Small Faces

They are also acknowledged as being one of the biggest original influences on the Britpop movement of the 1990s.

Despite the fact they were together just four years in their original incarnation, the Small Faces' music output from the mid to late sixties remains among the most acclaimed British mod and psychedelic music of that era.

In 1996, the Small Faces were awarded the Ivor Novello Outstanding Contribution to British Music "Lifetime Achievement" award.

History

Original line-up: 1965–1969

Origins (1965)

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". The band also performed two Marriott/Lane original compositions, a fast and loud "Come on Children" and the "speed enhanced" song "E too D", in which Marriott would display his considerable vocal abilities 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 compilation 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 King Mojo Club nearby (then owned by a young Peter Stringfellow) and offered to perform for free. They played a set that left 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 (1966–67)

The group failed to capitalise 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 titled Dateline Diamonds starring Kenneth Cope as the band's manager. It featured them playing their second single release, "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. The 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, since the others all stood around 5' 4". (Indeed, the group took their name from a remark by a female friend of Marriott's, who noted that the band members all 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 their third single, "Sha-La-La-La-Lee", released on 28 January 1966. It was written for the group by Mort Shuman (who wrote many of Elvis Presley's biggest singles, including "Viva Las Vegas") and popular English entertainer and singer Kenny Lynch. The song was a big hit in Britain, peaking at number three in the UK singles chart. 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. According to Marriott's mother Kay, he is said to have written the song about his breakup with his ex-fiancee Susan Oliver. On the success of "All or Nothing" they were set to tour America with the Lovin' Spoonful and the Mamas & the Papas; however, these plans had to be shelved by Don Arden after details of Ian McLagan's recent drug conviction were leaked.

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 (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 (1967–68)

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 late-1967 single "Itchycoo Park" (single released Nov. 11, 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 #3. "Itchycoo Park" was the first British record 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 developed by Olympic Studios engineer George Chkiantz in 1966. "Itchycoo Park" was followed in March 1967 by "Tin Soldier," originally written by Marriott for American singer P.P. Arnold, who can be heard clearly on backing vocals. However, when the song only reached No. 73 on the U.S. Hot 100 chart, Immediate Records abandoned its short-lived effort to establish the act in America.

"Lazy Sunday", released in 1968, was a 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 neighbors 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 single during the band's career was folksy sounding "The Universal," released in the summer of 1968. The song was recorded by adding studio overdubs to a basic track that Marriott had cut live in his back garden in Essex with an acoustic guitar. Taped on a home cassette recorder, Marriott's recording included his dogs' barking in the background. The single's comparative lack of success in the charts (#16 on the UK chart) and its critical panning in the UK music press devastated Marriott, who then refused to write music for the next few months.

Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake (1968)

The two-act concept album consisted of six original songs on side one and a whimsical psychedelic fairy tale on side two relating the adventures of "Happiness Stan" and his need to find out where the moon went when it waned. It was narrated by Stanley Unwin, after original plans to have Spike Milligan narrate the album were dashed when he turned them down.

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.

Breakup and release of The Autumn Stone (1969)

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 recorded for their intended fourth LP, 1862, 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. Since there was no one to promote it, it only reached the UK Singles Chart Top 40.

New Small Faces line-up? – "Small Faces" vs. "Faces": 1970

However, hoping to capitalize on Small Faces' earlier success, record company executives wanted the band to keep their old name. The band objected, arguing the personnel changes resulted in a group very different from Small Faces.

As a compromise, this line-up's first album in the UK was credited as First Step by Faces, while in the US the same album was released as First Step by Small Faces. The album was only a mild commercial success, and the record companies perceived no further need to market this new line-up as "Small Faces". Accordingly, all subsequent albums by this incarnation of the band appeared under the new name Faces, on both sides of the Atlantic. However, North American CD reissues of First Step still credit the band as Small Faces.

See entry on Faces (band) for further information about this line-up.

The hiatus: 1970–1975

Reunion: 1975–1978

Nevertheless, McLagan, Jones and Marriott decided to stay together as Small Faces, recruiting ex-Humble Pie and Roxy Music bassist Rick Wills to take Lane's place. This iteration of Small Faces recorded two albums: Playmates (1977) and 78 In The Shade (1978), released on Atlantic Records. Guitarist Jimmy McCulloch also briefly joined this 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." McCulloch's tenure with the band lasted only for a few months in late 1977.

Unfortunately for the band, mainstream music in Britain was rapidly changing direction, punk rock having been established around this time. The reunion albums, as a result, were both critical and commercial failures. Small Faces broke up again, this time for good, by late 1978.

Post-reunion activity: 1979–present

Ian McLagan went on to perform with artists such as Bonnie Raitt, the Rolling Stones, David Lindley and his band, El Rayo-X, and more recently 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, and is bandleader to his own "Bump Band".

Steve Marriott recorded with a revived line-up of Humble Pie from 1979 to 1982. Along with Ronnie Lane, he formed a new band called The Majik Mijits in 1981, but this band's lone album was not issued until 2000. Later in the 1980s, Marriott went solo, playing nearly 200 concerts a year. On Saturday, 20 April 1991, Steve Marriott died in his sleep when a fire, caused by a cigarette, swept through his home in Essex, England. His death came just a few days after he had begun work on a new album in America with his former Humble Pie bandmate, Peter Frampton.

Ronnie Lane's recording career was curtailed by the effects of multiple sclerosis, though he issued collaborative albums with Pete Townshend and Ronnie Wood in the late 1970s. He moved to the United States and continued to perform live into the early 1990s. Lane died at his home in Trinidad, Colorado on 4 June 1997, after battling MS for nearly 20 years.

Rick Wills (of the reunited Small Faces, 1977–78) played on David Gilmour's 1978 album, David Gilmour, then joined Foreigner later that year. He stayed with Foreigner for 14 years, until 1992. Subsequently, Wills was a member of Bad Company from 1993 to 1999 (and again, briefly in 2001). Currently, he lives in Cambridge, England, and works with Kenney Jones in "The Jones Gang".

Jimmy McCulloch's stint with Small Faces only lasted for a few months in late 1977. Shortly after leaving, he started a band called Wild Horses with Brian Robertson, Jimmy Bain and Kenney Jones. He and Jones both left the band before they issued any recordings. McCulloch then became a member of The Dukes, who issued one album in 1979. That same year, McCulloch died at the age of twenty-six from a heroin overdose in his flat in Maida Vale.

Commemorative plaque

Discography

;Studio albums

References

Bibliography

External links

Category:Small Faces Category:English rock music groups Category:Musical groups from London Category:1960s music groups Category:Musical groups established in 1965 Category:Musical quartets Category:Pre-punk groups Category:Beat groups Category:British Invasion artists Category:Ivor Novello Award winners Category:Atlantic Records artists Category:RCA Victor artists Category:Charly Records artists Category:Decca Records artists