The Faces - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: 1971-1973

Here's the next in my series of albums featuring the Faces performing for the BBC. The last three in the series were live concerts recorded for the BBC. This one is different than those, but similar to the first one, in that it features a bunch of songs where the Faces played in the BBC studios without any audience. But I've also thrown on a some other things, taken from the band playing on TV shows and live rarities.

Tracks one, two, and five through ten were recorded at BBC studios. Tracks two and ten out of those are officially unreleased, but they come from the same sessions as the released ones. The other tracks come from either the band's box set "Five Guys Walk into a Bar..." or from album bonus tracks. As you'd expect, the sound quality from these BBC recordings are generally excellent, even the unreleased ones.

While the Faces still existed as a band, Rod Stewart never played live in concert without them. But there's kind of an exception here with tracks two and three, "Gasoline Alley" and "Lady Day." That's because these songs are simply Stewart singing songs by himself while standing in the middle of some random city street. These performances are unreleased, but they were recorded for a German TV, and you can find the video of them on YouTube. Sometimes in the background, you can hear the sounds of cars driving by or kids playing. Even though both songs were clearly recorded at the same time by the same people, "Gasoline Alley" sounds better. With "Lady Day," Stewart's voice was too quiet in many parts. But I painstakingly boosted those parts using a sound editor, which is why that song has "[Edit]" in the title.

Of the remaining four songs (the last four), three of them come from a Dutch TV, and the other, "Jealous Guy" is a cover of a John Lennon song that was rarely done live, and was included on the band's box set. Two of the songs from the Dutch TV show, "Memphis, Tennessee" and "True Blue," were played live in concert. I made some edits to get rid of most of the crowd noise, which is why those songs have "[Edit]" in the title also. (Ditto for the second track, "Richmond.") The last song, "One Last Sweet Cheerio," seems to have been done backstage after the concert, which is why it wasn't marked as live despite coming from the same source as two songs that were.

The bonus track "Too Bad" is a bonus track due to poor sound quality. I tried to improve it by using Spleeter to raise the lead vocals through the muck. That's why that one has "[Edit]" in the title as well. But that could only help so much, so it's still a mere bonus track.

This album is 49 minutes long, not counting the bonus track. As far as I can tell, the band didn't play in the BBC studios again. So the last two albums in this series will be more live concerts that were recorded by the BBC.

01 Bad 'N' Ruin (Faces)
02 Richmond [Edit] (Faces)
03 Gasoline Alley [Acappella Version] (Rod Stewart)
04 Lady Day [Acappella Version] [Edit] (Rod Stewart)
05 Miss Judy's Farm (Faces)
06 Stay with Me (Faces)
07 Maggie May (Faces)
08 Cindy Incidentally (Faces)
09 My Fault (Faces)
10 Borstal Boys (Faces)
11 Memphis, Tennessee [Edit] (Faces)
12 True Blue [Edit] (Faces)
13 Jealous Guy (Faces)
14 One Last Sweet Cheerio [Acappella Version] (Faces)

Too Bad [Edit] (Faces)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15116247/TFacs_1971-1973_BBSessionsVolume5_atse.zip.html

When it comes to album cover art, once again I was left with slim pickings. I'm continually surprised at how few good photos of the band that can be found on the Internet. Anyway, I picked a good photo this time, I think, but unfortunately it's one that only shows three members of the band, instead of all five. But at least they are the three most famous, from right to left: Rod Stewart, Ron Wood, and Ronnie Lane. It comes from a concert in the Netherlands in March 1973, not long before Lane left the band.