2009/11/27

All too Beautiful new edition available soon...


A Steve Marriott biography by John Hellier and Paolo Hewitt

AVAILABLE FROM 9TH DECEMBER (NOT 28TH NOV. AS PREVIOUSLY STATED) AT ALL GOOD BOOK SHOPS, AMAZON.COM AND OF COURSE, www.wappingwharf.com

A 5 star review by Record Collector!

This comprehensive biography of Steve Marriott is as close as we’re going to get to extracting the truth about Britain’s finest white soul exponent. From Mod antics with the Small Faces to his brief superstar tenure with Humble Pie and beyond, Marriott was a musical and psychological conundrum par excellence, the enigma of which still unravels to this day.

All Too Beautiful is an exhilarating, if infuriating, tale of Marriott’s chaotic lifestyle with a litany of relatives, ex-wives and partners recalling his menagerie of personalities and mood swings.

Unfortunately, this is a complex story of extraordinary talent, missed chances, exotic highs and frightening lows and yet Marriott’s determination to remain in control at all costs marks him out as a Mod maverick of the highest order. While his peers were consolidating their finances during the 1970s, Marriott was dangling between fame and destruction; arriving in limousines with Humble Pie one moment and filching potatoes from fields and hot wiring his cottage from a pylon the next. Ironically, the mans most settled period came towards the late 1980s, with a hectic tour of pubs and clubs before he tragically passed away in a house fire in 1991, before Brit Pop could fully canonise his influence.

This book succeeds as much as is possible in detailing Marriott’s brief but eventful tenure on planet Earth and yet even these 400 pages aren’t enough to penetrate the complex mysteries that went into making up Mods most complex creation.

Simon Wells

1 comment:

HSB DaveB. said...

Gotta get this NOW!!