Had Me a Real Good Time - Faces Before During and After by Andy Neill

I have been a Faces fan since "Stay With Me" stormed the AM airways way back in 1971. While Rod Stewart made some excellent solo records early on, his work with the Faces is, generally, the most soulfully rockin' material he has ever done. The band, while not virtuosos, provided a solid, if drunken, backing and Ronnie Wood and Ian MacLagan would strike out some sizzling guitar and key licks over Ronnie "Plonk" Lane's distinctive bass runs and Kenny Jones' reasonably thundering drums (dig "(I Know) I'm Losing You"). This band would provide the Stones-like swagger for the masses when the Rollings ones would take a break.

Andy Neill does his best to give biographical backgrounds to everyone involved in the Faces, along with the groups that came before (the Small Faces, natch, the Jeff Beck Group, the Birds, etc.) and many of the offshoots, as well - at least to some extent.

He does seem to concentrate on Rod Stewart more than anyone, presumably due to his star status, although I would have liked to have had more on the Small Faces, for instance, even though they have been covered elsewhere. It did take a while for Rod to find his own voice, so to speak, and finally record his first solo album, simply titled The Rod Stewart Album, in 1969. Oddly, while discussing this record Neill makes some truly obscure comments without explanation, as if anyone would understand his references. I have tried without luck to decipher them, but maybe it's just me. Not a big deal, but strange that he doesn't explain himself here.

Rod and Ron Wood, of course, join forces with the Faces, dropping the "Small", and relatively quickly they release their debut, First Step, do a successful tour of America and then Rod records his second album, Gasoline Alley. It's fairly obvious that the author is much more of a Rod fan than a Faces fan as he fairly fawns over Rod's work while being considerably more critical to the Faces records. In any case, when Rod releases Every Picture Tells a Story and the Faces put out A Nod Is As Good As a Wink To a Blind Horse, then everything changes with the massive hits "Maggie May" and "Stay With me", respectively.

With Rod's fame came a bit more obnoxiousness, it seems, as he insults the work that the other Faces do, especially Ron Wood's solo effort (which I happen to think is quite good), which is especially ironic as he then released his worst solo album to date, the dreadful Smiler. Of course, once Ronnie Lane quit the band, then the fissures grew larger and Ron Wood left for the Stones and Rod went off for his fame'n'fortune (and obnoxious rock star pretensions), leaving Kenny Jones to spend some time in the Who and Ian to do various other projects.

Of course, once the Faces self-implode, the story is less interesting but Neill does his best to cover the lads' various careers as well as the supporting characters, up through either the books' release date of 2011 or the person's untimely death. The mix of players involved range pretty dramatically within the realm of rock'n'roll, with various off-shoots into other genres and many other groups, which makes the tale a bit convoluted, but, again, Neill does his best to cover it all.

All in all, quite enjoyable and a great read while revisiting the many fine albums these blokes were part of.