April 20th – One thing a rock band front-man has to have is
chutzpah (the best definition of which I can give is to be found guilty of murdering both your parents and then throwing
yourself on the mercy of the court because you’re now an orphan)…chutzpah
in plenty; trouble is, it can effect an already inflated ego, something you've
got to have a fair amount of to think you can front a band in the first place, and it can also fuzzy-up an ability to
balance on-and-off-stage life.
The late and much lamented vocalist (certainly
amongst my fellow band-mates of the time anyway) in one of the bands I was in
has made an appearance in this daily guff before (in the embarrassingly
infamous Foundations Show) but, even
though he was somewhat unpredictable when it came to booze (more on this later)
one thing he could do was sing…and front the band. If you can picture a cross
between Steve Marriott and thingy…him from that punk/mod band, still going
strong now… erm… guitarist…Goin’
Underground…erm, Jesus, my memory, Eton
Rifles bloke, you know…? PAUL WELLER!!! That’s him, Paul Weller…right, well
think of a cross between Mr. Weller and Mr. Marriott for looks, and add the
possession of a vox that was every bit as strong and arresting as Mr. Marriott’s
with more than a dash of Chris Farlowe thrown in for good measure, then mix in
more front than Harrods and you've got a good idea of the type of guy I’m
talking about. My ‘love’ for vocalists has also been well documented
here, but I’m not so foolish as to dismiss their input as unnecessary to the
band dynamic (just sometimes their attitude) however, I always admired the
aforementioned Steve Marriott both as a performer and singer/songwriter.
He was an actor first and I guess
that helped him put over a number well, and when the Mod-movement happened he
was nicely placed to cash in on it, both in looks and style; certainly made a
better fist of it than Slade…adopting the Mod-Culture just because it was the
‘in thing’ and sending rats through the post to impress prospective A&R
folk doesn't quite equate. Mr. Marriott wrote some standout tracks, welding
genuine observation with a quirky take on everyday yet adventurous things; Lazy Sunday Afternoon, Tin Soldier and Itchycoo Park being just three of the
tracks that regularly come up on my i-Tunes playback.
His vocal style has influenced many,
Robert Planet and our late singer amongst them, and his involvement with the
ephemeral beauty that was (and I believe still is) Jenny Rylance was noted by
the guys I was gigging with at the time.
What we come back to time and again
in the field of music and stardom that I scribble about in this Daily Rag of
mine, that seems inevitable, inescapable, and what had an influence in the
career outcomes of both our late vocalist and Mr. Marriott, was the dreaded duo
of Mr. D and Mr. B – Drugs ‘n’ Booze. I’ll explain.
The similarity between our front-man
and Mr. Marriott (apart from the mega-fame) is that, with our vocalist, the
booze influenced some of his important life-choices and actions to the
detriment of his career and, in all probability, cost him his life and dreams;
with Mr. Marriott it did too. These two self-imbibed ugly-sisters seemed to
colour just about everything he did, reducing him, on a number of occasions, to
penury; the sort of penury that to avoid starvation you gather up empty,
discarded glass drinks bottles and cash them in for the refund money…and this
was AFTER the massive hits.
Large ingestions of pick-me-ups and a
plentiful number of liquid lunches (and dinners and teas, by all accounts)
fuelled an already, seemingly skewed ability to keep a balance on life (where’ve
we heard this before?) Personal relationship split-ups, musical differences
group arguments, hostility and a general sprinkling of inter-band hatred all
figured in Mr. Marriott’s career…such a waste of the available talent and time
he was given…but then, maybe it made him the writer/performer that I so
admire…? What would I have been prepared to forego; the songs or the state of
the man who wrote them?
On this day, in 1991, after his
return from a recording session in the U.S., well boozed and lined, Mr. Marriott
was killed in a fire at his home; a blaze, reckoned by the fire service that
attended it, to have been caused by cigarette discarded when the deceased
collapsed onto the bed in a stupor…he was found, Pompeii-like, huddled in a gap
between bed and wall, apparently in a chemically-confused effort to escape…then
the smoke got to him...
How good was he? When he auditioned
for the Rolling Stones as guitarist and B/V, Jagger (that’s Mick Jagger, y’
know? Him who still has the ‘chutzpah’ to strut his stuff at 60+) Mr. Jagger
vetoed Mr. Marriott’s involvement in the band because he feared being
overshadowed…that’s how good he was.
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