AI-Generated “Remasters” Fail to Replicate Musical Talent, Originality

by James Conrad

Though he only stood 5’4, the British musician Stephen Peter Marriott had a deceptively and indescribably powerful singing voice. Artists like Robert Plant, Paul Stanley and Steve Perry view him as a role model. As a child, he started on ukulele and later moved on to guitar, harmonica and keyboards. Showing prodigious talent, he formed his first band in 1959 at all of 12 years old. The following year, he impressed theater composer Lionel Bart, who cast him as the Artful Dodger in his show Oliver! 

While still in his teens, he formed the Small Faces, an influential rock band that gave the world love songs that were more powerful and convincing than those of the Beatles, such as “All or Nothing” and “Tin Soldier.” In 1969, wanting to be seen as a more serious musician, he quit the Small Faces to form Humble Pie, a band that adroitly blended hard rock with blue-eyed soul, with one standout example being a heavy take on the R&B standard “I Don’t Need No Doctor.”

Unfortunately, the ramifications of creative conflicts with co-founding guitarist and singer Peter Frampton (who quit Humble Pie in 1971 to eventually “Come Alive” as a solo star), rampant drug abuse and bad business deals signed with a dividing-and-conquering manager would all cause the Pie to spoil, and by 1975, it was all over. 

In 1991, Steve Marriott seemed poised for a comeback after years of poverty and obscurity, even rekindling his professional relationship with Peter Frampton during a visit to Los Angeles. Sadly, after returning home to England, Steve Marriott fell asleep with a lit cigarette while under the influence of alcohol, Valium and cocaine, and died in the resulting house fire. He was 44.

Steve Marriott of Small Faces. Photo by Dina Regine via Flickr

On 8 May 2024, Variety magazine reported that Steve Marriott’s widow Toni Marriott had authorized the release of AI-generated recordings of his vocals. Immediately afterward, Steve’s daughter Mollie Marriott issued a statement on behalf of herself and her siblings, Lesley, Toby, and Tonya vehemently opposing this decision. She writes: “[This album] 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.”

Unfortunately, because Steve Marriott died without leaving a will, under British law, Toni Marriott, his widow and stepmother to his children, received total control of his estate.

Chris France, managing director of Steve Marriott’s estate also remarked to Variety: “At present 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.”

Many of Steve Marriott’s colleagues and contemporaries have also expressed their displeasure, among them Kenny Jones, the former drummer and sole surviving member of the Small Faces; Robert Plant, David Gilmour, Paul Rodgers, Glenn Hughes, and former members of Humble Pie, guitarist/singer Peter Frampton and drummer Jerry Shirley.

Musician Peter Frampton. The one whose guitar goes “Wow. Wow wow wow wow wooow.” Photo by James Conrad.

Jerry Shirley, who owns the rights to Humble Pie’s name and recordings first became aware of the prospect of using AI to re-create Steve Marriott’s vocals late in 2023 during an email discussion with Cleopatra Records, an independent label that had released archival recordings of Humble Pie. Although he would have received a $20,000 signing bonus and future royalties, he immediately found the idea distasteful and set out to prove his point. 

Shirley instructed Cleopatra Records to produce a test recording using AI to replicate Marriott’s voice. Inevitably, he deemed the result to be “horrible,” declaring, “It sounded like someone trying to sound like someone trying to sound like Steve Marriott.” A second attempt was made, but Shirley said that “it didn’t sound like Steve. And the backing track was just laughable.”

While Jerry Shirley can forbid the release of Humble Pie songs containing AI-generated Steve Marriott and was able to persuade Cleopatra Records to release long-lost Humble Pie recordings in their natural state, he has no control whatsoever over Marriott’s work with the Small Faces.

Granted, artificial intelligence has been positively useful to the process of performing, recording and preserving music. Devices that replicate the sounds of otherwise cumbersome keyboards and amplifiers have enabled gigging musicians to travel light, and the advent and evolution of digital recording has enabled producers and engineers to save time and money mixing and mastering music.

Nonetheless, machines lack the human touch, unique from person to person, that makes music special. Therefore, the use of AI to generate counterfeit recordings of a deceased and therefore defenseless artist is nothing short of blasphemous and by no means will it bring the dead back to life in any real sense. If Toni Marriott and Chris France are serious about generating new recordings of Steve Marriott using AI, his legacy will forever be compromised and a terrible precedent will be set, leading to the further dynamic devaluation of music itself in favor of a cynical cash-grab.