The cover of our June issue.
There’s logic and a process to how the artists we write about are selected, and how we strive to fulfill our commitment to serve the entire guitar community. Let us know how we’re doing.
Recently, we received a letter from a reader complaining that we didn’t write about enough artists that reader knew, so they were canceling their subscription. I was perplexed. Over the past few months, we’ve written about Kerry King, the Black Keys, Marcus King, the Melvins, the Black Crowes, Blackberry Smoke, Judas Priest, Steve Albini, Sleater-Kinney, and, in this issue, Slash, the Decemberists, and Richard Thompson. Hardly a cavalcade of the obscure. Plus, one of the reasons I started reading guitar and other music magazines when I was 16 was to find artists I didn’t know, and decades later I still love discovering new musicians who excite me.
And I still believe it’s every music media outlet’s responsibility to turn readers or listeners on to performers they are unfamiliar with. Hence, our recent features on Khruangbin, Sheer Mag, Anne McCue, Bill Orcutt, Dave Pomeroy, and Laura Jane Grace.
Although we also love to write about gear, and have devoted more pages (and covers) to gear features over the past 18 months, we don’t take our artist coverage lightly at all. Each month, as individual editors and collectively, we listen to dozens of new albums, refine that to a list of anywhere from 20 to 40 artists and titles, and vote on that list. Those artists with the most votes get the ink, and sometimes the lobbying is intense. Occasionally, an artist we love who doesn’t get the votes will end up in our Question of the Month column, or elsewhere. Often an artist we can’t squeeze in due to timing or space constraints, like, recently, Warren Haynes, Steve Vai, and Julian Lage—who we’ve written about many times and also love—will end up in a Rig Rundown, thanks to our video crew headed by Chris Kies and Perry Bean, often supported by our popular host John Bohlinger. (I also enjoy being the talking head for Rundowns when I can.)
Perhaps the unhappy reader was thinking about Green Day, Brian Setzer, or Mark Knopfler? They’ve all appeared on the covers of the other guitar magazines recently, and that’s one of the reasons we didn’t put them on ours. We try to not duplicate the other magazines’ coverage. Sometimes we know what they’re doing; sometimes we don’t and we make our best guess. Also, we believe in letting the dead rest in peace. I love Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix. And while I was too young to catch Jimi, I saw Stevie Ray in concert 14 times and interviewed him on several occasions, and got to chat backstage. Besides his musical excellence, I feel that he was the most giving performer I’ve ever seen. His music touched me profoundly, and when he died I cried hard. Nonetheless, Stevie or Jimi won’t be making annual appearances on our cover. At this point, especially after Charles R. Cross’ Room Full of Mirrors and Alan Paul and Andy Aledort’s Texas Flood, there really doesn’t seem to be any mysteries left in their legacies. That said, when one presents itself, we’ll do our best to cover it. We also revere our artists who are gone or faded into semi-obscurity, and you can read about many of them in our Forgotten Heroes features, or, as the worst happens, in our memoriams. I recently penned those for Dickey Betts, Wayne Kramer, and Duane Eddy, who were among my rock ’n’ roll heroes. I hate writing these, but I believe that contributors to the guitar canon deserve a strong, heartfelt, goodbye.
“We try to not duplicate the other magazines’ coverage.”
We do feel a great sense of responsibility to our readers, but also to the character of our publication. We don’t want to bring you a generic guitar magazine. I hope we succeed in being different, and letters like this ex-reader’s certainly make me reflect on our work. But I could not be happier or more honored than to be among the fine group of editors here. We all have areas of expertise that we bring to our jobs, and I am proud of our collective effort. But I’m also open-minded enough to know perfection is rarely attained, and that sometimes we miss the mark. I depend on your letters and emails to help us stay on track, and I invite them both. So please do let us know what you think about PG’s coverage … regularly.
You’ve probably seen me write this before, but we are all part of the guitar community, and I want to be sure we’re always in touch. Our community members are a diverse bunch, artistically and personally, and our connection, via the music and instruments we love, is important. Speaking of diversity, I’m pretty sure our senior-most reader is Ida Hoffma of Bristol, Rhode Island. Ida is 97 and mostly reads the things I write, looks at the rest of the issue, and gives it to her son-in-law, Ernie, who reads the magazine and then passes it along to one of his wife Susan’s guitar-playing co-workers. (Pass-along rates used to be an important consideration in print journalism.) Ida doesn’t play guitar, but since I’m married to her daughter, Laurie, I think she sees her role in our community as keeping me employed. Thanks, Ida!
Former bandmates of the late Steve Marriott unite to oppose plans by the Marriott Estate to release "new" recordings created with AI technology. A growing list of musicians in opposition include: Peter Frampton, David Gilmour, Robert Plant, and more.
The debate over AI-generated vocals continued this week with an exclusive Variety feature article by executive music editor Jem Aswad reporting on a still-growing list of celebrated musicians uniting with Mollie Marriott, daughter of the late Steve Marriott, in objection to plans by the Marriott Estate to release “new” recordings from the legendary Rock & Roll Hall of Fame singer created with AI-powered technology. A wide range of Marriott’s close friends and fellow artists have joined together in opposition to the project, including Marriott’s former bandmates Small Faces’ Kenney Jones and Humble Pie’s Peter Frampton and Jerry Shirley, along with Robert Plant, David Gilmour, Paul Weller, Paul Rodgers, Joe Brown, Bryan Adams, Matt Sorum, Glenn Hughes, Gary Kemp, Bob Harris, and others.
As reported by Variety, Los Angeles-based independent label Cleopatra Records has engaged in discussions with the Marriott estate about completing some of his unfinished demos with the aid of AI technology, though the label ultimately plans to release the recordings in their original form “for now” via three as-yet-unscheduled compilations. Chris France, who has been managing director of Marriott’s estate since 1997, admits that while “there are no confirmed plans to use Steve Marriott’s voice on AI recordings, that does not mean a deal will not be done with one of several suitors who have made offers…I am afraid that [Mollie Marriott’s] opinions are of no consequence to me or his estate.”
Humble Pie founding member, drummer Jerry Shirley, confirmed an attempt by Cleopatra to create a version of the “Georgia on My Mind” with AI-generated vocals “by” Marriott which he could then compare the result with his memories of Marriott’s own informal renditions of the song. The AI recording was “horrible,” Shirley told Variety. “It sounded like someone trying to sound like someone trying to sound like Steve Marriott.”
“The Marriott Estate is due to release an AI solo album of old and new songs of my father, Steve,” said Mollie Marriott in a previously released official statement. “Sadly, the surviving family which comprises just my siblings Lesley, Toby, Tonya, and I, have nothing to do with the Estate as there was no will. It is run by my stepmother who was only with my father for two years prior to his death and has since been re-married.
“We, along with his bandmates of Humble Pie and Small Faces are looking to stop this album from happening as it would be a stain on my father’s name. Someone who was known as one of the greatest vocalists of our generation, with such a live and raw vocal, it would absolutely break his heart if he were alive to know this. This is only for money, not art nor appreciation.
“It is the start of a campaign I wish to lead against this sort of thing, where deceased artists have no rights and that everything natural in this world is truly dying, including creativity and the arts, as AI comes into play. It’s a sad world to behold.”
Steve Marriott who passed away in 1991 at the age of 44, was among the most gifted and iconic artists in the long-storied history of British music. In a career that spanned two decades, the singer-songwriter-guitarist co-founded two of the most acclaimed and influential bands of the 1960s and 1970s, Small Faces (with whom he was posthumously inducted in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame) and Humble Pie. Small Faces proved as influential as any band of their extraordinary era, bridging R&B, pop, soul, psychedelia, and the primal power of what soon became known as punk rock. The band’s distinctly English sound and vision later provided a blueprint for the Britpop movement of the 1990s. Upon Small Faces’ dissolution, Marriott co-founded Humble Pie and once again left his mark on rock ‘n’ roll with a new kind of hard rock built upon riff-driven no-frills boogie and simple raw power.
Marriott was already a star by the time he co-founded Small Faces, first as a child actor performing on London’s West End as The Artful Dodger in Oliver! and then as 16-year-old leader of the popular R&B group, The Moments. Marriott came together with drummer Kenney Jones and the late bassist-songwriter Ronnie Lane as Small Faces in 1965, joined the following year by keyboardist Ian MacLagan. The band immediately ascended to the forefront of the Mod scene with their high-energy sound, fronted by Marriott’s unmistakable soul-influenced vocals. Over their short but blazing lifespan, Small Faces scored eight UK Top 10 singles, including “Whatcha Gonna Do About It” (later covered by the Sex Pistols), “Here Comes The Nice,” “Itchycoo Park,” “Lazy Sunday,” “Tin Soldier,” and the #1 hit, “All or Nothing.” Their final album, 1968’s classic Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake, spent six weeks atop the album chart and to this day stands tall as a British psychedelic rock landmark for its singular collage of rousing lysergic R&B, folk eccentricity, and pop-art imagination.
Marriott departed Small Faces in 1969 and teamed with guitarist Peter Frampton, bassist Greg Ridley, and drummer Jerry Shirley as Humble Pie. Considered one of the first supergroups for each member’s previous involvement in other popular bands, Humble Pie instantly proved a momentous outfit, their crushing blend of hard rock, boogie, and blues providing an early example of what came to be known as heavy metal. Marriott led Humble Pie through UK and US success in a range of incarnations, encompassing a further range of influences – from country to soul – but all were hailed for their charged live performances and of course, Marriott’s irrepressible vocals and songcraft at the forefront. A variety of reunions, collaborations, and solo efforts followed Humble Pie’s initial success. Marriott carried on through the 1980s, lighting up live stages in the UK and the US with over 200 gigs each year before his death in a fire at his Essex home on April 20, 1991.