The Small Faces - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: Colour Me Pop, BBC Television Centre, London, Britain, 6-21-1968

I've overhauling the albums I'm posting of the Small Faces performing for the BBC. Previously, I'd posted two albums, but I've found enough material for three. Here's the third and final album in this overhaul.

"Colour Me Pop" was the BBC's first serious attempt to make a TV show for rock concerts. About 50 episodes were aired in 1968 and 1969. This should be an incredible treasure trove of music, since most of the musical acts involved were never properly filmed, and many don't even have any decent live recordings. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the episodes were lost, since the BBC didn't bother keeping copies. Only about five full episodes have survived. Luckily for us, one of those is the Small Faces episode. That makes up the bulk of this album.

In case you're curious, you can see the list of "Colour Me Pop" episodes here. (It pains me to think of all the great music that was lost!)

Colour Me Pop - Wikipedia 

At the time of this concert, the Small Faces had just released "Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake," their most acclaimed studio album. Their "Colour Me Pop" episode almost entirely consisted of songs from this album. Unfortunately, it seems all the songs in it consisted of live vocals sung to the record versions. But I still think it's worthy due to those vocals, especially given the paucity of live recordings by this band. Also, the live vocals include the banter between songs by comedian Stanley Unwin, who talked in kind of a strange version of English that he invented. I suspect this is probably the only time the band performed these songs with him, as I highly doubt he went on tour with them.

The "Colour Me Pop" episode makes up tracks three through 17. I've added three more songs for two reasons. One, the album is rather short, and those give it a more reasonable length. But also, different versions of these songs were included on "Volume 2." I figure it's better to put them here, so one doesn't have two versions of the same song on one album. Unfortunately, these songs were also only live vocals added to the studio versions! So every single song on the album is like that.  

Two of these three extra songs were from BBC TV shows. But the third, "Itchycoo Park," comes from a French TV show. The bonus track, "(If You Think You're) Groovy," also comes from that same French show. The reason it's a bonus track is because the lead vocals were by soul singer P.P. Arnold. However, the song was actually written by Small Faces lead vocalist Steve Marriott, who was romantically involved with Arnold around this time. And all the singing and playing was done by the Small Faces, other than Arnold's lead vocals. So it still is very relevant to this band, enough to justify bonus track status, at least.

Everything here is unreleased, I believe. The sound quality is excellent. The vocals were low for the two French TV show ones, but I fixed that using the MVSEP program.

This album is 34 minutes long. 

01 Tin Soldier [Live Vocals Only] (Small Faces)
02 Itchycoo Park [Live Vocals Only] (Small Faces)
03 Song of a Baker [Live Vocals Only] (Small Faces)
04 talk (Small Faces)
05 Happiness Stan [Live Vocals Only] (Small Faces)
06 talk (Small Faces)
07 Rollin' Over [Live Vocals Only] (Small Faces)
08 talk (Small Faces)
09 The Hungry Intruder [Live Vocals Only] (Small Faces)
10 talk (Small Faces)
11 The Journey [Live Vocals Only] (Small Faces)
12 talk (Small Faces)
13 Mad John [Live Vocals Only] (Small Faces)
14 talk (Small Faces)
15 Happy Days Toy Town [Live Vocals Only] (Small Faces)
16 talk (Small Faces)
17 Happy Days Toy Town [Reprise] [Live Vocals Only] (Small Faces)
18 The Universal [Live Vocals Only] (Small Faces)

[If You Think You're] Groovy [Live Vocals Only] [Edit] (P. P. Arnold & the Small Faces)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/X3i4WNEA

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/cxX2VTOYrIznKFh/file

The cover image is a screenshot taken from the "Colour Me Pop" TV show. 

The Small Faces - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1966-1968

Here's the second out of three BBC albums I'm posting for the British band the Small Faces.

As I mentioned in my write-up for Volume 1, I posted two Small Faces BBC albums in 2021. But I am completely overhauling them, thanks to the music blog of Prof. Stoned. That person found a bunch of BBC performances that I had missed. So a big thanks to him.

Volume 1 was nearly exactly the same as what I'd posted previously, with almost all of the songs from the official album "The BBC Sessions." But Volume 2 is the opposite. Most of the performances are ones I'd previously missed, from unreleased sources. Only three songs, tracks 8, 9, and 10, are from the official album I just mentioned. 

Unfortunately, the likely reason most of these weren't included on the official album is because, in most cases, these are just live vocals sung over the studio versions. But there's so little live Small Faces music that has survived that I figure even these versions are worth hearing. There are five such songs, which have "[Live Vocals Only]" in their titles.

Everything here is from BBC sessions (except for the bonus tracks, which I'll get to in a minute). Check out the mp3 tags for more of the details. Three of the songs have "[Edit]" in their titles, due to my wiping the BBC DJ talking over the music, using the MVSEP program. No songs here are repeated twice. But some of the songs are repeats of songs on either Volume 1 or Volume 3.

The bonus tracks are exactly the same as in the version of this album I posted in 2021. So I'll just repost the same paragraph I wrote about them back then: 

The three remaining bonus tracks aren't from the BBC, or any other radio or TV show, for that matter. It's just that I think they're really cool and I don't have a better place to put them in my music collection, so I've stuck them here. All three are alternate versions of Small Faces songs that are done in a solo acoustic style. Two are mixes with everything but the vocals and acoustic guitar removed. The other one, "The Autumn Stone," is an alternate take. That take was just made public a few weeks prior to my posting of this album, as a free CD that came with an issue of Mojo Magazine. It's meant to be a teaser for an expanded version of "The Autumn Stone" album that's in the works. 

This album is 34 minutes long, not including the bonus tracks.

01 Sha-La-La-La-Lee (Small Faces)
02 All or Nothing (Small Faces)
03 Here Comes the Nice [Live Vocals Only] (Small Faces)
04 Itchycoo Park [Live Vocals Only] (Small Faces)
05 Tin Soldier [Live Vocals Only] (Small Faces)
06 Lazy Sunday [Live Vocals Only] (Small Faces)
07 Get Ready [Instrumental Version] (Small Faces)
08 If I Were a Carpenter [Edit] (Small Faces)
09 Lazy Sunday [Edit] (Small Faces)
10 Every Little Bit Hurts [Edit] (Small Faces)
11 The Universal [Live Vocals Only] (Small Faces)

Red Balloon [Stripped Down Mix] (Small Faces)
Show Me the Way [Stripped Down Mix] (Small Faces)
The Autumn Stone [Jenny's Song] [Take 1] (Small Faces)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QTwFyNDK 

alternate:  

https://bestfile.io/en/YgpVr17pjxUnaAK/file

I don't know where or when the cover photo is from. But it almost certainly is from a TV show appearance. I found it interesting that it shows the band's lead singer Steve Marriott playing piano, as I didn't know he did that. And it looks like the band's drummer Kenny Jones is singing, along with bassist Ronnie Lane, which is also interesting.

The Small Faces - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1965-1966

Back in early 2021, I posted two BBC albums for the Small Faces. (Technically, they were just "Small Faces," but I can't help use the "the.") I have deleted those today, because I'm doing a complete overhaul, and turning two albums into three. Here's the first one.

This overhaul wouldn't have happened had it not been for Prof. Stoned and his music blog. I highly recommend you check it out, here:

Prof Stoned: Rare & Deleted 

He shares my interest in BBC recordings from the 1960s and early 1970s. An official BBC album has been released for this band, simply titled "The BBC Sessions." But Prof. Stoned has dug deep and found more and more that that album missed. Eventually, I noticed there was enough for this overhaul. So all the songs I'm adding for the first time are thanks to that blog.

As it so happens, the vast majority of the tracks on this first volume are from the official BBC album. The only exceptions are tracks 4 ("You Really Got a Hold on Me") and 14 ("My Mind's Eye"). Everything here is from BBC studio sessions, though the two unreleased tracks were performed before small audiences. (I've removed the crowd noise on those, using MVSEP.) As usual, you can look at the mp3 tags for each song for more details about where and when the songs were recorded.

If you look at the song list, you'll see several songs with "[Edit]" in their titles. That's due to the usual problem from that era of BBC DJs talking over the music. I always like removing that talking, using the UVR5 or MVSEP programs. But Prof. Stoned feels otherwise, so if you want hear the DJs, check out his Small Faces collection.

Since all but two songs are officially released, the sound quality is excellent. The sound quality is a bit rougher for those, but still acceptable. Also, one song here, "Jump Back," is also on the stray tracks album "Grow Your Own," because the only recording the band did of it is from one of their BBC sessions. 

This album is 37 minutes long.

01 Whatcha Gonna Do about It (Small Faces)
02 Jump Back (Small Faces)
03 Baby Don't You Do It [Don't Do It] (Small Faces)
04 You Really Got a Hold on Me [Edit] (Small Faces)
05 Shake [Edit] (Small Faces)
06 Sha-La-La-La-Lee (Small Faces)
07 You Need Love [You Need Loving] [Edit] (Small Faces)
08 Hey Girl (Small Faces)
09 E Too D [Edit] (Small Faces)
10 One Night Stand [Edit] (Small Faces)
11 You Better Believe It [Edit] (Small Faces)
12 Understanding (Small Faces)
13 All or Nothing (Small Faces)
14 My Mind's Eye (Small Faces)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/aWZsVwNH

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/2ogab1BGpkuo6n4/file

The cover art photo comes from an appearance on the "Two of a Kind" TV show in 1967.

The Small Faces - Live: 1966-1968

I recently got a request by a commenter to post updated links for all the Small Faces albums I've posted. (Sorry, I forget the commenter or where that request was.) I'd like to update all the upload.ee links eventually anyway, so I decided to do that. But that also reminded me that I have this album I made a long time ago and never got around to posting. It's a collection of stray live tracks.

So, first off, note that, as of today, I did post updated links to nearly all the existing Small Faces albums on this blog. The only exceptions are the two BBC ones. I want to make some fixes and additions to that, enough to create a third volume, so expect those to be reposted soon.

There never has been a widely officially released Small Faces live album, and even bootlegs are few and far between. However, note that I did post a great concert from 1966, which I've called "Live 1966." Here's the link, in case you missed it:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-small-faces-twenty-club-mouscron.html 

Aside from that one recording, plus some BBC stuff, we just have dribs and drabs, sometimes with poor sound quality. So this gathers the best of the rest. Most of it is non-BBC, except for the first four tracks, which all come from a 1996 session in front of a cheering audience, and were released on "The Decca Years" compilation. I put that here instead of on one of the BBC albums I've made mostly because most of the songs are ones that repeated on other BBC sessions around that time.

The next song, which may or may not be called "Baby Please Don't Go," is from a video I found on YouTube. It shows the band performing in a small club in 1966, and apparently was taken from some unknown British news program that was showing what the rock scene was like at the time. There were two snippets of other songs, but I didn't include them because they were well under half a minute each. And this song is incomplete and fades out, but I thought it was good enough to include anyway.

The next three songs, tracks 6, 7, and 8, are from the German TV show "Beat Beat Beat." The next year, it was renamed "Beat Club." The band made more appearances on that show in 1967 and 1968, but all of them were lip-synced, so I didn't include them. This appearance, though, was fully live. 

The next two songs, tracks 9 and 10, are from an appearance on "The Morrcambe & Wise Show" in 1967. Like the "Beat Beat Beat" songs, they're still unreleased.

The remaining songs, tracks 11 through 15, are from a concert in Newcastle, Britain, in November 1968, a few months before the band broke up. They all were first released on the "In Memoriam" album in 1969, shortly after the band broke up. There were more songs recorded from that show, but they were lost. They also had fake audience noise slathered over them. Decades later, they were released on the "Here Comes the Nice" box set without the fake audience noise, which is where I got them. 

But I discovered the lead vocals were very low relative to the instruments. So I fixed that using MVSEP. I think they sound much better now. Also, there were some spoken words, which I have put on track 15. They were so very low in the mix they were almost unheard by me. First I boosted the volume greatly, again using MVSEP. But I still couldn't understand what was being said, so I ran the comments through Adobe's Enhanced Speech program as well. Now, I can at least catch the gist of the comments.

That leaves just the bonus track, "Long Black Veil." This comes from a bootleg of a concert in Vienna, Austria, in January 1969. This was one of the band's very last concerts, as they broke up by the end of that month. Unfortunately, the bootleg is only about 20 minutes long, and the sound quality is poor. So I only included one song as a bonus track, because the others were done live elsewhere. Yet this is a song that has no other recording, official or otherwise.

This album is 42 minutes long, not including the bonus track. 

01 Sha La La La Lee (Small Faces)
02 Whatcha Gonna Do about It (Small Faces)
03 Comin' Home Baby [Instrumental] (Small Faces)
04 You Need Love [You Need Loving] (Small Faces)
05 Baby Please Don’t Go (Small Faces)
06 Hey Girl (Small Faces)
07 Whatcha Gonna Do about It (Small Faces)
08 Sha La La La Lee (Small Faces)
09 All or Nothing (Small Faces)
10 I Can't Make It (Small Faces)
11 Rollin' Over (Small Faces)
12 If I Were a Carpenter (Small Faces)
13 Every Little Bit Hurts (Small Faces)
14 All or Nothing (Small Faces)
15 talk (Small Faces)
16 Tin Soldier (Small Faces)

Long Black Veil (Small Faces)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/L54f8H1e 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/wDDsrSpynXm2I1W/file

The cover photo was taken at the ABC cinema, in the town of Romford, Britain, at some point in 1968. It shows Steve Marriott on the left (in a light blue shirt) and Ronnie Lane on the right (in a dark blue shirt).

The Small Faces - The Twenty Club, Mouscron, Belgium, 1-9-1966

Man, I'm so psyched to post this album! This is a Small Faces live album that has been so extremely rare it has been almost impossible to find, even as a bootleg. Yet the sound quality is fantastic! The Small Faces were considered one of the best live bands of the 1960s for those who were actually there and saw them. For instance, before Robert Plant became a superstar with Led Zeppelin, he was a Small Faces groupie for a time, going from town to town to catch all their concerts. He's called their live shows "spectacular." 

Yet it seemed as if nearly all traces of their concerts were lost. Five live songs from late 1968 were included on the 1969 album "The Autumn Stone," and then repeated on various archival albums. But that's been about it, if you don't count BBC sessions, which are more like studio sessions. So I consider this appearance of a soundboard quality full concert from the band emerging here in 2021 nothing short of miraculous!

Technically speaking, this concert has been available for purchase since 2017, but under such an obscure condition that it's been beyond reach for most people. In that year, a book about the band was published, called "Smalls: Tronche de Vie," written by Jean-Noel Coghe. Unfortunately, it's written entirely in French, and there's no English translation that I know of. The book came with two CDs. One is this concert. The other is the audio version of various interviews. I looked high and low, and couldn't find this concert at any of the usual bootleg websites. I didn't want to buy the book because I don't speak French, plus I could only find it for sale with Euros and I don't have those, plus I wouldn't be able to convert the CD to digital audio if I did. Happily, I mentioned my desire for it at my recently posted wish list, and my musical friend MZ was able to get it from someone else who had it.

I don't know the details of how or why this was recorded, or by whom. But judging from the sound quality, it has to be a soundboard. Furthermore, judging by the amount of audience noise when it can be heard after some songs, the band almost certainly played in front of a small audience in a club. That had to help with the recording quality too.

The audio is not perfect. The first three songs are a bit rougher than the bulk of it, and there's some trouble with a couple of songs towards the end as well, probably caused by tape damage. But that's in a relative sense. Even those songs sound much better than the five live tracks that were first released on "The Autumn Stone." Furthermore, I used my audio editing skills to fix most of the problems. There were some cases where the volume dropped out for a few seconds, or things got murky for a little bit. I fixed some of those by boosting the volume for the dropped out parts. In other cases, such as with some murky bits, I was able to fix those by patching in a few seconds from elsewhere in the song, if a repeated lyric or musical phrase made that possible. 

Then, after I did what I could, I passed the files back to MZ, who has a different set of audio editing skills. He applied EQ (equalization) on the whole thing to improve the sound in general. He also did more work on especially murky bits. (By the way, no noise reduction was used, since there wasn't any buzzing or humming problem.) The concert sounds noticeably better now, in my opinion, though there still are a few rough or murky spots. The songs where either MZ or I made some edits have "[Edit]" in their song titles.

That said, all in all, the sound is amazing for a concert recorded in 1966! You have to keep in mind how far back that is, since recording concert bootlegs didn't become a trend until a couple of years later. If you sort bootlegs by year, there are very, very few that date that far back, period. For instance, I just checked Dime a Dozen, one of the biggest bootleg sites, and there are less than 50 boots from 1966 there out of the nearly 40,000 boots they have currently available. Only about half of those are from rock artists, and most of those frankly sound like crap. I would argue this one sounds better than any 1966 concert bootleg from many of the bigger rock names of the time, like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, or the Who. Furthermore, most such bands either don't have an official live album from around that time, or if they do, like the Kinks with their "Live at Kelvin Hall" album, they don't sound as good as this one. So maybe you can see why I consider it miraculous for a lesser known band like the Small Faces go from having no decent sounding concert recording at all to having one of the best, especially after so many decades have passed. 

As an additional pleasant surprise, the band played a bunch of cover songs that they never put on record, and never performed for the BBC either. Those are: "Ooh Pooh Pah Doo," "Baby Please Don't Go," "Parchman Farm," "In the Midnight Hour," "Chain Gang," "Everything's Gonna Be Alright," "Please, Please, Please," and "Strange." True, some of those are in medleys and thus aren't full versions. But still, that's way more than one would expect for a concert recording that's only 56 minutes long.

As the Small Faces grew more popular, they were increasingly pushed by their record company into concerts where they were one of the opening acts to even bigger artists. Typically, they would just play their hits in a single short set of 30 minutes or less. If they were lucky, they might get one extra song where they could play something they wanted, such as a cover, but that was it. This approach might have helped them sell more records, but the band members found it frustrating and it was one factor  that led to their break up in early 1969. Luckily, this concert comes from before that time, where they were the headliner, they only had one hit ("Whatcha Gonna Do about It") that they were obliged to play, and they could play whatever else they wanted to fill out their sets. That makes the survival of this recording even more of a lucky wonder.

If you listen to the concert, you can tell that the band played two sets. (You can hear the end of the first set towards the end of track 11 ("E Too D") when lead singer Steve Marriott sings some ad-libbed lyrics about having to leave and saying goodbye.) As a result, some songs were played twice, once in each set. Happily, there are only a few of these: "You Need Love" (a blues cover which the band called "You Need Loving" - and which Led Zeppelin would later turn into "Whole Lotta Love"), "Whatcha Gonna Do about It," "E Too D," and "Comin' Home Baby." Normally, I hate having two versions of the same song on one album, and I would remove one version. But in this case, I'm keeping all of it, since any live recording from this band is so precious. The only thing I cut was a little bit of aimless guitar tuning before two of the songs.

I don't know if the person who recorded this captured all of both sets or not. Perhaps we'll never know (unless the French book explains it). But I do suspect that some cuts were made between songs. I'm surmising this based on the fact that some songs have no audience response at all when they end, while others have fervent screaming that gets cut off after just a few seconds. It wasn't unusual back in those days for bootleggers to turn their tape recorders off between songs to help make sure they didn't run out of tape before the concert ended. But if that's the case here, at least we're lucky to get some banter before nearly every single song.

If you like the Small Faces at all, you need to give this a listen. To me, it's a crime that this hasn't been made widely available by a major record label. But hey, at least it exists, and now you can hear it too.

01 talk (Small Faces)
02 Ooh Pooh Pah Doo [Edit] (Small Faces)
03 talk (Small Faces)
04 You Need Love [You Need Loving] [Edit] (Small Faces)
05 talk (Small Faces)
06 Plum Nellie - Baby Please Don't Go - Parchman Farm - In the Midnight Hour - Chain Gang [Edit] (Small Faces)
07 talk (Small Faces)
08 Whatcha Gonna Do about It (Small Faces)
09 talk (Small Faces)
10 Comin' Home Baby [Instrumental] (Small Faces)
11 E Too D (Small Faces)
12 talk (Small Faces)
13 Come On Children (Small Faces)
14 talk (Small Faces)
15 Grow Your Own - Everything's Gonna Be Alright - Shake and Fingerpop (Small Faces)
16 talk (Small Faces)
17 Please, Please, Please (Small Faces)
18 talk (Small Faces)
19 Strange [Edit] (Small Faces)
20 talk (Small Faces)
21 You Need Love [You Need Loving] [Edit] (Small Faces)
22 talk (Small Faces)
23 Comin' Home Baby [Instrumental] (Small Faces)
24 E Too D - Whatcha Gonna Do about It (Small Faces)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/hXKV51P7

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/wjIVnRdAKqG6NU0/file

For the cover art, not surprisingly, I couldn't find a photo of the exact concert in question. I did find one from a concert in June 1966, which at least is close in time. (I don't know where the photo was taken.) Unfortunately, it only shows two of the band members, but they were the two singers and songwriters, Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane. Marriott is the one who looks at first like he's wearing a white neck brace, but that's just part of his mostly green sweater.

The Small Faces - 1862 - Non-Album Tracks (1968)

The Small Faces released their album "Ogden's Nut Gone Flake" in mid-1968. Bands often put out two albums in a year in those days, and right as the record was released, they returned to the studio to record their next album. This album was going to be called "1862," named after a metal plaque on a chapel that lead singer Steve Marriott owned and where the band practiced. Unfortunately, the album was never finished, and the band broke up at the end of 1968. It remains one of the better known "lost albums" from the 1960s. Many others have tried to piece the album together. This is my attempt.

In making this, I relied heavily on the effort of soniclovenoize at his blog Albums That Never Were. He made a version in April 2020, which you can find here:

http://albumsthatneverwere.blogspot.com/2020/04/small-faces-1862.html

Although I got a lot of info from him, this is different because I had a somewhat different goal. Yes, I wanted to recreate the "lost album," but at the same time, I wanted to use all the 1968 studio recordings the band did. So there are a few differences between my version of his. For instance, I've included the covers "Every Little Bit Hurts" and "If I Were a Carpenter" even though they probably wouldn't have been used on the album, because otherwise they would fall through the cracks and not appear on any of the Small Faces stray tracks albums I've posted here.

One very interesting thing I learned from the "Albums That Never Were" blog is that Steve Marriott's son Toby once published a proposed song list for the album. It included a lot of the expected songs, but also two from Steve Marriott's next band, Humble Pie. I wanted to minimize the inclusion of any non-Small Faces performances, but I included those two since they were on that list.

I included one more non-Small Faces song, "Evolution." This Ronnie Lane song would be released several times, and later versions would be called "Stone," so I've included that name in the song subtitle. I've included this for a couple of reasons. One, apparently it was written around the time of the 1862 recording sessions. This particular version comes from a various artists album dedicated to a religious guru that was put together by Pete Townsend and was released in 1970. An edited version of this performance that's a couple minutes shorter was included on a better known various artists album for the same guru. 

The second reason I've included it is because Ronnie Lane was a key singer as well as songwriter for the Small Faces, and usually sang lead vocals for at least one song per album. Without this song, pretty much all the vocals would have just been by Steve Marriott.

Another tricky issue here has to do with a couple of songs that were never finished, due to the band falling apart. One is called "Wide Eyed Girl on the Wall" and the other is called "Jack (The War of the Worlds)." (For the latter, the real name was "Jack," but "The War of the Worlds" was used for a later compilation, to the total bafflement of the members of the band, who have no idea where that name comes from.) The problem is these songs were just backing tracks, and lead vocals were meant to be added later. As a result, they get boring and repetitive, with no soloing to spice things up. Because of this, I drastically cut both songs by about half. I noticed that soniclovenoize at his blog Albums That Never Were did the exact same thing. But I made my own judgment calls on how much to cut without listening to his versions.

"Collibosher" is also an instrumental, but it was planned to be an instrumental all along, so it didn't have the same problem and I didn't make any edits to it.

One more little issue. According to the liner notes to the Small Faces box set "Here Comes the Nice," the song "Wham Bam, Thank You Man" was supposed to be titled just that. But on many archival releases, it's called "Wham Bam, Thank You Ma'am" instead. It's a better rhyme, and we're probably more familiar with that phrase due to David Bowie using it in his classic song "Suffragette City." But I decided to stick with the correct spelling. Oh, and "The Autumn Stone" was originally titled "Jenny's Song," and some versions of it (for instance on the "Here Comes the Nice" box set still call it that. So I've put the alternate title in there too.

Overall, I think this a strong album, especially since it includes the classics "The Autumn Stone" and "The Universal." This is pretty close to what the "lost album" was, but not all the way there, due to uncertainty over the song list and songs that didn't get finished and so forth. Supposedly, there is an official mini-box set of the band's 1968 material planned, but it's been in "development hell" for many years, so who knows if or when it'll ever come out. Maybe when it does we'll get even closer.

UPDATE: On March 16, 2021, I updated the mp3 download file. I added one song as a bonus track, "Afterglow of Your Love." This song appeared on the band's 1968 album "Odgen's Nut Gone Flake" under the name "Afterglow." In 1969, after the band broke up, the song was released under the new name, and became a minor hit single. I've included it as a bonus track because the single version is significantly different, with the intro removed, the outro extended, and the whole thing sped up.

01 The Autumn Stone [Jenny's Song] (Small Faces)
02 Red Balloon (Small Faces)
03 Evolution [Stone] [Complete Version] (Ronnie Lane)
04 Wide Eyed Girl on the Wall [Instrumental] [Edit] (Small Faces)
05 The Universal (Small Faces)
06 Donkey Rides, a Penny a Glass (Small Faces)
07 Wham Bam, Thank You Man (Small Faces)
08 Collibosher [Instrumental] (Small Faces)
09 Every Little Bit Hurts (Small Faces)
10 Buttermilk Boy (Humble Pie)
11 Jack [The War of the Worlds] [Instrumental] [Edit] (Small Faces)
12 If I Were a Carpenter [Edit] (Small Faces)
13 Wrist Job (Humble Pie)

Afterglow of Your Love (Small Faces) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/LU8iPE8K

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/r8K4bDyxxZUV9S1/file

As I mentioned above, this album was going to be called "1862," named after a metal plaque on a chapel that lead singer Steve Marriott owned and where the band practiced. I have no idea what the band planned for the album cover, if they even got that far, but it gave me an idea to use a tombstone with that year featured prominently on it. I looked through some pictures of 1862 tombstones and decided all the usual names and dates and other info was distracting. So I found that year written in stone, and I found a photo of a tombstone in the ground, and I used Photoshop to edit them together. 

I'm happy how this turned out because the 1969 album "The Autumn Stone," where many of these songs first appeared, prominently featured autumn leaves on it, due to the title song name. So this cover is reminiscent of that.

The Small Faces - Small Faces Small Faces Small Faces (1967)

I just posted two Small Faces albums. But, heck, while I'm at it, here's a third. Again, I normally don't like to post officially released albums that are still in print, but again I'll make an exception here to make it easy for people to make sure they have every Small Faces song. It's confusing with different British and American albums, and albums with the same name.

This is the second British album that technically has the name "Small Faces." This was their second album, released in 1967. Their debut album in 1966 had that name too. In an attempt to lessen the confusion, I'm calling this one "Small Faces Small Faces Small Faces," since the band name is written three times on the album cover.

As for the musical content, this album was a creative leap forward for the band. They had been doing soul-based rock, but this has more variety, and has more of a psychedelic sound (since that was all the rage in 1967). There are no hit songs on it, since the British trend was to not put A-sides of singles on albums too, but the songs are solid all the way through, and all of them are originals. In 1992, Paul Weller named the album one of his top ten favorites of all time.

By the way, in the US, this exact album wasn't released. Instead, an album with the name "There Are But Four Small Faces" came out in early 1968 (about nine months later). It removed seven songs and replaced them with recent hits like "Itchycoo Park," "Here Come the Nice," and "Tin Soldier," plus some B-sides.

01 [Tell Me] Have You Ever Seen Me (Small Faces)
02 Something I Want to Tell You (Small Faces)
03 Feeling Lonely (Small Faces)
04 Happy Boys Happy [Instrumental] (Small Faces)
05 Things Are Going to Get Better (Small Faces)
06 My Way of Giving (Small Faces)
07 Green Circles (Small Faces)
08 Become like You (Small Faces)
09 Get Yourself Together (Small Faces)
10 All Our Yesterdays (Small Faces)
11 Talk to You (Small Faces)
12 Show Me the Way (Small Faces)
13 Up the Wooden Hills to Bedfordshire (Small Faces)
14 Eddie's Dreaming (Small Faces)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HBmEvFV8 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/X77NUoWy1akdb8m/file

The album cover is exactly the same as originally released.

The Small Faces - Itchycoo Park - Non-Album Tracks (1967)

Here's the next stray tracks album for the Small Faces. I think this one is particularly excellent, mainly due to the inclusion of four of their best hit singles.

In Britain around this time, it was the usual custom to not put out the same songs on singles and albums, though there were some exceptions. This is because Britain was still recovering economically from World War II, and it was considered unfair to have someone pay for the same song twice. So the studio album the Small Faces put out in 1967 (called "Small Faces," the second album they put out with that name) didn't have any hit singles on it. Thus all those hits are here. (However, one of the B-Sides, "Talk to You," was included on the album, so I didn't put it here too.)

And what hits they are! "I Can't Make It," "Here Come the Nice," "Itchycoo Park," and "Tin Soldier" are all great songs. But I especially love "Itchcoo Park." If I had to make an album of my favorite songs on all time, I think that would be on it.

The rest of the album is made up of B-sides and rarities. Note that "Call It Something Nice" is often considered a later song, due to it being included on the 1969 album "The Autumn Stone," but it actually was recorded in 1967. Note that I used versions from the box set "Here Come the Nice" whenever I could, since they have superior sound. But in some cases they also have slightly different mixes than the originals.

I end this album with three songs that technically aren't by the Small Faces. P. P. Arnold was an American female soul singer who wound up in Britain in the late 1960s and got closely tied to the Small Faces, in part due to the fact that they were both on the same record label. She sang backing vocals on a lot of their songs, including "Itchycoo Park" and "Tin Soldier." I've included "(If You Think You're) Groovy" here because it was written by the main Small Faces songwriting team of Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane, and it's performed by her and the Small Faces.

The last couple of songs are a less obvious inclusion. Jimmy Winston was a member of the Small Faces for most of 1965. He left and/or quit the band for various reasons, including the fact that he switched to an acting career. But he did release a couple of singles before leaving his music career behind. I've included a 1966 single on the last stray tracks album, and I'm including his 1967 single here. In both cases, I'm including them because I consider the A- and B-Sides very good songs, and also because they're very much in the Small Faces style. Jimmy Winston even made the same transition to a more psychedelic sound at the same time the band did.

01 I Can't Make It (Small Faces)
02 Just Passing (Small Faces)
03 Here Come the Nice (Small Faces)
04 Don't Burst My Bubble (Small Faces)
05 Itchycoo Park (Small Faces)
06 I'm Only Dreaming (Small Faces)
07 Picaninny [Instrumental] (Small Faces)
08 Tin Soldier (Small Faces)
09 I Feel Much Better (Small Faces)
10 Call It Something Nice (Small Faces)
11 Take My Time [Instrumental] (Small Faces)
12 [If You Think You're] Groovy (P. P. Arnold & the Small Faces)
13 Real Crazy Apartment (Jimmy Winston & Winston's Fumbs)
14 Snow White (Jimmy Winston & Winston's Fumbs)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/UUKZAXsn

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ap7Fz7lQo6VRCnd/file 

The album cover is mostly based on the cover of the "Itchycoo Park" single. But that single had the A-side name at the top and the B-side name at the bottom. I replaced the B-side name and repeated the A-side name instead. I also removed a big record company logo that was put on their singles and replaced it with a smaller one that was put on their albums.

The Small Faces - Small Faces (1966)

Normally, I don't post unchanged albums that aren't out of print. But I'm going to make an exception for a couple of Small Faces albums because their discography is confusing. I want to set things straight so you can gather up all their stuff without any duplication.

One problem is that there were different American and British albums for the first part of their career. I generally consider the British albums the definitive ones for 1960s bands, and that's the case here. To add to the confusion, the first album the band released in Britain was called "Small Faces," released in mid-1966. Then, in 1967, the second album they released in Britain in 1967 was called... "Small Faces." I think that was an idiotic move to give two albums the exact same name, and such a generic name on top of it. 

Here's the 1966 "Small Faces." It contains the band's first two hit singles in Britain, "Sha-La-La-La-Lee" and "Whatcha Gonna Do about It." It also contains five covers, including the two hits. Although I don't know if that's really the right word, because most of those were songs written by professional songwriters for the band, so nobody else had done them before (except for "Shake" by Sam Cooke). But after this album, nearly all of the band's songs, including the other hits, would be self written.

By the way, the song "You Need Love" is credited as one of the originals, under the name "You Need Loving," but that's not right. It really is a Willie Dixon song with only some minor changes, first performed by Muddy Waters in 1963. Interestingly, the Small Faces version of this song was copied by Led Zeppelin and morphed into their huge 1969 hit "Whole Lotta Love." Both Jimmy Page and Robert Plant went to many Small Faces concerts, so they definitely were very familiar with the song. Plant later apologized to Small Faces lead singer Steve Marriott for copying the Small Faces arrangement so closely without credit. And eventually a lawsuit resulted in Willie Dixon being added as a cowriter to "Whole Lotta Love."

01 Shake (Small Faces)
02 Come On Children (Small Faces)
03 You Better Believe It (Small Faces)
04 It's Too Late (Small Faces)
05 One Night Stand (Small Faces)
06 Whatcha Gonna Do about It (Small Faces)
07 Sorry She's Mine (Small Faces)
08 Own Up Time (Small Faces)
09 You Need Love (Small Faces)
10 Don't Stop What You Are Doing (Small Faces)
11 E Too D (Small Faces)
12 Sha-La-La-La-Lee (Small Faces)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/htqKTStW

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/GwFagKHuxormYIr/file 

The cover is the official cover. Originally, I posted it without any changes. However, in 2025, I decided the colors were a bit unnatural and oversaturated. So I made some fixes, using Photoshop and Krea AI.

The Small Faces - All or Nothing - Non-Album Tracks (1966)

I just posted an album of the earliest stray tracks from the Small Faces. As I wrote, that album is more for the serious fans of the band. This album, by contrast, should be for anyone who loves 1960s rock with a strong soul influence, because the music here is excellent.

The Small Faces only formed in 1965, and put out their first album in 1966, simply called "Small Faces." That contained two hit singles, "Whatcha Gonna Do about It" and "Sha-La-La-La-Lee." But the British custom at the time was to usually not include hit singles on albums, so as to not make the customer sometimes buy the same song twice. Thus you might argue these songs are actually a stronger bunch. They're helped greatly by containing three Top 10 British singles, "Hey Girl," "All or Nothing," and "My Mind's Eye." "All or Nothing" was also the band only British number one hit.

Three more songs are the B-sides to those A-sides, plus another A-side, "Patterns." Another five songs come from the album "From the Beginning." At the end of 1966, the band switched record companies and management after realizing they were getting ripped off. Their old record company then put out an album containing the best unreleased material they had at the time. Some of those were relatively old (I've included a few of those on the previous stray tracks album I just posted). But others contained recent songs the band wanted to put on their next album, and they showed the group moving in a more psychedelic direction. You can especially see that on the last two songs here. The album was released in early 1967, but I consider the songs on them to be from 1966, since they were all recorded that year. That's the case also for the unsuccessful single "Patterns."

The last two songs are very obscure. "Comin' Home Baby" is a BBC performance that didn't make it onto the band's official BBC compilation, but did make it to another archival release. And "Strange" comes from an obscure album that has only been included with copies of a French book about the band. (I've described that in the previous post.) I only have this one song because someone posted it onto YouTube. It's a cover of a Larry Williams song.

01 Hey Girl (Small Faces)
02 Almost Grown (Small Faces)
03 Strange (Small Faces)
04 Comin' Home Baby [Instrumental] (Small Faces)
05 Patterns (Small Faces)
06 You've Really Got a Hold on Me (Small Faces)
07 Plum Nellie [Instrumental] (Small Faces)
08 All or Nothing (Small Faces)
09 Understanding (Small Faces)
10 Take This Hurt Off Me (Small Faces)
11 My Mind's Eye (Small Faces)
12 I Can't Dance with You (Small Faces)
13 Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (Small Faces)
14 That Man (Small Faces)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RgzJXssE

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/7F5b1bX0tNQWtLS/file 

The album cover uses a promo photo from 1966. I added the record company logo since that what the band albums did at the time.

The Small Faces - Grow Your Own - Non-Album Tracks (1964-1966)

There are lots of great musical artists I haven't begun to address on this blog. Here's one I'm just starting to deal with: the Small Faces. I think they're still underrated. That's especially true in the US, because they only had one hit there, "Itchycoo Park." (Allmusic.com has called them "the best British band never to make it big in America.") But if you like soulful rock, similar to the Yardbirds, the mid-1960s Rolling Stones, and the mid-1960s Who, you really should check them out. 

However, you probably don't want to start with this album. This is more for the serious fans, as it contains deep cuts and no hits. If you're not that familiar with the band, I suggest you start with the next couple of their albums I'll be posting, Then, if you like them, work your way back to this one.

The Small Faces got started in 1965. I see the band mainly as a union of two great talents: the singer-songwriter Steve Marriott, and the singer-songwriter Ronnie Lane. They formed a songwriting team and wrote many hits and other fine songs together. They didn't do much musically before forming the Small Faces together, but they did have some. In fact, the first seven songs here are all from either Marriott or Lane in the year prior to that formation. They're very rare, and I suspect even most die-hard Small Faces fans haven't heard them. But if you're such a fan, I'm pretty sure you'll like them because they're very much in the spirit of the band. The only snag is that, on a couple of the songs, Marriott hadn't fully developed his distinctive voice.

These pre-Small Faces come from obscure sources, and I couldn't find much information on them. I don't know which ones are originals and which are covers, though "You Really Got Me" obviously is a cover of the Kinks hit. I'm pretty sure the two Lane songs, "Don't Talk to Me of Love," and "That's What I Want," are originals. You can read the interesting story behind these unreleased songs here:

https://www.ronnielane.com/ronnie-lane-and-the-outcasts.html

According to that, Lane's band at the time, the Moments, essentially was an early version of the Small Faces, containing Marriott and all the future members of that band except for one. 

Note that I also end this album with a couple of songs by a band other than the Small Faces. That's because the leader of that band, Jimmy Winston, was a member of the Small Faces for much of 1965. He left the band due to personality conflicts, possibly involving the manager. He sings lead on two of the Small Faces tracks here, "Jump Back" and "Baby Don't You Do It." He only released a couple of singles before getting into acting instead. But I like them, which is why I'm including them. Plus, they have that same Small Faces sound.

The actual Small Faces songs here are fairly obscure. There's only one A-side, "I've Got Mine," but that was a failed single. Two others are B-sides, and the remaining three only came out on archival releases many years later. A lot of them are covers, including a cover of the big Del Shannon hit "Runaway." (Apparently, the only reason the band did that song was at the insistence of their manager, because he sang the intro part.)

So, like I said, these are mostly deep cuts for the more dedicated Small Faces fan. Stayed tuned for the next album in this series, where the band really hit their stride.

On a final note, I made "Before You Accuse Me" a bonus song only because the sound quality is just okay and the performance of that blues standard is also just okay. There are a couple more songs from the Lane recording mentioned above that I didn't include at all, not even as bonus tracks, due to various issues, such as the song cutting off early. You're not missing much.

01 Give All She's Got (Steve Marriott)
02 Money, Money (Steve Marriott & the Moments)
03 You Really Got Me (Steve Marriott & the Moments)
04 Good Morning Blues (Steve Marriott & the Moments)
05 Don't Talk to Me of Love (Ronnie Lane & the Outcasts)
06 That's What I Want (Ronnie Lane & the Outcasts)
07 You'll Never Get Away from Me (Steve Marriott & the Moments)
08 What's a Matter Baby (Small Faces)
09 Jump Back (Small Faces)
10 Baby Don't You Do It [Don't Do It] (Small Faces)
11 I've Got Mine (Small Faces)
12 Grow Your Own (Small Faces)
13 Runaway (Small Faces)
14 Sorry, She's Mine (Jimmy Winston & His Reflections)
15 It's Not What You Do (Jimmy Winston & His Reflections)

Before You Accuse Me (Ronnie Lane & the Outcasts)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/CQdvkSUo 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/PrJ1YuAPUhTDYXa/file

I made the album cover using a 1965 promo photo. I added in the logo of their British record company at the time, because it was on the cover of their debut 1966 album, "Small Faces."