Steve Marriott

Englishman Steve Marriott is the late, great leader of the maximum R&B/mod group the Small Faces, as well as the thundering Boogie Rock road dogs known as Humble Pie. After getting his start as a child actor in musical theater, his love of American R&B and blues as a teen led him down the wayward path to rock 'n' roll. The diminutive singer had a mighty, blown-out rasp of a voice that sounded like a combination of Wilson Pickett and Tina Turner. The Small Faces made a series of fine albums, experiencing chart success in the United States while achieving mass popularity at home in Britain. Marriott quit the Small Faces and assembled Humble Pie with Peter Frampton (who soon left to follow his own road to superstardom) and set about creating the Boogie/Hard Rock blueprint for what would eventually become Metal. Although the group enjoyed little chart success, they were a popular album rock act and a major live attraction throughout the 1970s. Marriott spent most of the '80s in relative seclusion. He was in the process of getting together to record with Frampton again when he perished in a house fire in 1991.