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The Small Faces were an English Rock music band from London, founded in 1965. The group originally consisted of singer/guitarist Steve Marriott, bassist Ronnie Lane, drummer Kenney Jones and keyboardist Jimmy Winston, with Ian McLagan replacing Winston in 1966. The band were initially one of the most acclaimed and influential mod groups of the mid-1960s, with hit singles such as "Whatcha Gonna Do About It" (1965), "Sha-La-La-La-Lee" and "All or Nothing" (both 1966). From 1967, they evolved into one of the UK's most successful psychedelic bands, achieving further hit singles including "Here Come the Nice", "Itchycoo Park", "Tin Soldier" (all 1967) and "Lazy Sunday" (1968), the latter taken from their critically-acclaimed concept album Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake (1968), which reached No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart.
In 1969, Marriott left to form Humble Pie, while Lane, Jones and McLagan continued under the shortened name the Faces with Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood. Following the breakup of both the Faces and Humble Pie in 1975, the classic Marriott/Lane/McLagan/Jones line-up of the Small Faces re-formed after a re-release of "Itchycoo Park" became a top-ten hit. Lane left shortly thereafter, and was replaced by Rick Wills (later of Foreigner). This line-up (dubbed Mk-II by Marriott) recorded one album, Playmates (1977), before adding former Wings guitarist Jimmy McCulloch for a second reunion album, 78 in the Shade (1978). The band split for a second and final time in 1978.
The Small Faces have been considered one of the early inspirations forand even an early root ofthe Britpop movement. English music journalist Jon Savage has called them "the one Brit group that prefigures the early Sex Pistols" (who themselves covered "Whatcha Gonna Do About It"). In 2012, the Small Faces and their successor band the Faces were jointly inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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 and it featured the band playing their second single release. Arden thought the band's song would receive publicity from the film; however, the film's UK release was delayed, and "I've Got Mine" subsequently failed to chart despite receiving good reviews.
Shortly thereafter, Jimmy Winston left the band for an acting and music solo career. He went on to succeed as an actor in TV, film and became a successful business man. In a 2000 interview, Kenney Jones said the reason Winston was fired from the band was because "He (Winston) got above his station and tried to compete with Steve Marriott." Winston subsequently said he left the group over conflicts between Arden and Winston's brother.[1]
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, the group still had little money. After a confrontation with Arden who tried to face down the boys' parents by claiming that the whole band were using drugs, they broke with both Arden and Decca.
In June 1967, Decca released the compilation album From The Beginning, combining the band's hits with a number of previously unreleased recordings. It included earlier versions of songs the band would re-record when they signed to the new label 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.
The album consisted of six individual songs on side one and a whimsical psychedelic fairy tale on side two, telling the story of "Happiness Stan" and his adventures during his search for the missing half of the moon. It was narrated by Stanley Unwin, after original plans to have Spike Milligan narrate the album went awry when he turned them down.
Critics were enthusiastic, and the album sold well, but the band were confronted by the practical problem that they had created an album which was virtually impossible to recreate on the road. Ogdens' was performed in its entirety just once, live in the studio on the BBC television programme Colour Me Pop.
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. On the subject of the group's breakup, Kenney Jones, in an interview with John Hellier (2001), said:
After fulfilling outstanding live performance commitments, including a European tour in January, the Small Faces' dissolution was formally announced in March 1969, and Marriott and Frampton's plans to form a new group together were unveiled (although the band were already formed and had been rehearsing together since January).Hewitt, Paulo and Hellier, John. Steve Marriott – All Too Beautiful... Helter Skelter (2005).
A posthumous double compilation album, The Autumn Stone, was released later in 1969, mixing together the band's hit singles, key album tracks, previously unreleased live concert recordings, and a number of previously unreleased studio tracks recorded for their intended fourth studio album, 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. A final single, "Afterglow (Of Your Love)", taken from Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake, was released in 1969 after the band had ceased to exist and reached No. 36 in the UK Singles Charts.
As a compromise, the new line-up's first album, 1970's First Step, was credited to the Faces in the UK and the Small Faces in the US. The album was only a mild commercial success, and the record companies perceived no further need to market this new line-up as the Small Faces. Accordingly, all subsequent albums by this incarnation of the band appeared under the new name the Faces on both sides of the Atlantic. However, all North American LP, cassette and CD reissues of First Step still credit the band as the Small Faces.Liner notes in the Faces' The Definitive Rock Collection, Rhino Records, 2007. The Faces eventually achieved major commercial success beginning with their third album, A Nod Is As Good As a Wink... to a Blind Horse, in 1971.
Jones and McLagan stayed with the Faces until their breakup in 1975. Lane exited the Faces slightly earlier, in 1973. With his backing band, Slim Chance, Lane then released several singles and albums from 1973 to 1976, including the 1974 UK hit "How Come".
Nevertheless, McLagan, Jones and Marriott decided to stay together as the Small Faces, recruiting former Roxy Music bassist Rick Wills to take Lane's place. This iteration of the Small Faces recorded two albums, Playmates album (1977) and 78 in the Shade (1978), both released on Atlantic Records. The second album saw the addition of former Wings guitarist Jimmy McCulloch. When McCulloch phoned Paul McCartney, who had found him increasingly difficult to work with, to announce he was joining Marriott, McCartney reportedly said "I was a little put out at first, but, well, what can you say to that?"
The reunion albums were both critical and commercial failures. The Small Faces broke up again in 1978.
Ian McLagan went on to perform with artists such as Bonnie Raitt, Bob Dylan (the 1984 European tour), the Rolling Stones, David Lindley and his band El Rayo-X among others, and more recently Billy Bragg. In 1998 he published his autobiography, All the Rage. He lived in a small town of Manor outside Austin, Texas, and was bandleader to his own "Bump Band". He died from a stroke on 3 December 2014. "Ian McLagan 1945–2014", The Austin Chronicle, 3 December 2014.
Steve Marriott recorded with a revived line-up of Humble Pie from 1979 to 1981. During their tour of Australia in 1982 this version of Humble Pie was sometimes billed as Small Faces in order to sell more tickets. Along with Ronnie Lane, he formed a new band called the Majik Mijits in 1981, but this band's lone album, Together Again: The Lost Majik Mijits Recordings, was not issued until 2000. Later in the 1980s, Marriott went solo, playing nearly 200 concerts a year. On 20 April 1991, 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 the United States 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 multiple sclerosis for nearly 20 years.
Rick Wills of the reunited Small Faces 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 1992 to 1998 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 the 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 Drug overdose at his flat in Maida Vale.
The Small Faces and other 1960s mod bands resurged in interest with the mod revival of the late-1970s, led by the Jam. Paul Weller of the Jam said: "The Small Faces are a massive influence on me. It's everything for me: they looked great, their music was great, their attitude was great. It was the most complete band for me."
The Small Faces were one of the 1960s British pop groups that highly influenced the Britpop movement of the 1990s; Professors Andy Bennett and Jon Stratton place them among the Beatles and the Kinks in this regard.
On 4 September 2007, a Small Faces and Don Arden commemorative plaque, issued by the London Borough of Westminster, was unveiled in their memory in Carnaby Street. Kenney Jones, who attended the ceremony, said in a BBC television interview, "To honour Small Faces after all these years is a terrific achievement. I only wish that Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane and the late Don Arden were here to enjoy this moment with me."
On 7 December 2011, the Small Faces and the Faces were announced as 2012 inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The induction ceremony was held on 14 April 2012.
At least one tribute band exists, the Small Fakers, who have been approved by Jones and Winston as well as family members of those involved with the band.
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