They influenced huge swathes of musicians from their contemporaries of the late 60s, all the way through to the 1990s and beyond. Yet, they don't tend to be among the first few band names that trip off the tongue, if people were asked to name the big acts of the era.
So, the Small Faces - tell us more....
Part of it started when a young eighteen year old Steve Marriott got a job at the J60 music bar in Manor Park, London, where he met Jimmy Winston.
It's January 1965 and the next strand falls into place. Kenney Jones, Ronnie Lane and their band are playing a gig and they have invited Marriott along to play with them. The band is The Outcasts and the gig is at the Earl of Derby in Bermondsey.
In the beginning:
The band - now consisting of Jones (drums), Lane (bass), Marriott (guitar / vocals) and Winston (keyboards) - rehearsed above the Ruskin Arms in Manor Park (owned by Winston's parents), before the new version of the band played, without a name, at Kensington Youth Centre (East Ham) on 6 May 1965. Jones recalls his musical start and the bands formation.
"I taught myself how to play the drums at 13 after looking for a kit in the East End and was hooked." He was soon sitting in with a jazz band at a local club, which led to him getting introduced to the barman's brother - Ronnie Lane - and The Outcasts were formed.
Later, after first meeting Marriott, "We invited him to our gig that night and he bought the house down, smashed the piano up and he rest of the band wouldn't talk to us for the rest of the evening.... [after being thrown out of the club] We sat on the curb on my drum cases and stuff, looked at each other and burst out laughing - that was the birth of the group."
The band were steeped in US R&B like Otis Redding, Booker T and Ray Charles. They settled on the name the Small Faces - 'Face' being a term for a well-dressed mod and the small coming from the fact that all band members were under five foot five inches.
The Godfather:
While rehearsing at the Starlight Room Club, the fledgling band was spotted by an employee of Don Arden. Called up to meet with him at his Carnaby Street office in early June, they signed a three year management deal with him. Arden was an impresario with a reputation for being aggressive in negotiations and not afraid to stray into illegal territory to get his way. He is also noted as being the father of Sharon Osbourne and was known as the 'Al Capone of pop' - he was reported to only be paying the Small Faces £20 a week each (plus clothes allowance).
It was while managing the Small Faces that one of the most notorious incidents of his career (and it seems there were many) occurred. Rival, Robert Stigwood, had apparently been trying to tempt the Small Faces to come over to him, so Arden arrived at his office with a team of 'minders' to 'teach him a lesson' for interfering, before allegedly threatening to throw him out of the window if he ever crossed him again!
Back to the music:
In July, the band was already in a West Hampstead studio recording their debit single, Whatcha Gonna Do About It, and they were off. August saw them record their first BBC Radio session, September saw them debut on TV, on the show Gadzooks, then appear on Top of the Pops and finally, before the month was out, also show up on Ready Steady Go!
Whatcha Gonna Do About It: https://youtu.be/sah6C87QsGo
November saw Winston depart, to be replaced by Ian McLagan. More chart success followed, as third single Sha La La La Lee hit the charts, eventually making it to number three. Debut album, Small Faces, was well received and also made it to three on the album chart.
The big time seemed to be there for them. All Or Nothing topped the charts in September 1966, but there was issues, despite the success no money seemed forthcoming. Arden tried to see off the lads parents, by saying the problem was that they were all on drugs - but it was too much, and by the end of the year they had left Arden and their record label, Decca.
More Small Faces:
Their release from Arden allowed them to sign with ex-Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham. This change, a more relaxed approach to finances and a blossoming relationship with engineer Glyn Johns, saw the band forge ahead. Here Comes The Nice was the next single, followed by another well received (if not hugely selling) album, confusingly also called Small Faces, issued by Immediate Records.
Tin Soldier: https://youtu.be/6vWTtx_PxPo
As 1968 dawned, McLagan married girlfriend Sandy Sargeant, but he was arrested when returning from the honeymoon, having to appear at Uxbridge Magistrates Court before being bailed for the princely sum of £1,500 - a situation that might impact their later success.
The band got to tour down under as part of a package with The Who and Paul Jones (ex-Manfred Mann). Marriott got to spend his 21st birthday in Wellington, New Zealand, where he celebrated by smashing up his hotel room with Wiggy, a roadie for The Who.
What a joke:
Lazy Sunday was released in April 1968, but without the consent of the band. The song, done in a bit of a music hall style and with lyrics about feuds with various neighbours, was recorded as a bit of a joke, never meant for public consumption. It made number two on the UK chart though. August saw them make what was to be their last appearance on Top of the Pops, behind the song The Universal.
Itchycoo Park: https://youtu.be/fayL1WTR1Go
Ogden's going, going, gone:
1968 also saw them release a psychedelic concept album. Ogden's Nut Gone Flake was a two act piece of work, that
included narration by slightly odd comedian Stanley Unwin. It was ambitious, well liked by the critics, made number one, but was all but impossible to recreate live.
October saw the band joined on stage during a couple of gigs by Pete Frampton, who would crop up again later in the story.
An increasingly frustrated Marriott walked off stage at their New Year's Eve gig, yelling "I quit." They did honour their last planned shows though, and so the band limped on into 1969, before finally bowing out after a gig at the Springfield Theatre in Jersey.
Barely four years on, eight top ten singles and a number one album, and it was all done.
What next?
What happened next for all concerned is fairly well documented. Marriott hooked up with Peter Frampton again in Humble Pie, while Jones, McLagan and Lane, were joined by one Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood. They couldn't continue to be the Small Faces, as Stewart and Wood were much taller, so they dropped a word, and the Faces were born.
Steve Marriott auditioned for the Rolling Stones in 1975 (after Humble Pie), when guitarist Mick Taylor left. He was apparently Keith Richards favourite for the job, but it seems that he upstaged Mick Jagger a bit and was rejected for wanting to sing as well as play guitar!
There was then a brief Small Faces reunion from 1975-78, without Ronnie Lane, who unknown to the others was struggling with illness. He was replaced by Rick Wills and then in 1977 by Jimmy McCullough, who left Paul McCartney's Wings to join them. Two poorly received albums were put out in this era, neither did well, and no one made much money out of the experience.
Steve Marriott: had a solo career and also did a Humble Pie reunion in the early 80s. He died in a tragic housefire at his Essex home on 21 April 1991. He fell asleep with a lit cigarette in his hand, which caused the blaze to start. His autopsy found alcohol, Valium and cocaine in his blood.
Ronnie Lane: after the Faces, he was in a folk country band called Slim Chance, but by 1977 his illness had been diagnosed as Multiple Sclerosis. Due to the well documented financial problems the various members faced from poor management, Lane relied on financial help from the like of Stewart, Wood and Jimmy Page to fund his medical treatment. Lane finally passed in June 1997.
Ian McLagan: went on to do session work with a host of greats, including Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan and Jackson Browne. He relocated to Austin, Texas, where he died of a stroke in December 2014.
Kenney Jones: the last surviving member, Jones replaced recently deceased Keith Moon in The Who, playing with them for a decade from 1978. He formed a band, The Jones Gang, played as a session musician and developed his love of polo, buying the Hurtwood Park Polo Club in Surrey.
The legacy:
The band have achieved something fairly unusual, in that they have been an inspiration for both mod and punk scenes. Before even that, it seems that Marriott's strong R&B vocal style was an influence on emerging talent, Robert Plant. But in the 70s, they made their mark on people as varied as Paul Weller and John Lydon - and that influence continued all the way through to the BritPop movement of the 1990s.
The saga of unpaid royalties was finally resolved, but not before two out of four band members had died. They never really broke America either. Only Itchycoo Park, which reached number sixteen in the US in 1967, made much of an impression there. It might be that the perception of their use of British humour and occasionally adopting cockney accents in songs, might have counted against them - as might the fact that McLagan's arrest meant that he couldn't get a visa while the band was active, meaning they couldn't tour there.