Small Faces

Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones, Steve Marriott & Ian McLagan

Ronnie Lane (bass guitar) and Steve Marriott (guitar and lead vocals) met in 1965 while Marriott was working at the J60 Music Bar in Manor Park, London.  Lane came in with his father Stan to buy a bass guitar, struck up a conversation with Marriott, bought the bass and went back to Marriott's house after work to listen to records.  They recruited friends Kenney Jones (drums) and Jimmy Winston (organ) who was later replaced by Ian McLagan, whose keyboard talents and diminutive stature fit with the groove of the band perfectly.  The group chose the name, Small Faces, for several reasons: because of the members' small stature and A Face was somebody special, more than just a snappy dresser, he was Mister Cool.  The term small face was also widely used to describe someone stoned on marijuana. The band signed a management contract with management impresario Don Arden, and they were in turn signed to Decca Records for recording.  They released a string of high-energy mod/soul singles on the label.  Their debut single was in 1965 with Whatcha Gonna Do About It?, a Top 14 UK singles chart hit.  Marriott and Lane are credited with creating the instrumental to the song, "borrowing" the guitar riff from the Solomon Burke record Everybody Needs Somebody to Love. Their first album, Small Faces, released on 11 May 1966, was also a considerable success.  They rapidly rose in popularity with each chart success, becoming regulars on British pop TV shows such as Ready Steady Go! and Top of the Pops, and toured incessantly in the UK and Europe.  Their popularity peaked in August 1966, when All or Nothing, their fifth single, hit the top of the UK charts.  However, by 1966, despite being one of the highest-grossing live acts in the country and scoring many successful singles, including four UK Top 10 chart hits, financially the band had nothing to show for their efforts.  After a messy confrontation with the notorious Arden (regarding drug use by band members) they left Decca Records.

The Small Faces were offered a deal with the newly established Immediate label, formed by ex-Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham.  Given a virtual open account at Olympic Studios in Barnes, London, the band progressed rapidly, working closely with engineer Glyn Johns.  Their first Immediate single was the daring Here Come the Nice, which was clearly influenced by their drug use, and managed to escape censorship despite the fact that it openly referred to the dealer who sold drugs.  A second self-titled album, Small Faces (released in the US as There Are But Four Small Faces), followed, which, if not a major seller, was very highly regarded by other musicians and would exert a strong influence on a number of bands both at home and abroad. The band's following single Itchycoo Park, released on 11 August 1967, is Small Faces' best-remembered song and was also the first of the band's two charting singles in the United States, reaching No. 16 in January 1968.  The single was a bigger hit in Britain, peaking at No. 3.  Itchycoo Park was the first British single to use flanging, the technique of playing two identical master tapes simultaneously but altering the speed of one of them very slightly by touching the "flange" of one tape reel, which yielded a distinctive comb-filtering effect.  The effect had been applied by Olympic Studios engineer George Chkiantz.  Itchycoo Park was followed in December 1967 by Tin Soldier, written by Steve Marriott.  Also, the track features American singer P. P. Arnold on backing vocals.

Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake, released on 24 May 1968, is widely regarded as a classic psychedelia-influenced album, and featured an innovative round cover, the first of its kind, designed to resemble an antique tobacco tin.  It stayed at No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart for six weeks, but reached only No. 159 in the US. The two-act concept album consisted of six original songs on side one and a whimsical psychedelic fairy tale on side two, narrated by Stanley Unwin, relating the adventures of Happiness Stan and his need to find out where the moon went when it waned.  Critics raved, and the album sold well, but the band were confronted by the practical problem that they had created a studio masterpiece which was virtually impossible to recreate on the road.  Ogdens' was performed as a whole just once, and memorably, live in the studio on the BBC television programme Colour Me Pop. Steve Marriott officially quit the band at the end of 1968, walking off stage during a live New Year's Eve gig yelling: I quit!  Citing frustration at their failure to break out of their pop image and their inability to reproduce the more sophisticated material properly on stage, Marriott was already looking ahead to a new band, Humble Pie, with Peter Frampton.  The remaining three members were joined by Ronnie Wood as guitarist, and Rod Stewart as their lead vocalist, both from The Jeff Beck Group, and the new line-up was renamed the Faces.

Wanderin' Spirit
April, 2015
"Small Faces"

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