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News: New 45 - Last Bastion - Steve Marriott - Lonely No More

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and from Alan May 

'Two absolute beauties , keeping the legacy of Marriott alive, more than a small face!
Amazing how his voice sounds so fresh as if it was today, you can see why so many
have tried to emulate this wonderful man.
Great that these 2 are released on Vinyl 45 for the 1st time – well done Last Bastion Records.
Keep em coming!
Alan May – 6TR / Glory Boy Mod Radio Show'

  • 2 weeks later...

Big thanks to all - with sales to date looks like following Lou Pride (LB01) with being an advance sell out . 

9 hours ago, steve woomble said:

Really good release this Andy. Nice one. Hope all's well pal! 👍

Thanks Steve . It’s picking up great reviews and Record Collector mag are to do a feature on the 45 and label . 

  • 2 weeks later...
On 27/12/2021 at 15:27, Tomangoes said:

Nice version on b side. 

Has a " commitments" sound to it.

Ed

PP Arnold on backing vocals !

  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...


Just seen this from John Hellier - a great read imo . 
 

There’s also a similar article by John on Steve Marriott in the latest edition of Soul up North 

http://www.wappingwharf.com/CVJohnHellier.htm

‘I was honoured to be asked by Bastion Records to write the sleeve notes for this classy piece of vinyl, the classiest 45 I’ve seen in years!

POP SINGER, PUB SINGER OR BRITAIN'S GREATEST EVER SOUL SINGER? The life of Steve Marriott is the story of a highly talented working-class kid from London’s famous East End, a great songwriter and amazing singer, who fatally discovered that success is a two headed monster that pleasures you and then kills you. More than that, his was a life lived to the very full. Steve Marriott experienced the highest of the highs, the lowest of the lows. His days swung between joy, heartbreak, success and outright tragedy; he was everything but boring. His character was incorrigible and infuriating yet in the end it was impossible not to like. The extremes of his life are summed up by the fact that his story begins in the East End of London and ends in fire. What happens in between those two events is indeed a rollercoaster life.

Stephen Peter Marriott was born on January 30th 1947 and grew up in London’s Manor Park area. From an early age he was destined for success. Age 12, he appeared in the original stage production of Lionel Bart’s Oliver! But he was also determined to let nothing he found disagreeable stand in his way: as a young boy he deliberately burnt down his class room at school, an ironic act for a man who would end his days in flames. By the time he was 16 he had made several film, radio and TV appearances including Dixon of Dock Green, Mr. Pastry and Z Cars. Yet music was Steve Marriott’s true obsession. He especially loved Soul records and it was his obsession with them and the likes of Ray Charles, James Brown, Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye that allowed him to develop one of the greatest voices ever heard in pop music. Steve’s own Soul record collection had become legendary amongst the East End mod fraternity, Ronnie Lane remembers being totally blown over by the size of it on his first visit to Steve’s bedroom at Steve’s mum and dad’s tiny council flat and it was there that Ronnie was first introduced to the delights of such artists as Garnett Mimms and Curtis Mayfield. In 1965, Marriott and bass player Ronnie along with organist Jimmy Winston and drummer Kenny Jones formed the Small Faces, Lane and Marriott developing a wonderful friendship and song writing partnership. Within six months the band had their first hit single with Whatcha Gonna Do About It, a re-write of one of Steve’s favourite Solomon Burke soul classics Everybody Needs Somebody To Love. The Small Faces only intention at this stage was to have fun and become the East End of London’s very own version of Booker T and The MGs but soon with their boyish good looks they became pop stars adorning the bedroom walls of teeny girl fans the country over. Their timing could not have been better though they were eighteen years old, they were national stars and they found themselves right at the centre of Swinging London. All the barriers had broken down. Girls, drugs, clothes, anything they wanted, all was in abundant supply.

In 1966 the band moved into a house in Pimlico where at night they entertained an enviable succession of models and actresses. Other nights they ventured out to exclusive legendary nightclubs such as The Speakeasy or The Ad Lib and partied with their contemporaries – McCartney, Jagger, Lennon, Richards, etc. etc. Their gigs were chaotic affairs often only lasting ten minutes or so before a tidal wave of screaming girls broke through the barriers and forced the band to run giggling hysterically to their getaway cars. At a football stadium the band were driven onto the pitch and such was the crush of fans trying to get at them, the band actually feared for their lives. When they finally broke free and got onto the motorway they had their driver stop by some fields so they could go screaming into the countryside, relieved just to be alive. The band was talented, colourful, joyful, and always driven by Marriott’s immense energy and drive. They looked like brothers, acted like brothers, fought like brothers. Marriott in particular was irresistible. He dressed beautifully and went his own way, hilariously insulting DJs he despised. He called Tony Blackburn a cabbage and rudely insulted the producer of Top of the Pops, wrongly believing he was leaving his job that week he wasn’t and The Small Faces did not appear on the show for a year. Marriott couldn’t care less. As long as he was having fun and obeying his inner voice, that was all that mattered. In 1966 he and the band discovered LSD courtesy of the Beatles manager, Brian Epstein. In keeping with the changing times, Marriott started urging the band to drop the pop element of their work and create more meaningful music. Divisions within the band now appeared, exacerbated further by the discovery that their manager Don Arden (Sharon Osborne’s father) had been ripping them off. The band switched labels and management; and then released their landmark concept album called Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake. Yet much to Marriott’s frustration the band could not shake off their pop trappings. Since the release of The Beatles album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, in 1967, the album had taken on a new significance and changed the pop game entirely. To be taken seriously as a musician, one had to produce great albums not great singles. Although The Small Faces had achieved artistic excellence with their album Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake, twelve weeks at number one, the band were still not being taken as seriously as their contemporaries by either the critics or their audience. In fact, such was the fan’s intense devotion to the band when Marriott married model Jenny Rylance in 1968; he was shocked to receive two sackfuls of hate mail. Worse, thanks to their happy go lucky image Marriott realised that his band would never really be afforded the respect he craved. Still, there was plenty of fun to be had from the game. In 1968 the band toured Australia with the Who and Marriott and Keith Moon in one night wrecked the same hotel room three times!

In 1969, thoroughly disillusioned and desperate for a new creative challenge, Marriott walked out of the Small Faces causing a rift with the band members which would last a long time. Lane in particular was terribly hurt by Marriott’s actions. He would not speak to him for many years. Marriott with Peter Frampton formed one of the first “super groups” of the 70’s, Humble Pie. Humble Pie had moved with the times and developed into a hard rock act whose live set often featured 15 minute guitar solos! Steve liked the style at first but after a couple years he was yearning for his Soul roots and changed the direction of the band to a Soul revue, along the lines of the Ike and Tina Turner show of the early 1960s, by employing three top notch coloured female singers from The States, Venetta Fields, Billie Barnum and Clydie King. Christened The Blackberries all three of them great vocalists in their own right but they were brought in as backing singers behind Steve himself. Sadly the rest of the band didn’t share Steve’s enthusiasm and it was an uphill struggle for Steve in trying to convince them in taking this musical route. The Humble Pie Soul Revue made their US debut in the spring of 1973 and along with renowned sax player Sidney George they toured America. There were other US tours and a few personnel changes within the Blackberries but although it was a big success musically the rest of the guys in the band were unhappy and wanted to revert to the standard four piece Rock line up. Very sad really, Steve and the Blackberries were having the time of their lives but not everybody was happy, perhaps the wages had to be split between too many people! Steve was a natural soul singer and his recordings and live performances with the Blackberries were amongst the very best of his entire career.

Although the band were based in England they became an American band with American management and after 22 US tours Marriott ended Humble Pie in 1975. It was then he learnt that the money the band’s manager Dee Anthony said he had put aside had in fact gone straight to the coffers of the New York mafia. This was confirmed when Marriott was called to a meeting with famous Mafia mob boss John Gotti who told him to forget looking for any money owed him.

Marriott was now so broke he was forced to steal cabbages from the garden next door just to eat. Just twelve months previously he had been selling out sports stadiums all over America yet Marriott’s spirit was indefatigable. He never allowed bankruptcy or any other of life’s ‘problems’ to get on top of him. He lived each day as if it were his last. He refused to lie down. He never forgot to greet each day with a cheeky smile. In the 80s he put together a succession of pub bands with humorous titles such as Steve Marriott and The Official Receivers or Steve Marriott and The Packet of Three. He told the press that this was what he’d wanted to do along, entertain people and put a pound note in his pocket. He even deliberately ruined the chance of a new recording contract when he refused to board a plane to Germany and sign a £100,000 contract with EMI Records. His loyal bass player Jim Leverton, who desperately needed the money, walked away from Marriott in utter despair. After all these years, Steve Marriott still had to follow his instincts, whatever the cost to him professionally or personally. He always retained a great sense of humour. Asked after one gig to make a tape for a fan of his who was in a coma, Marriott kept refusing the request until, unable to stand the urgings of his friends any longer, he grabbed the tape recorder and shouted, ‘WAKE UP YOU CUNT!’

In 1991 Marriott flew to Los Angeles to write songs with ex Humble Pie man, Peter Frampton. The game had changed considerably since he had last been in a studio and soon the hard-drinking, heavy smoking Marriott felt totally out of place amongst the sober, health obsessed music men he had to deal with. After just a few days of being isolated by his co workers, Marriott realised the world had changed considerably. He was a man out of time. This was the 90s, pop stars now promoted health and well being. No one threw TV’s out of hotel windows anymore. This turn of events angered Marriott considerably. In a screaming argument with a music business executive, Marriott pinned the man against a wall and screamed, ‘I don’t give a fuck about what you think, all I know is this: You don’t understand music.’ Marriott quit the sessions and flew back to London in a self destructive rage. He had once again turned his back on easy money – the men in suits just didn’t get it! At the airport, he met up with friends and went on a massive bender. The night ended with Marriott quarrelling with his wife and returning alone to his rented cottage in the Essex countryside where he passed out on his bed with a burning cigarette in his hand. At around 4am the next morning a passing motorist saw the roof of Marriott’s cottage consumed by flames and called the fire brigade. The first fireman into the house swallowed hard. He was a huge Steve Marriott fan and it was he who had to pull out the half charred body. His death was a tragic waste. Within four years of his passing the emergence of the Britpop generation would have elevated Steve Marriott back to his rightful position and accorded him the huge respect he sought for so much of his lifetime. His decision to go his own way, to act as if it was all or nothing in every area of his life, would have been brilliantly vindicated. It was not to be.

In comparison to other pop lives, Steve Marriott’s life defines three decades. The glamour and innocence of the 60s, with the emergence of rock as big business in the 70s, complete with organised crime flexing its muscle for a slice of the pie, onto the money and health obsessed 80s and early 90s. At the heart of this story is a man so unique, so individual, and so forcefully vivid, a man blessed with a voice of astonishing power, beauty and resonance that still touches and influences fans and musicians alike.

Pre-order now: VERY LIMITED EDITION

http://shop.detourrecords.co.uk/epages/es785745.mobile/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/es785745/Products/LB02&Locale=

  • 6 months later...

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