Originally published in Uncut Take 305 (October 2022), band members, friends, label mates and collaborators take us chronologically through 20 of mod-tastic anthems by the Small Faces…
Originally published in Uncut Take 305 (October 2022), band members, friends, label mates and collaborators take us chronologically through 20 of mod-tastic anthems by the Small Faces…
1 WHATCHA GONNA DO ABOUT IT (1965 7-inch, also on 1966’s Small Faces LP) This debut single was an impeccable mod-pop calling card, reaching No 14 PETER FRAMPTON: The very first time I saw the Small Faces was on Ready Steady Go!, doing “Whatcha Gonna Do About It” – a song I hadn’t heard yet. It was a phenomenal rendition. And you go, ‘Is that guy singing? He sounds like a 69-year-old black man. But he’s 20-odd and five foot nothing.’ About halfway through, when Steve does that feedback solo, I thought, ‘I wanna play with that guy.’ I wanted to join the Small Faces, to be honest. The song’s R&B with a real strut, the perfect first hit for them. That was before Mac was even in the band. That was it, I was so into the Small Faces from that point on to the end. Of course, I later joined Steve in Humble Pie. So that song has great meaning to me.
2 SHA-LA-LA-LA-LEE (1966 7-inch and on the 1966 Decca album Small Faces) Near nonsense (penned by Kenny Lynch and Mort Shuman) made great by joyous, bulldozing conviction, taking it to No 3 GERED MANKOWITZ: I liked the sound they made on “Sha-La-La-La-Lee”. An irresistible R&B pop song that rides on the energy of the band, the beat and Steve’s voice. Maybe the song was nonsense, but I never focus too much on lyrics; it was the feel, it was emotional. I’d already known them for a year before that came out – when Jimmy Winston was still in the band and they were with Don Arden. The Small Faces were their own people, with their own ideas. I felt very close to them, but they were quite tricky to work with, because they were always searching for a prop to hide behind. Photographing them was always compromised and sometimes the compromise would make the picture, like when Steve’s flicking V signs at the camera. That’s got a lot of the Small Faces’ energy and character. Not giving a tinker’s toss.
3 E TOO D (Taken from the 1966 Decca album Small Faces) This fine album track shows off their burgeoning instrumental and lyrical ambition KENNEY JONES: Listen to this and you can hear where Zeppelin – who were great Small Faces fans – nicked some ideas. “E Too D” was going back to our roots, before we got thrust into Don Arden’s ‘You must have a hit’ routine. We said “Fuck that” here. We were into free-form playing. I often wonder what we would have sounded like if we’d continued down that road, as a blues-rock and soul band. We were also getting more adventurous here, with the percussion and Indian-style guitar. That’s when Pete Townshend entered our life. With The Who and the [Small] Faces, the press had us as rivals, but it was like being in one band, really. Then Meher Baba comes into it and it rubs off. So we started exploring meaningful lyrics.
4 ALL OR NOTHING (1966 7-inch and on 1967 album From The Beginning) The chart-topping mod/R&B pinnacle PETER FRAMPTON: I sat in live with the Small Faces a couple of times. I played “All Or Nothing” with them, which shows so many sides of Steve. He could croon sweetly, even do a country thing, then with the explosive R&B choruses off he goes into another realm, where no other man has been. Like on “Tin Soldier” later – it’s vocally almost impossible to do what he did on that. But he was Steve. Playing with them, I learned how musical the rest of the band were – Kenney had great feel, Mac was so good the Stones wanted him later, Ronnie was writing melodies on bass. Everyone was down to earth – even Steve was the king of self-deprecation then. But people don’t give the other bandmembers credit, because Steve was so powerful and all-encompassing.
5 I CAN’T DANCE WITH YOU (1966 “My Mind’s Eye” B-side) A mod/soul floor-filler, one of several storming B-sides JERRY SHIRLEY: I remember being in Steve’s house when he said, “Don Arden’s released bloody ‘My Mind’s Eye’ as a single.” Then he played us the B-side, and we said, “Oh, wow!” He said, “Yeah, I know…” They were still mods headed towards hippies when they did that, and dancing was a big thing then. It’s got a great chorus, and one of the best grooves they ever recorded. This was when English drummers like Kenney had been listening to Motown and Stax drummers like Bernard Purdie. If you knew where the groove was, Steve would be happy to work with you as a drummer and Kenney knew exactly what he wanted. Steve was an overpowering personality, but the band always worked as a collective.
6 MY WAY OF GIVING (Taken from 1967 album From The Beginning and 1967’s Immediate album Small Faces) Another big R&B number, covered by Chris Farlowe. Two Small Faces takes were also released; uniquely, the Faces even tried it with Rod CHRIS FARLOWE: Me and Stevie were mates anyway, before we were hit record people, and he said, “I’d like to write a song for you.” Stevie was very clever with his lyrics. You can feel an R&B element in everything Stevie did; you can hear in his phrasing that he loved Sam Cooke and Northern Soul stuff. There was a psychedelic element to “My Way Of Giving”. He and Ronnie [Lane] were completely opposite as far as art was concerned. Where Ronnie was more subdued, Steve was outrageous. Even later in life, when Steve was with Packet Of Three, and he’s losing his hair and he looks sort of disgruntled, when he played the guitar, he was really fabulous.
7 HERE COME THE NICE (1967 7-inch and 1968 American album There Are But Four Small Faces) The first single for Andrew Loog Oldham’s Immediate label is a sly tribute to flatmate Mick O’Sullivan, “always there when I need some speed” GERED MANKOWITZ: Was it quite cheeky, to get a song about their dealer almost into the Top 10? They were a cheeky bunch of lads. Steve was a nipper, a ducker and diver. Andrew didn’t have much to do with their image on Immediate. I didn’t get into it with them either. If you look at the promo films they did, they were always rather raucous – a bit out of control. There was that element, particularly with Steve. Kenney was aloof, on the edge of compositions. Mac tended to be competitive with Steve. Ronnie had his own extraordinary aura – a sort of gentle and studious nature. I felt like they were hiding in photos. But it was a question of not wanting to pose.
8 GREEN CIRCLES (Taken from the 1967 Immediate album Small Faces) Ronnie Lane takes the lead on an acid trip report with an out-there outro ALAN O’DUFFY: When I worked in the studio with the Small Faces on songs like “Tin Soldier”, Steve had a mischievous sense of humour, and a disregard for studio conventions. He was hyperactive, because he had more energy than was normal. Steve made a chord into a drama. Glyn Johns and George Chkiantz did “Green Circles”, a lovely, Pet Sounds-influenced experiment with harmonies and guitars. There was a continually explorative interest in the studio and sound – how can we expand the mystery and glory of the band through fun experimentation? The fade with the weird noises is a marijuana-expanded, comedic interpretation of reality! It wasn’t the phasing they got later with “Itchycoo Park”. They were really interested in making exciting, positive records.
9 UP THE WOODEN HILLS TO BEDFORDSHIRE (Taken from the 1967 Immediate album Small Faces) Mac makes himself known with a rare writing credit, plus lead vocal and atmospheric organ swirls KENNEY JONES: The phrase means ‘I’m going to bed now’. It’s what Ronnie’s dad used to say to him as a sort of lullaby. It’s about an acid trip. A folk tune with a mod sound? Yeah. It suggests the pastoral feel where the band were headed. I used to go hop-picking in Kent, which was a land of peace, discovery, and general well-being. Ronnie and Steve used to go to Epping Forest all the time on their bikes. Mac writing that song tells me he was meant to be a Small Face. Mac coming into the band after Jimmy Winston was a breath of fresh air. The Hammond opened me up, and the whole band got better. It sealed our legacy.
10 ITCHYCOO PARK (1967 7-inch and the 1968 American album There Are But Four Small Faces) No 3 in the UK’s summer of love and the band’s only American hit, this pop masterpiece breezes in on strums of acoustic guitar, offering an enigmatic idyll KENNEY JONES: We all felt it was one of those commercial songs, we did it for a laugh. But “Itchycoo Park” has got substance to it. Singing “it’s all too beautiful” was a serious sentiment. It’s a beautiful thing to get high, not necessarily on drugs. We used to get high on just being with each other. For the whooshing, flanging effect we looped the tape round the back of a chair. The real Itchycoo Park was a place between Ilford and Stratford, which Ronnie and Steve knew. I told them my Itchycoo Park was bombed ruins, where I used to play and get stung by these great stinging nettles. It can be anywhere you want it to be.
11 TIN SOLDIER (1967 7-inch and the 1968 American album There Are But Four Small Faces) Another Top 10 smash, full of surging soul energy, capped by PP Arnold’s vocal harmonies PP ARNOLD: What a great intro, counting it in on the piano with Mac. Kenney’s just kicking butt, and Steve’s on fire. I was kind of cool – but I was on fire too. It may be psychedelic, but that’s a hard-driving song. Steve said he wrote it for the girl he wanted to be with, Jenny Rylance, about the non-sexual side of loving someone? Yeah, but it also has a kinda horny vibe. I mean the first line just says it all: [sings] ‘I, I’m a little tin soldier that wants to jump into your fire!’ I remember being at the studio and everybody being totally out of it. High and happy! Then we left early in the morning, that’s where Gered Mankowitz took all those great photos on Barnes and Roehampton heaths.
12 LAZY SUNDAY (1968 7-inch and the 1968 album Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake) Though it hit No 2 when Oldham released it behind the band’s backs, Marriott’s cockney caper reinforced the idea that they were a pop group, when what they wanted was respect. Kenney Jones called it the band’s “epitaph” ANDREW LOOG OLDHAM: Glyn Johns was in the room with the Small Faces, plus wiz engineer George Chkiantz. That was the magic. “Lazy Sunday” was a brilliant work, just oh so clever and unique. It was part of Steve’s final playing of the game with the Small Faces, and after that he got disgusted with himself and turned on himself and anyone who came near. The band reacted to “Lazy Sunday” the same way Mick and Keith reacted to “Satisfaction”. Understandable, subliminally both bands understood they were jumping into swimming pools that may not have water. The single was indeed a cheap shot to the stalls, and balcony. Was the song drawn from Steve’s life? More a defence mechanism, showing you everything, giving you nowt.
13 AFTERGLOW (Taken from the 1968 album Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake) This bittersweet soul ballad from Ogdens’… concept-free side would later be the Small Faces’ posthumous, farewell single PP ARNOLD: They wrote “Afterglow” for me. But then they liked it and kept it themselves! I like the way it starts out with a nice hooky thing, and then it goes into a really cool verse. You make some really beautiful loving with somebody, you’re kind of laying there with ’em, and you’re in this magical kind of glow. So what do you call it? Yeah, afterglow. It’s all about that. Steve was a beautiful guy. He was my soul brother. We were lovers and of course we loved singing together. Steve Marriott’s the most soulful white British singer of anybody back then. He knew how to ad lib, and you have to be really honest to sing like that, because you have to let go, then the spirit takes over.
14 MAD JOHN (Taken from the 1968 album Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake) Ogdens’… surreal Side Two centres on the search for a cave-dwelling prophet JERRY SHIRLEY: I went up to Beehive Cottage right before Ogdens’… was released. Steve had an acetate of the Stanley Unwin side. The flute wasn’t there yet, just Stanley talking. I don’t know if Mad John’s supposed to be a guru. Ronnie was the first one who got into that philosophical stuff – Sufi and Khalil Gibran. Steve offered my band Apostolic Intervention “Mad John” just after they recorded it, ’til he was stopped. It was just a song when Steve offered it to us, an acoustic, folksy thing. But then it became a central part of the Ogdens’… story. They had this great bunch of songs, and then they went on this trip down the Thames on a couple of cruiser boats and had a writing session and realised they could put it all together.
15 HAPPINESS STAN (Taken from the 1968 album Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake) Stanley Unwin introduces Ogdens’… questing hero in trademark, absurd Unwinese LYN DOBSON: I knew Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane very well. I took my first acid trip with those two and their girlfriends, up the Thames where Jerome K Jerome used to live, which was fantastic. It bonded me deeply to them, Steve especially. I spent most of my time jamming on sitar in his house. Did using my flute suit Ogdens’… concept side, with it being a sort of folk tale? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, because the flute is a pastoral instrument. Having Stanley Unwin narrating a spiritual quest in “Happiness Stan” makes sense too, because there’s a lot of humour in deep spirituality. Look at the Dalai Lama, he’s very funny. It’s all part of the same thing – like The Goon Show. It’s a very English way of approaching it.
16 SONG OF A BAKER (Taken from the 1968 album Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake) A hard-rocking take on Sufi precepts, pointing to Marriott’s heavy Humble Pie future KENNEY JONES: Oh, I love that song. The lyrics come from Ronnie’s Sufi investigations, with the importance of the “wheat in the field” and all that. I love his melodic bass-playing on it. He used to think like he was playing lead guitar and that mentally fused into his bass-playing. A heavy song with a mellow groove? Yeah, we always had different sides. People used to say to me, “You’re a pop band,” or “You’re a rock band.” No – the Small Faces used to love listening to Chuck Berry and stuff like that and jam with it. But the nearest we got to rock’n’roll was our very last B-side, “Wham Bam Thank You Mam”. You can’t say our songs are rock’n’roll. They were Small Faces songs. You can’t describe what they were like any other way.
17 RENE (Taken from the 1968 album Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake) Ogdens’… insatiable “docker’s delight”… JERRY SHIRLEY: It’s what we’d call a slow shuffle. Lyrically it’s hilarious, the chorus is fabulous, and then there’s the jam at the end with the guitar going nuts and Mac going crazy at the piano – I think he gave himself a hernia, literally. There’s various stories as to who Rene really was, depending on who you believe. It’s a great example of the Small Faces playing together. The biggest shame about them is that, like The Beatles and Stones, they stopped playing live and concentrated entirely on the studio. Where they were so brilliant live at the beginning, they lost their edge on stage. Then they brought out this wonderful album and they felt they couldn’t play it live – though “Rene” would have sounded so great. Meanwhile, The Who kept trucking into America…
18 THE AUTUMN STONE (Taken from the 1969 album The Autumn Stone) The title track of this posthumous compilation is a blissful reverie, with the latter-day Small Faces getting it together in the country LYN DOBSON: This is a spiritual love song to Steve’s girlfriend Jenny, with a sitar coda which I suppose must be me! I also overdubbed sessions for Nick Drake. The parallels you could make with Nick Drake and Steve and Ronnie is they were spiritual, feeling musicians, who put their heart into what they did. The fact that they made money and became famous was incidental. I was four or five years older. But they were always old beyond their years. I remember Steve telling me he was in the West End production of Oliver! when he was 12, and he walked from the East End to the West End every night. That’s old before your time. I found them incredibly sensitive and mature. In fact in many ways, they were older than me.
19 THE UNIVERSAL (1968 7-inch and The Autumn Stone) Marriott’s self-destructive response to the success of “Lazy Sunday” has its own rickety charm KENNEY JONES: I loved the sentiment behind it and I loved the way Steve came up with it. But it was rushed. I overdubbed drums to parts of Steve’s acoustic guitar parts that he’d recorded on a little cassette at home, with his dog in the background. If we’d have gone in and redone it [properly], would we have recaptured that atmosphere? I don’t think so. It’s quite like “Give Peace A Chance”, with lovely trad-jazz trombone. The B-side, “Donkey Rides, A Penny, A Glass”, came about because when we found ourselves in Blackpool, a guy selling donkey rides was shouting that out. We had to write a song straight away. “Snowflakes falling like leaves in the summertime/Fishcakes, cabbage and mash”. Great, innit? It’s writing down our past, things that happened to us. Ronnie or Steve? That one was a bit of each.
20 RED BALLOON (Taken from the 1969 album The Autumn Stone) Among The Autumn Stone’s unreleased tracks, this Tim Hardin cover is a brooding folk-rocker ANDREW LOOG OLDHAM: “Red Balloon” shows the development of Steve’s gift as an interpreter and what he might have been doing had he stayed in the Small Faces. I’ve been reading a book on the making of Easy Rider. Immediate was just as whacked, divisive and perverse, and my partner Tony Calder was like Dennis Hopper, and that’s a compliment. My running out of money and interest ended the game, and like the movie you could say we blew it. But the ride until we fell over was life-giving. Steve had one more brilliant run with Humble Pie and then it was over, until it finally was. I have not mentioned the rest of the group because I never really knew them. Steve demanded all of you and was wonderful while he got it.
