At first he found great success with the Small Faces. Telegenic, they were perfect for the moment, with a manager who arranged credit the length of Carnaby Street and massaged the record charts. Corrupt or not, soon they had a number one hit, All Or Nothing.
The only trouble was, according to authors Paolo Hewitt and John Hellier, with the clothes, a flash London house, the limos and the bribing, there wasn't much money left to pay the band. They earned a fortune, but saw hardly any of it.
Marriott never seemed to care. He just liked playing and living the life. Almost inevitably, after big hits Itchycoo Park and Lazy Sunday, the Small Faces broke up, mainly because Marriott hated being considered a teenyboppers' star. He craved respect.
So while his former colleagues went on to back Rod Stewart, another London lad with a rough- edged larynx, Marriott joined Peter Frampton in what was known in the early Seventies as a supergroup, Humble Pie.
Quickly he found success in America, but despite 19 U.S. tours in three years, and successful albums, the money was never there.
Where had it gone, his manager was asked. 'Up his nose,' came the reply. Well, maybe. But, all of it?
In 1974, Marriott's first wife left him, with good cause. Soon their Essex home would become known as 'a crash pad for every drugaddicted bastard in the business', according to one of his friends.
For the next 17 years the path lay almost steadily downwards. In 1985 while hundreds of millions watched musicians he knew on Live Aid, Marriott was playing in a pub in West London.
At one point he auditioned for the Rolling Stones, hoping to play alongside his idol, Keith Richards. He was told not to say a word during the audition, because Mick Jagger didn't like anyone with any lip. But he couldn't help himself. Instead of him, the Stones chose his pal Ronnie Wood.
There was only one way for this story to end. In 1991 after arriving back from America in a filthy mood, he went home alone, drunk and druggy, and fell asleep on the bed. A lighted cigarette was thought to have been the cause of the fire.
Steve Marriott wasn't the great star that Paolo Hewitt and John Hellier believe him to have been, but he was an accomplished musician with a striking voice.
Nor is this a great biography, mainly because the subject had such a one-dimensional life, and is such an unattractive personality. It is, however, one of the best books I've read about the backwaters of rock music.
While most rock biographies are about success, this is largely about dreary failure, about the squandering of talent, about itinerant musicians endlessly putting bands together, and about how so many get robbed - not least by themselves.
