Rockin' Faces

The playlist on this page features select tracks from the Faces 4 studio albums - First Step, Long Player, A Nod is as Good as a Wink...to a Blind Horse and Oh, La La.  Released 1970 - 1973. First Step, released March 1970, the album cover shows Ronnie Wood reading a copy of seminal guitar tutor "First Step" by Geoffrey Sisley.  On First Step, the mod soul and psychedelia of the past is replaced by a heavy blues rock sound built predominately around Ronnie Woods slide guitar and Ian Mclagans keyboards.  What's particularly notable is how much Rod Stewart isn't dominating the band during these proceedings - indeed, on some cuts he's simply providing backing vocals - and just what a low and dirty (liquer laded) blues morass the Faces could conjure up.  Highlights are the Bob Dylan cover Wicked Messenger, Shake Shudder and Shiver, Stone, Three Button Hand Me Down and the single release Flying.  However, the real spark on this album comes from some real nice jamming throuhout with extended instrumenal breaks in songs like Around the Plynth and Looking out the Window.

New faces Rod Stewart and Ronny Wood

Long Player, releared February 1971, is a somewhat tighter and less ramshackle version of the debut album.  Opening track Bad 'n' Ruin has a great vocal performance by Rod Stewart, who overall is a bit more of a presence this time around.  The ragged, heartbroken Tell Everyone sounds like a Stewart original, but it comes from the pen of Ronnie Lane.  Sweet Lady Mary is one of the prettiest ballads they ever wrote that underscored what good harmony singers the Faces could be.  Richmond also composed Ronnie Lane features his laconic vocals and some great, folk-blues, acoustic slide guitar. A live version of Paul McCartney's Maybe I'm Amazed, recorded at New York's Fillmore East, is the lynchpin track on this album.  Paul McCartney later modeled his live version after this one by the Faces.  Lane and Stewart share lead vocals as Ronnie sings the first chorus with Stewart ripping in to tear it up.  Had Me a Real Good Time, the autobiographical rollicking, boozy-blues rocker was co-written by Lane, Stewart, and Wood.  On the Beach Opens with acoustic slide guitar from Wood and by the time Ronnie Lane's whiny voice kicks in it is clear this was a nifty alt-folk number that Lane would begin to pursue in earnest when he went solo.  The sound is raw and under produced like a garage song.

A Nod Is as Good as a Wink...to a Blind Horse, released November 1971, finally gave the group their long-awaited hit single in Stay with Me, helping send the album into the Billboard Top Ten.  The album serves up tremendous song after tremendous song, starting with the mean, propulsive Miss Judy's Farm and ending with the rampaging good times of That's All You Need.  In between, Ronnie Lane serves up dirty jokes You're So Rude and the heartbreaking ballad Debris, the band reworks Chuck Berry's classic Memphis and generally serves up a nonstop party. Ooh La La, released April 1973, was the final studio album from the Faces.  Despite tension within the band, regarding Rod Stewart's increasing commitment to his solo career Oh La La is like a night out with the boys that's blessed with some very memorable moments.  Rod's Silicone Grown and the wonderful Cindy Incidentally, a sweet, easy pop song.  But the heart of this album really belongs to Ronnie Lane, who dominates the second side of the album, starting with the Stewart collaboration If I'm on the Late Side and running through the sweet, soft Glad and Sorry to Just Another Honky and, finally, to the raucous yet bittersweet Ooh La La, as great a song as they ever recorded and an appropriate drawing of the curtain on this tremendous band. A disillusioned Ronnie Lane left the band in 1973; one reason given later for his departure was frustration over not having more opportunities to sing lead vocals.  Ronnie Wood left in 1975 to join the Rolling Stones.  Ian McLagan would later join the Stones touring group in 1989.  Rod Stewart would soon become an international superstar.

Wanderin' Spirit
April, 2015
"Rockin' Faces"

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