The Small Faces and Other Stories - Uli Twelker and Roland Schmitt

 

This is another book that I pulled out of a box in storage to re-read and I noticed that I never wrote about it. While I was never a huge fan of the band in the day (other than digging "Itchycoo Park", of course, and digging the later incarnation, the Rod Stewart-led Faces), I became a convert in the late 80's/90's and starting collecting everything I could find by them, which includes a number of CD's that are also not noted in this blog, so I may have to rectify that, as well! (I did those CD's last week!)

While the group have little recognition in the States (other than their hit "Itchycoo...", of course) due to their lack of touring in the country, they were stars back home in England, along with numerous other countries. Their spin-offs, Humble Pie and the Faces both became huge here, though, and so the authors include these projects as well as solo work by the important characters.

The segment on the Small Faces gives a bit of background on the characters and by the time they all met up to form the band (with original keys Jimmy Winston on their first 45) they became stars within months with "What 'Cha Gonna Do About It". Ian McLagan took over on keys and their string of smashes continued in the UK and Europe although, as mentioned, they never received real acclaim in the States.

Surprises here are revealed as Humble Pie evolves from the ashes of the SF's (Steve wanted Peter Frampton to join the Faces but was outvoted) in that Pete did not initially want Steve in the band, Brian Jones was interested in joining just before he passed and Ian MacLagan wrote and possibly played on early Pie numbers, indicating that he considered joining the fray, as well!

I would have preferred that the authors spent a bit more time with the Small Faces and possibly even Humble Pie, as these bands have not received a lot of biographical press, but they relatively quickly move on to the Faces and Rod Stewart as a solo artist, as well as Ron Wood's career, and inevitably information overlaps the various chapters - possibly assuming that a reader might concentrate on a particular chapter rather than the entire book. 

But then all the stories come back around to the beginning with a Small Faces reunion in the mid-70's after Rod went solo, Woody went to the Stones and Steve's projects were not taking off. Of course, despite the current crop of punk rockers favoring the original Small Faces, the current offering from the "midgets" (as they self-deprecatingly called themselves) was more heavy/blues-rock oriented and not really what the public was looking for at the time. So, there are several tales of Small Faces and Humble Pie reunions of different sorts and with different amounts of original members, none of which truly took off - not even Faces reunions, most likely due to Rod Stewart's lackluster involvement. The authors discuss Steve's numerous backing bands that mostly played bars and clubs and there was even one last recording project with Frampton in LA but immediately upon returning to his home, Steve died in a fire in his home, most likely due to falling asleep with a cigarette.

The appendixes are almost ridiculous in size, with a brief introduction of the guitars used before a massive discography of all the main characters, including innumerable small-label releases of Steve's.

A labor of love for sure, although, as I said, I would have liked to have had the Small Faces section fleshed out more. But, other people are taking on that task, and the main players, other than Steve, have their own memoirs released by now. Still, a good overview.