Small Faces

Small Faces ranked as Britain’s premier group that never secured major commercial traction stateside. Beyond European shores, awareness of their work rarely extended past the lone chart entry “Itchycoo Park,” a number that failed to convey either their psychedelic orientation or their wider stylistic breadth, yet within the United Kingdom they stood among the most distinctive and prosperous outfits of the mid-1960s, matching the Who in impact and even threatening the Rolling Stones’ dominance.

Steve Marriott, who handled lead vocals and guitar, had trained formally for the theater; while still a teenager he secured the role of the Artful Dodger in Lionel Bart’s stage production Oliver!. He was employed at a music retailer when he first encountered Ronnie Lane on bass and backing vocals, already leading a unit called the Pioneers that also featured drummer Kenney Jones. Lane asked Marriott to sit in during a local-club engagement; although the performance collapsed, the musicians resolved afterward to steer their efforts toward American R&B. With Marriott installed as a permanent member and Jimmy Winston added on organ, the quartet aligned itself with the mod subculture—fashion-conscious youths whose refined attire and devotion to American soul music placed them in direct, occasionally violent opposition to leather-jacketed rockers. Now billed as Small Faces, a term drawn from mod slang for a style arbiter, they quickly built a reputation through unrestrained stage shows. Marriott possessed a singularly forceful voice and delivered aggressive lead-guitar lines, while his colleagues, particularly Jones on drums, kept pace with equal intensity.

Manager Don Arden placed the group on Decca/London. Their opening single, “What’cha Gonna Do About It,” issued in August 1965 and openly derived from Solomon Burke’s “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” with additional songwriting credit to Ian Samwell, climbed to number 14; the follow-up, “I’ve Got Mine,” appeared in November and went nowhere. Winston soon departed, replaced by Ian McLagan on organ, guitar, and vocals. The band returned to the charts in February 1966 with “Sha-La-La-La-Lee,” which reached number three, and three months later hit number ten with the first Marriott/Lane original, “Hey Girl.” Encouraged by Arden for its publishing advantages, the songwriting partnership yielded their hastily assembled debut album, Small Faces. The decisive breakthrough arrived with the next Marriott/Lane composition, “All or Nothing,” which held the top spot for ten weeks. Its successor, “My Mind’s Eye,” also charted, yet the band objected because Arden had submitted an unfinished demo that Decca then released as a finished master.

These incidents crystallized mounting dissatisfaction with both Arden’s business practices and Decca’s oversight. Despite five consecutive hits, Arden booked the quartet as though their career had no future, scheduling as many as three shows nightly and thereby curtailing Marriott and Lane’s songwriting time precisely when the Beatles and Rolling Stones were elevating the craft. By spring 1966 the musicians had progressed beyond occasional marijuana or amphetamines—staples of mod life—to LSD experimentation, an experience that deepened the thematic and sonic complexity of their material even while they continued performing soul numbers onstage. Arden, however, refused to finance sessions longer than the standard three-hour union block, leaving insufficient room for the ambitious ideas now taking shape. Although they already possessed four hit singles, they received less studio time for their first LP than the Rolling Stones, who had fled Decca’s restrictive facilities for RCA in Hollywood, typically enjoyed on a single. Moreover, between Decca’s recording costs and Arden’s accounting, the group saw little financial reward from their successes.

At the close of 1966 Small Faces ended their association with Arden, effectively terminating their Decca contract after protracted negotiations, and in early 1967 placed themselves under the guidance of Rolling Stones manager and producer Andrew Loog Oldham. Oldham ranked among England’s leading producers through his Stones work and additional productions for artists such as Marianne Faithfull, and his stewardship of that band was viewed as a model partnership. He had launched Immediate Records, which so far featured licensed American recordings, promising newcomers, and impromptu contributions from guitarists including Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck who believed they were cutting demos with Jimmy Page. Securing Small Faces gave Oldham a proven hit-making act for his roster, since the Stones remained bound to Decca. By mid-1967 he had transferred the quartet to Immediate, resulting in a sharply curtailed touring schedule and far greater studio access; their sound promptly loosened.

They inaugurated the new phase with “Here Comes the Nice,” one of the most understated yet subversive drug anthems to reach the British charts—an affectionate tribute to a dealer that somehow bypassed censors. Additional drug-related songs such as “Green Circles” appeared on subsequent albums. Although they retained their R&B foundation, an expanding range of instruments and textures entered their arrangements. The first Immediate long-player, also titled Small Faces and issued stateside by Columbia as There Are But Four Small Faces, arrived in mid-1967 and succeeded immediately. Two months after “Here Comes the Nice,” they released “Itchycoo Park,” a gentle Summer-of-Love evocation loosely drawn from a hymn Ronnie Lane remembered and featuring Marriott’s softest vocal delivery; the single became their only American success.

The band nonetheless felt the track misrepresented their core identity and proved nearly impossible to replicate live because of its acoustic textures. They aspired to more substantial statements, viewing the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band as proof that the album had become the primary format. Across five months in 1968, working in at least four studios, they completed Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake, a blend of Cockney humor, spoken-word passages delivered by Stanley Unwin, hard rock, blue-eyed soul, and psychedelic sensibilities that stood as the most distinctly British and ambitious concept album of the post-Pepper wave. Its circular packaging, designed to mimic an Ogden’s tobacco tin, further intrigued buyers while confusing distributors and American listeners.

The album earned both critical and commercial acclaim and has undergone repeated reappraisals in later decades. Yet the group’s fortunes did not parallel this reception. Immediate’s June 1968 trade-paper advertisement announcing the release parodied the Lord’s Prayer, offending millions before the band issued an apology. Relations with the label deteriorated further when, against Marriott’s wishes, Immediate issued the jokingly recorded “Lazy Sunday” as a single; it reached number two without alleviating his frustration, since the song diverged sharply from the band’s authentic style. By contrast, the earlier hit “Tin Soldier” aligned more closely with their approach, combining Marriott’s raw soul vocals, psychedelic lyric imagery, and McLagan’s commanding keyboard work.

Doubts about Oldham and Immediate also surfaced. After Oldham’s mid-1967 split with the Rolling Stones, Small Faces became the label’s creative and financial centerpiece. Marriott and Lane now supplied songs and production for other acts, yet received no royalties; Immediate charged exorbitant studio rates against their earnings. Although they enjoyed further hits and solid album sales, the company’s sole profitable act effectively subsidized its other, mostly unsuccessful releases by the Nice, P.P. Arnold, the McCoys, Van Morrison, and additional artists. Immediate hemorrhaged funds in a manner reminiscent of Apple Records; anecdotes describe Oldham arriving in kaftan and sandals with an entourage while partner Tony Calder examined mounting bills. The group’s royalties disappeared into this financial void until Immediate’s eventual bankruptcy, after which they remained unpaid for thirty years.

Released in summer 1968, “The Universal” represented Marriott’s most ambitious statement in some time, adopting a relaxed, quasi-acoustic, jazz-tinged arrangement with clarinet and his most introspective lyrics; it failed to reach the Top 20, diminishing his commitment. The band continued work on a projected third Immediate album and maintained live activity, with one Newcastle Town Hall performance captured for release. Marriott suggested expanding the lineup to include singer-guitarist Peter Frampton, who had recently left the Herd seeking greater artistic credibility, but the others preferred to remain a quartet. The end arrived abruptly on New Year’s Eve 1968 when Marriott walked offstage during a jam on “Lazy Sunday” at Alexandra Palace; within hours he and Frampton had begun forming Humble Pie, recruiting bassist Greg Ridley and drummer Jerry Shirley, a former member of the Apostolic Intervention and admirer of both Marriott and Jones. Small Faces persisted briefly into 1969; Immediate issued the double-LP retrospective The Autumn Stone shortly before the label folded.

With Marriott’s departure the remaining members sought a new vocalist and lead guitarist, ultimately dividing the roles between Rod Stewart and Ron Wood. After Immediate’s collapse they signed with Warner Bros.; the Small Faces name graced one Warner album before the group evolved into Faces and achieved international success, until Stewart’s solo career overshadowed them. In the mid-1970s the original lineup reunited, with limited participation from Lane, for the albums Playmates and 78 in the Shade. Both received substantial press yet matched none of their earlier chart performance and, like the 1960s catalog, found no American audience despite Atlantic distribution. Ironically, the era’s punk and power-pop acts frequently cited Small Faces as a foundational influence.

Lane later collaborated with Pete Townshend before multiple sclerosis curtailed his performing career; he subsequently organized the ARMS benefit concerts. Jones joined the Who at Keith Moon’s recommendation following Moon’s death in 1978 and remained for several tours and two albums. Humble Pie attained greater American success than Small Faces had known, delivering high-energy rock that eventually prompted Frampton’s exit but generated strong sales until the band dissolved in 1975. Marriott’s solo prospects stayed modest, though his voice and history kept him a perennial candidate for resurgence; a potential comeback was cut short in 1991 when he died in a house fire in England only days after beginning new recordings in America with Frampton. Ronnie Lane passed away at his home in Trinidad, Colorado, on June 4, 1997, after nearly two decades with multiple sclerosis. In 1998 Ian McLagan, who had recorded and toured with Bonnie Raitt and the Rolling Stones among others, published the candid memoir All the Rage documenting his thirty-five years in music.

Small Faces’ catalog suffered prolonged neglect following Immediate’s 1970 bankruptcy. Limited vinyl reissues appeared in Canada during the early to mid-1970s and later on labels such as Compleat, yet the legacy remained disorganized. Early compact-disc editions often relied on substandard transfers far removed from original tapes. In 1990 Sony Music Special Products became the first label to draw from acceptable sources, using the duplicate masters Immediate had supplied to Columbia in the late 1960s; while improved, these still fell short of ideal. Subsequent consumer feedback, improved archival research in Britain, and advancing digital restoration produced markedly better editions; any reissue from after 1995 meets early-twenty-first-century standards, with certain 2002/2003 Sunspots discs achieving exceptional sonic quality.

Archival investigation simultaneously exposed extensive confusion: Immediate had supplied undubbed backing tracks and unfinished outtakes to Columbia and other licensees under newly invented titles, baffling even surviving band members. By 2003 the musicians were assisting in clarifying the authentic discography, including a collection of live television performances issued by NMC. Thanks to agreements with the successor companies to Decca and Immediate, the Sanctuary Records compilation Ultimate Collection, released in 2003, finally delivered full royalty payments to the members and their estates.