is just great!" - nuff said).

18. Humble Pie - Thunderbox (1974)

Named after the age old moniker for a portable lavatory, The Pie's eighth studio album failed to chart in the UK. The band returned to play a show at the Rainbow, Finsbury Park, where Marriott was captured by the BBC cameras in full bovver-boy mode.

19. Steve Marriott - Shaky Jake, reprise (1978)

Live, and pissed, with Joe Brown and Chas & Dave, 1978. "It sounds like a right old swamp merchant from Plaistow."

20. Steve Marriott's Packet Of Three - Fool For A Pretty Face (1985)

The dungarees, the star-spangled "uncle bert" and receding Mod mullet detract naught from inherent power of Marriott's remarkable voice on this thunderous late-period Pie corker.

Photo: Getty Images