– Small Faces – In Session for Top Of The Pops – BBC Radio 1 – March 2, 1968 – BBC Radio 1 –
Dialing it back to the 1960s tonight with a live session by the high priests of Mod, Small Faces. Unfortunately, most people will remember Small Faces either by their later incarnation (as just Faces with Rod Stewart) or as purveyors of that 60s anthem Itchykoo Park. And you would think they were one-hit wonders.
And you would be so-SO wrong.
Small Faces were one of those bands which helped define the mid-60s in the UK. With a string of hits and a penchant for doing covers of some of the most important Soul ballads of the decade, Small Faces were anything but one-hit wonders and were anything but just another band from the British Invasion period. With the distinctive voice of Steve Marriott, Small Faces were one of the most acclaimed and influential bands of not only the Mod period, but later on as Psychedelia evolved.
Small Faces lasted only a short period of time, from 1966 until 1969, when Steve Marriott left to form Humble Pie (a band which went on to become a staple in the diets of most FM Rock station in the U.S. in the early 70s) – with the remaining members recruiting a guitarist and vocalist from The Jeff Beck Group, Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart, a new Small Faces was born. And that chapter of Rock History was waiting to be written.
But for even their short stint of three years, they managed to influence a string of bands, not only during the 1960s, but decades later, when BritPop surfaced in the 1990s. They are still being rediscovered and re-evaluated decades after disbanding.
Tonight it’s a session for the BBC Radio 1 series Top Of The Pops, recorded on March 2, 1968, just two months ahead of their milestone opus, Ogden’s Nutgone Flake.
One of the truly great bands who shaped the 60s into one of the more interesting decades for music.
Play very loud.
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