The Small Faces
Background information
Origin	London, England
Genre(s)	Rock Rhythm & Blues Psychedelia Soul British Invasion
Years active	1965 – 1969
Label(s)	Decca Immediate Atlantic
Website	Room For Ravers (unofficial)
Former members
Steve Marriott (deceased) Ronnie Lane (deceased) Ian McLagan Kenney Jones Jimmy Winston

The Small Faces were a British mod group formed in 1965 by Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones, and Jimmy Winston (who was soon replaced by Ian McLagan). Heavily influenced by American Rhythm and blues, they later evolved into one of the UK's most successful psychedelic acts before disbanding in 1969.

Despite the fact that they were only together four years, the Small Faces' music output from the mid to late sixties remains amongst the most acclaimed British mod and psychedelic music of that era. All Music Guide refers to them as "The best English band never to make it big in America." The Small Faces were belatedly awarded the Ivor Novello Outstanding Contribution to British Music "Lifetime Achievement" award in 1996 at the Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Origins 1.1.1 The Decca Years 1.1.2 The Immediate Years 1.1.3 Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake 1.2 Breakup 1.2.1 Post-breakup projects, reunion and legacy 1.3 Discography 1.3.1 See also 1.4 Notes 1.5 Bibliography 1.6 External links

History

Origins

Lane and Marriott 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 and Jimmy Winston (born Jimmy Langwith, April 20, 1945 in Stratford, London), who switched from guitar to the organ. They rapidly progressed from rehearsals at The Ruskin Arms public house (which was owned by Winston's parents) in Manor Park, London to ramshackle pub gigs, to semi-professional club dates. Marriott's unique and powerful voice attracted rising attention. Singer Elkie Brooks was struck by Marriot's vocal prowess and stage presence, and recommended them to a local club owner, Maurice King. Impressed, he began finding them work in London and beyond. The band's early song set included R&B/soul classics such as "Jump Back", James Brown's "Please Please Please", Smokey Robinson's "You've Really Got a Hold on Me" and Ben E. King's "Stand By Me". Alongside two Marriott/Lane self-penned compositions, a fast and loud "Come on Children" and the "speed enhanced" song "E too D" around which Marriott would perform his amazing vocal capabilities in the style of his heroes and role models, Otis Redding and Bobby Bland. "E too D" which appears on their first album Small Faces is named after the guitar chord structure. On US compilations albums the track is titled "Running Wild".

They were kicked out of their first out-of-town gig, a tough working men's club in Sheffield after only three songs. The crowd at that concert was mainly made up of Teddy boys and hard-drinking workers. Despondent, they literally walked into the mod-oriented Mojo Club nearby (then owned by a young Peter Stringfellow) and offered to perform for free. They played a set that had the local mods wanting more and started a strong buzz. During a crucial residency at Leicester Square's Cavern Club, they were strongly supported by Sonny & Cher, who were living in London at the time and had first seen them perform in Sheffield.

The Decca Years

They signed a management contract with 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 15 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". The lyrics were written by ex Cliff Richard backing group member, Ian Samwell, who arguably wrote the first British rock 'n' roll record, "Move It"). The group failed to capitalize on the success of their first single with the follow-up which was written by Marriott/Lane, the hard-edged mod number "I've Got Mine". The band appeared as themselves in a 1965 crime film called Dateline Diamonds starring Kenneth Cope as the band's manager. It featured them playing "I've Got Mine". Arden thought the band's song would receive publicity by the film however the film's UK release was delayed and "I've Got Mine" subsequently failed to chart.

Shortly thereafter, Jimmy Winston was released from the band. Most common explanations for his dismissal are a clash of personalities with Marriott or a lack of musical talent, though rumours persist he was released at least in part because he compromised the band's integrity of image by being too tall, the others all stood around 5'6". (Indeed, the group took their name from a remark by a female friend of Marriott's who noted that the band members had "small faces". The name stuck in part because of the mod slang usage of the word "face" to mean a popular, trendsetting individual). In a 2000 interview, Kenney Jones stated the reason Winston was fired from the band was because "He (Winston) got above his station and tried to compete with Steve Marriott." Winston was replaced by Ian McLagan, whose keyboard talents and diminutive stature fit with the groove of the band perfectly.

The new Small Faces line-up hit the charts with "Sha-La-La-La-Lee", written for the group by the unlikely team of American hitmaker Mort Shuman (who wrote many of Elvis Presley's biggest singles, including "Viva Las Vegas") and English entertainer Kenny Lynch. The song was a hit in England, peaking at No. 3 in the U.K. singles chart. Their first album, Small Faces was 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 toured incessantly up and down the country. Their popularity peaked in August 1966 when "All Or Nothing" their fifth single, hit the top of the UK charts, and proved to be their only Number One hit record. A Marriott/Lane composition "All Or Nothing", shared the top no. 1 spot in the UK with "Yellow Submarine" by The Beatles. On the BBC's Top of the Pops that week the show blended two pictures of the bands together.

By 1966, despite being one of the highest earning 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 (who tried to face down the boys' parents by claiming that the whole band were addicted to heroin) they broke with both Arden and Decca.

The Immediate Years

They were almost immediately 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 speed (amphetamines). A second self-titled Immediate album 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.

At the same time, their old label Decca released a spoiler album called From The Beginning, combining old hits with a number of previously unreleased recordings. It included earlier versions of songs they re-recorded for Immediate, including "My Way Of Giving", which they had demoed for Chris Farlowe, and "(Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me", which they had given to Apostolic Intervention. The album also featured their stage favourite "Baby, Don't You Do It" featuring Jimmy Winston on lead vocals and guitar.

Their mid-1967 single "Itchycoo Park" is one of Small Faces' best-remembered songs and was also the first of the band's only two charting singles in the United States, reaching No. 16. "Itchycoo Park" was the first British record to use phasing, playing two tapes simultaneously but at differing speeds, it was an effect developed by Olympic Studios engineer George Chkiantz in 1966. Itchycoo Park was followed by the powerful and stylish soul-rock epic "Tin Soldier", (originally written by Marriott for American singer P.P. Arnold), who can be heard clearly on backing vocals; it remains one of their best-known singles. However, when the song only reached No. 73 on the US Hot 100 chart, Immediate Records was said to have abandoned its short-lived effort to establish the act in America.

"Lazy Sunday" released in 1968, was a bright and breezy Cockney music-hall style song released by Immediate against the band's wishes, it was written by Steve Marriott as a joke because he was always getting thrown out of his rented accommodation by neighbours complaining about the noise he made. The single reached number 2 in the British charts but the band continued to resent the fact that their sound was being represented by what they saw as a novelty single. Many years later "Lazy Sunday" was to inspire Blur's hit song "Parklife" in 1994.

The final official song release during the band's career was folksy sounding " The Universal" in the summer of 1968, recorded by adding studio over-dubs to a basic track Marriott cut live in his back garden in Essex with an acoustic guitar, taped on a home cassette recorder, complete with his dogs barks heard in the background. The single's subsequent lack of success in the charts (it reached number 16 in the UK Top 40 singles chart) and critical panning in the UK music press, devastated Marriott, who then refused to write music for the following few months.

Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake

At home in England, their career peaked with the classic psychedelic album Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake in 1968, widely regarded today as an all-time classic, which featured an innovative round cover, the first of its kind, designed to resemble an antique tobacco tin. It stayed at number one in the UK Albums Chart for six weeks.

The two-act Concept album consisted of five original songs on Side One and a whimsical psychedelic fairy tale on Side Two with the adventures of "Happiness Stan" and his need to find out where the moon went when it waned. It was narrated by Stanley Unwin, though original plans to have Spike Milligan narrating the album were dashed when he turned them down.

Critics raved, and the album sold well, but they were confronted by the practical problem that they had created a studio masterpiece which was all but virtually impossible to recreate on the road.

Ogden's was performed as a whole just once, memorably live in the studio on the BBC's television programme, Colour Me Pop.

Breakup

After several months of break-up rumours in the British press, Marriott officially quit the band at the beginning of 1969, walking off stage during a live New Years Eve gig. Citing frustration at their failure to break out of their pop image and their inability to reproduce the more sophisticated material properly on stage, Steve was already looking ahead to a new band, Humble Pie, with Peter Frampton. On the subject of the group's breakup, Kenney Jones, in an interview with John Hellier (2001), said:

“

"I wish we had been a little bit more grown up at the time, if we had played Ogdens’ live it would have boosted our confidence so much, we were labelled as a pop band, which definitely got up Steve’s nose more than we realised. I wish we had been more like The Who in the fact that when they have problems they stick together until they’ve overcome them, Steve just thought well how do we top Ogdens’ and he was off. Ogdens’ was a masterpiece if we had played it live we would have gone on to even greater things, I reckon we were on the verge of crossing the great divide and becoming a heavier band.

”

A posthumous album, The Autumn Stone, was released later in the year, and included the major Immediate recordings, a rare live concert performance, and a number of previously unreleased tracks, including the classic Swinging Sixties instrumental "Wide Eyed Girl on the Wall" and "Donkey Rides, A Penny, A Glass", co-written by Ian McLagan. The final single, "Afterglow (Of Your Love)", was released in 1969 after the band had ceased to exist, with nobody to promote it, it only reached the UK Singles Chart Top 40.

Post-breakup projects, reunion and legacy

Marriott's next venture was with the rock group Humble Pie formed with ex "Herd" member Peter Frampton. The group was a huge hit in the U.S., though not in the UK. They split in 1975 due to financial problems and good old 'musical differences' and Marriott later formed Packet of Three. After the Small Faces split, Lane, Jones and McLagan floundered briefly before joining forces with former members of the Jeff Beck Group, singer Rod Stewart and guitarist Ron Wood. They released one album as Small Faces before becoming simply The Faces and later Rod Stewart & The Faces.

Following the breakup of the Faces in 1975, the original Small Faces line-up reformed briefly to film videos miming to the reissued "Itchycoo Park" (a Top 10 hit for the second time), and "Lazy Sunday" (which went Top 40). The group tried recording together again but Lane left after an argument. Unknown to the others, he was just beginning to show the symptoms of multiple sclerosis, and his behaviour was misinterpreted by Marriott and the others as a drunken tantrum. Nevertheless, McLagan, Jones and Marriott stayed together long enough, with ex-Humble Pie bassist Rick Wills taking Lane's place, to create two albums Playmates in 1977 and 78 In The Shade in 1978 released on Atlantic Records. Guitarist Jimmy McCulloch also briefly joined the line-up after leaving Wings. Paul McCartney, who had found McCulloch increasingly difficult to work with, allegedly phoned Marriott and said "You can have him." The absence of Lane's bass playing and songwriting however was all too noticeable, together with the fact that mainstream music in Britain was rapidly changing direction, punk rock was established around this time, and the reunion albums as a result, were both critical and commercial failures.

Kenney Jones became the drummer in The Who after Keith Moon's death in 1978. Ian McLagan went on to perform with artists such as Bonnie Raitt, the Rolling Stones and most recent Billy Bragg. In 1998 he published his autobiography All the Rage. He now lives in the small town of Manor (pronounced 'Maynor') just outside Austin, Texas.

On Saturday, April 21, 1991 Steve Marriott died in his sleep when a fire , caused by a cigarette swept through his home in Essex, England, tragically just a couple of days after beginning work on a new album in America with his former Humble Pie bandmate Peter Frampton.

Ronnie Lane died at his home in Trinidad, Colorado, on June 4, 1997, after battling multiple sclerosis for nearly 20 years.

Discography

The Small Faces
Steve Marriott | Ronnie "Plonk" Lane | Kenney Jones | Ian "Mac" McLagan
Jimmy Winston (1965-1966)
Discography
Small Faces (1966) - From the Beginning (1967) - Small Faces (1967) - Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake (1968) - The Autumn Stone - Playmates 78 In The Shade - Itchycoo Park
Live albums (The BBC Sessions)
BBC Session (Saturday Club) 23 August 1965 BBC Session (Saturday Club) 14 March 1965 - BBC Session (Saturday Club) 3 May 1966 BBC Session (Saturday Club) 30 August 1966 - BBC Session (Top Gear) 14 April 1968 1968 Sessions - The Final Tour 1969
7" Singles
"Whatcha Gonna Do About It"/"What's a Matter Baby" (1965) - "I've Got Mine"/"It's Too Late" (1965) "Sha-La-La-La-Lee"/"Grow Your Own" (1966) - "Hey Girl"/"Almost Grown" (1966) - "All or Nothing"/"Understanding" (1966) - " My Mind's Eye"/"I Can't Dance With You" (1966) - "I Can't Make It"/"Just Passing" (1967) "Patterns"/"E Too D" (1967) - "Here Come The Nice"/"Talk To You" (1967) - "Itchycoo Park"/"I'm Only Dreaming" (1967) "Tin Soldier"/"I Feel Much Better" (1967) - "Lazy Sunday"/"Rollin' Over" (1968) "The Universal"/"Donkey Rides, A Penny, A Glass" (1968) - "Afterglow (Of Your Love)"/"Wham Bam Thank You Mam" (1969) "Itchycoo Park" (re-release) (1975)) - "Lazy Sunday" (re-release) (1976)
Listings
- Discography -
Other related people
Don Arden - Andrew Loog Oldham - Tony Calder - John Glyns

See also

• The Small Faces discography

Notes

Bibliography

• Paolo Hewitt, John Hellier (2004). Steve Marriott All Too Beautiful. Helter Skelter Publishing ISBN 1-900924-44-7.
• Jon Newton writes that before The Small Faces Marriott was in a group called Steve Marriott and the Moments

External links

• Small Faces on Wapping Wharf
• Small Faces on Room for Ravers
• Discography of Small Faces with All Singles and UK Catalog Number Info
• youtube: Tin Soldier