🎵 AotW AOTW: Steve Marriott - MARRIOTT (SP-4572)

[LPJim]

Steve Marriott
MARRIOTT
A&M SP-4572

Steve Marriott (Jan. 30, 1947 - Apr. 20, 1991) was a vocalist and guitarist in the Small Faces and Humble Pie.

Liner Notes:

(Left side) It has been a year since the break-up of Humble Pie, one of the premier British rock bands of the Seventies. In '75 when the Pie made their farewell tour of the States leader Steve Marriott told SRO crowds as they screamed out requests for just one more encore, "Don't worry, we'll be back." The "we'll" has been amended to "I'll" but otherwise Marriott has kept that promise with the release of his first solo album.

(Right side) MARRIOTT showcases the formidable hard-rock, heavy metal and blues chops of this legendary rocker (founding member of both the Pie and the original Small Faces), but it goes two steps further; It applies Marriott's singular voice to the ballad form and it puts him, at last, in the position of lead guitarist. Aided by two front-line musical units (one British and the other composed of the cream of the West Coast) Marriott comes through on all fronts ... with flying colours.


BRITISH SIDE

East SIde Struttin' 4:47/ Lookin' For a Love 3:47/ Help Me Through the Day 5:55/ Midnight Rollin' 3:30/ Wam Bam Thank You Ma'am 3:54

AMERICAN SIDE

Star in My Life 3:30/ Are You Lonely For Me Baby 3:52/ You Don't Know Me 4:56/ Late Night Lady 3:00/ Early Evening Light 3:48

Produced by Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise for Mardee Productions Inc.
Warren Dewey - recording and mixing engineer
Doug Rider - assistant engineer
"Late Night Lady" track recorded by Bob Merritt

Recorded at Record Plant, Los Angeles, in Oct. through Dec. 1975

Mastered by Bernie Grundman at A&M Studios, Hollywood, CA

Special thanks to Howie "The Hustler" Hoffman
Art Direction by Roland Young
Album Design by Chuck Beeson
Photography by Randy Alpert
Illustration by David McMacken, A&M Records, Inc.

For more information, please see:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Marriott

 

[Dave]

(Side 1)

BRITISH SIDE, with British Band...:

Mickey Finn: guitar/ Greg Ridley: bass, vocals/ Ian Wallace: drums​

East Side Struttin' -- "...Don't go to church on Sunday, but I like my livin' clean...I was raised on the East Side o' the city, where they breed them b@#$%^&*!'s mean..." Album opens with a hard-drivin' powerhouse rocker!

Lookin' For a Love -- "...Someone to fix my collard greens..." The "want ad" for a "decent wife", really cooks, as well...

Help Me Through the Day -- Someone cheated! There's an ORGAN and CLAVINETTE heard on this number--David Foster sneaked over from "Side 2" and added it... That, or the British player needs a credit! It's Leon Russell's "answer song" to Kris Kristofferson's "Help Me Make It Through The Night"...
Dig those "classic Rock 'N' Roll sounds" and its naturally bluesy demeanor, heard no matter who covers it... (Bobby "Blue" Bland recorded it, too...)

Midnight Rollin' -- A simple and fiery paen to the rigors of touring and Rock Star life... Marriott shows of his voice effects here as much as does throughout the rest of the songs and his career... The "...Midnight rollin' break your back...Thirty-Days in the back of a Black Cadillac..." lyrics in this song are sure a more positive answer to and polar opposite of "Thirty-Days In The Hole", recorded with 'The Pie'...

Wam Bam Thank You Ma'am -- A good closing jam of Steve with his band... Very much the direction Humble Pie started in, as this is a sound very much owed to Peter Frampton's Herd and you heard the two playing like this together on songs like "I Don't Need No Doctor", which this tune is so highly reminiscent of...

(Side 2)

AMERICAN SIDE, with American Musicians...:

Ben Benay: guitar/ Dennis Kovarik: bass/ David Foster: keyboards/ Alan Estes: conga/ Orville "Red" Rhodes: steel guitar/ Ernie Watts, saxophone/ David Spinozza: lead guitar on "Early Eve'nin' Light"/ Joe Roscarino: strings and horn arrangements/ Carlena Williams, Maxine Williard Waters, Maxayne Lewis, Venetta Fields: background vocals (Maxayne Lewis appears courtesy of Manticore records)​

Star in My Life -- Perfect-sounding L.A. studio craft... The horns and a steeel guitar are brought in and there are gobs of synthesizer and background vocals, Steve in fairly decent "Joe Cocker, "Feelin' Alright" fashion", sings along with...

Are You Lonely For Me Baby -- A modern blues number, which first hit rock circles when it was recorded at a more slower tempo by Edgar Winter's White Trash member, Jerry LaCroix... The gritty horns liven it up and David Foster's organ and clavinette carry it real well... While the vocals, lead and background alike, especially at a tempo, this time more vigorously, make this track a very "cherished" improvasion...

You Don't Know Me -- Cindy Walker and Eddie Arnold wrote it and it became a Ray Charles standard, after which, it then was covered by everyone from Bobby Goldsboro to Bette Midler...

Late Night Lady -- "Anybody seen STEVE'S late night lady?", ask the background vocals... A lead guitar through an octave splitter mutes the chords which start the song... While a Jazzy clavinette also adds that nice touch and more of those tough-sounding horns, too...

Early Eve'nin' Light -- A barrage of strings start off and continue throughout this piece... A very decadent climax as our hero seems to make a crucial decision at the break of day, after that one night stand... Marriott could'a done the lead guitar himself, as he had done at least throughout Side 1, but the spot was generously given over to David Spinozza, fortunately over at A&M doing the David Batteau sessions (we'll hear Batteau's album, next!) and throws in some real "relevatory notes"...


--First saw this LP at a record show, to which in a recommendation, someone said this record "is great!"... And a few days later I read in the paper that Steve Marriott died from smoking in bed, which coincided with he and Peter Frampton on the verge of contemplating a reformation of Humble Pie... An album that amazes me to this day, though missing in action in my "listenin' stuff" and I even check the racks at the store, to see if it "came out on CD"...



Dave

 

[LPJim]

Mick Wayne of the A&M band Junior's Eyes (SP 4189) also was a casualty of smoke inhalation from a house fire in England.
JB

 

[Dave]

Hard to sing something from this album (or ANYTHING by Humble Pie or maybe The Small Faces, for that matter) w/o being mistaken by someone unfamiliar w/ Marriott thinking I'm singing something by AC/DC...!!!!!!



Dave