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"The Faces were my all-time favourite live band."
  (John Peel, My Top Ten)

"There may have been better bands, but there was never a band to make you feel so good ... And to give you and indication how highly I esteemed the members ... they were the only band who were actually invited to my wedding, and their roadies, and they all came, too."
  (John Peel, 18 August 1976)

"He gave the Faces our first break. He said, 'I like you guys.' And we thought, 'Well, no one knows about us'."
(Ron Wood, John Peel's Record Box)

Rod_Stewart_and_The_Faces-_Maggie_May-_TOTP_1971_(FULL_VERSION)

Rod Stewart and The Faces- Maggie May- TOTP 1971 (FULL VERSION)

Maggie May, Rod Stewart & The Faces, Top Of The Pops, 1971, with Peel miming on mandolin.

The Faces are an English rock band formed in 1969 by members of the Small Faces after lead singer/guitarist Steve Marriott left that group to form Humble Pie. The remaining Small Faces—Ian McLagan (keyboards), Ronnie Lane (bass), and Kenney Jones (drums and percussion)—were joined by Ronnie Wood (guitar) and Rod Stewart (lead vocals), both from The Jeff Beck Group, and the new line-up was renamed the Faces.

The Faces released four studio albums and toured regularly until the autumn of 1975, although Stewart simultaneously pursued a solo recording career, and during the band's final year Wood also toured with The Rolling Stones, whom he later joined ... (read more at Wikipedia)

Links to Peel[]

The Faces were Peel’s favourite band in the first half of the 1970s and he appears to have enjoyed their goodtime approach both musically and socially. As well as “playing” mandolin with the band on Top Of The Pops in 1971, the DJ invited them all to his wedding three years later. In subsequent decades, he continued to cite the Faces’s April 1973 gig at Sunderland Locarno as the best he ever attended.[1]

In 1987, Peel discussed the special attraction of The Faces for him with producer John Walters in the third programme of the Peeling Back The Years series:

JW: One band that we have not mentioned in this pre-punk programme that were great favourites of yours and certainly brought you back quite sensibly to good old rock and roller’s enjoyment – and that was the Faces ... They were a band of lads. They’d been the Small Faces, Rod the Mod, all people that were seen – and I remember this very clearly because time changes – in the early ‘70s they were all seen as played out, frankly.

JP: Yes, yes.

JW: “No, not that lot again!”

JP: Well, that was very much my attitude. But as I say, I met them and you and my wife at around the same time – all people with very different attitudes to mine, much more realistic attitudes I think than I had. And I met the Faces backstage at a gig in Newcastle City Hall. And I can’t remember who else was on the bill – I think the Nice were, oddly enough.[2] But anyway, they had a dressing room and I was sitting in – I didn’t have a dressing room – and there was a phone booth backstage and I was sitting in that thinking beautiful thoughts. I mean, genuinely thinking beautiful thoughts, in as far as I was capable of doing that. And they came and flung the door open and said, “Hello, John, mate, how’s it going, squire?” You know, “Come on, let’s have a drink.” And I didn’t drink at the time at all. And as they went away, my first reaction was, “Dear, oh dear, what dreadful rowdy people.” And then I saw them disappear into their dressing room that was full of scantily clad women and so forth and the sound of breaking glass and curries being flung against walls and so on, and I thought to myself, “Actually, these people are having a much better time than I am,” you know.

JW: So that rather implies that you were attracted socially as a bit of relief. What about the musical side?

JP: Well, because it was – I mean, the music exactly defined the band, you know. There was no sort of pretence in there at all. And I suppose I just got fed up – and as I say, it came about at the same time as I started to work regularly with you and meeting the pig, whose background was vastly different to mine, and as I say, much more rooted in reality. And I just, the Faces for me recaptured the kind of feelings I’d had when I first Little Richard and people like that and Jerry Lee Lewis, in the same way as the Undertones were to a few years later.

Festive Fifty Entries[]

  • None

Sessions[]

Three sessions. Stay With Me / Miss Judy's Farm from #3 available on 1970-1975: You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything... Warner Bros. R2 550009   Session #3 was selected for Peel Sessions: The Best 125.

1. Recorded: 1970-03-09. First broadcast: 28 March 1970. Repeated: 06 June 1970

  • Wicked Messenger / Devotion / Pineapple And The Monkey / Shake Shudder Shiver

2. Recorded: 1970-09-15. First broadcast: 19 September 1970. Repeated: 19 December 1970, 21 August 1971, 26 September 1972, 11 July 1977

  • Had Me A Real Good Time / Around The Plynth / Country Comforts

3. Recorded: 1971-09-28. First broadcast: 06 October 1971. Repeated: 22 December 1971, 22 September 1975, 12 September 1981, 24 June 1982

  • Stay With Me / Miss Judy's Farm / Maggie May

Live[]

  1. You're My Girl
  2. Wicked Messenger
  3. Devotion
  4. It's All Over Now
  5. Feel So Good
  1. Country Comfort
  2. You're My Girl
  3. Too Much Woman For A Henpecked Man
  4. Maybe I'm Amazed
  5. Around The Plynth
  • 23 May 1971: Recorded 1971-05-13, Paris Theatre. Repeated 26 August 1977. 'Cut Across Shorty' was officially released on the Five Guys Walk Into A Bar box set.
  1. You’re My Girl
  2. Cut Across Shorty
  3. Love In Vain
  4. Bad’n Ruin
  5. It’s All Over Now
  6. Had Me A Real Good Time
  7. I’m Losing You
  1. Three Button Hand Me Down
  2. Miss Judy’s Farm
  3. Memphis, Tennessee
  4. Give Me The Moonlight [a capella]
  5. Too Bad
  6. Last Orders Please
  7. Devotion
  8. Medley:That’s All You Need-Country Honk-Gasoline Alley-That’s All You Need
  9. I’m Losing You
  10. Stay With Me
  11. Had Me A Real Good Time
  12. Underneath The Arches [a capella]
  13. Every Picture Tells A Story
  1. Silicone Grown
  2. Cindy Incidentally
  3. Angel
  4. Memphis, Tennesse
  5. True Blue
  6. I’d Rather Go Blind
  7. You’re My Girl
  8. Twistin’ The Night Away
  9. It’s All Over Now
  10. Miss Judy’s Farm
  11. Maybe I’m Amazed
  12. Three Button Hand Me Down
  13. I’m Losing You
  1. Silicone Growth
  2. Cindy Incidentally
  3. Memphis Tennessee
  4. If I’m On The Late Side
  5. My Fault
  6. Stealer
  7. Borstal Boys
  8. Angel
  9. Stay With Me
  10. You’re My Girl (I Don’t Want To Discuss It)
  11. Twistin’ The Night Away
  12. Miss Judy’s Farm
  13. Jealous Guy
  14. Too Bad

Other Shows Played[]

The list below was compiled only from the database of this site and Lorcan's Tracklistings Archive. Please add further information if known.

1970
1971
1972
  • 07 January 1972: Debris (b-side of single Stay With Me) Warner Bros.
  • 21 January 1972: Love Lives Here (LP – A Nod’s As Good As A Wink … To A Blind Horse) Warner Bros
  • 28 January 1972: You’re So Rude (LP – A Nod’s As Good As A Wink … To A Blind Horse) Warner Bros
  • 07 March 1972: Had Me A Real Good Time (single) Warner Brothers
  • 10 March 1972: Memphis (LP - A Nod Is As Good As A Wink...To A Blind Horse) Warner Brothers
  • 04 August 1972: Three Button Hand Me Down (LP - The First Step) Warner Brothers
  • 12 September 1972: Oh Lord I'm Browned Off (single b-side Maybe I'm Amazed) Warner Brothers
  • 22 September 1972: Stay With Me (LP - A Nod Is As Good As A Wink...To A Blind Horse) Warner Brothers
  • Radio Luxembourg Tracklistings 2: Around The Plynth (LP - The First Step) Warner Bros.
1973
1974
1975
  • 06 January 1975: As Long As You Tell Him (7" - You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything (Even Take The Dog For A Walk, Mend A Fuse, Fold Away The Ironing Board, Or Any Other Domestic Short Comings)) Warner Bros.
  • 10 March 1975: Maybe I'm Amazed
  • 26 May 1975: Pool Hall Richard (single)
  • 24 October 1975: unknown
  • D013: Maybe I'm Amazed (JP: 'That was released a few years ago.')
  • 19 December 1975: (JP: 'And you may have seen in today's paper that Rod and the Faces have finally parted company and gone their own separate ways. I don't think that comes as a great surprise to anyone, but it's very sad nevertheless, because although there may have been better bands musically, I don't think there's ever been a more enjoyable band, and I for one am very sad to hear it.')
1976
  • 13 January 1976: Memphis (LP - A Nod's As Good As A Wink To A Blind Horse) Warner Bros.
  • 13 August 1976: Too Bad (LP-A Nod's As Good As A Wink....To A Blind Horse)' (Warner Bros.) (JP: 'Well I don't care what you say, at their peak they were the best of the lot, I think.”) (Rolling Stones retrospective)
  • 18 August 1976: Faces band retrospective – many tracks, including associated bands, solo, etc

("Well, hello there, fans. As we move relentlessly on with our sorties into the best of British, we come to my own all time favourite band. The Faces.")

("I remember doing a gig with the Small Faces and indeed with The Nice at Newcastle City Hall. And I was sitting in the backstage area thinking beautiful thoughts, and our [Ronnie] Lane gentleman came up to me and said, 'Hello, John Darling, like to go for a drink?' and I thought, what an appalling bunch of people they were, but eventually I realised they were probably right and I was probably wrong.)
("About 5 or 6 years ago, I arranged to get my sister-in-law who adored, and indeed still adores Rod Stewart, into a BBC studio where the band were recording an In Concert programme, without her knowing that they were going to be on. And I mentioned it to Rod, and they started a number he and Ronnie Wood went down and started to sing a song to her.")
("Well there may have been better bands, but there was never a band to make you feel so good, I think.)

(“And to give you and indication how highly I esteemed the members of the band, they were the only band who were actually invited to my wedding, and their roadies and they all came too.")

1977
1978
  • 23 October 1978: I Wish It Would Rain (Live: Coast To Coast – Overture And Beginners) Mercury (Mentions that the Faces are still one of his all-time favourite bands. Even though Rod Stewart “acts like a berk a lot of the time,” he’s still the only tax exile Peel misses.)
1979
  • 30 August 1979: Have Me A Real Good Time' (Warner Bros) (40th birthday 40)
1980s
1990s
  • 05 April 1993 (John Peel Is Jakki Brambles): Stay With Me (JP: 'One FM, where the hits keep happening. Those were the Faces from 1971, "Stay With Me", and if you weren't listening to that so loud that your ears are now bleeding then you've missed the point entirely. The best live gig that I ever saw in my life - and I can say that quite categorically - featured the Faces. And they played in Sunderland the night that Sunderland had beaten, I think it was Arsenal - there are one or two One FM producers who could confirm that for me - but in the semi-final of the Cup. The Faces were playing in Sunderland and the entire place was floating three or four feet above the ground and the Faces were the perfect band to capture the atmosphere. I'm not much of a dancing man myself, not got the physique for it really, but I ended up dancing on stage with them. Quite wonderful.')
  • 09 December 1996: Stay With Me (session) (John Peel's Classic Sessions)
  • 10 June 1997: Debris (LP - A Nod's As Good As A Wink... To A Blind Horse) Warner Bros.
  • 09 September 1997: You Can Make Me Dance, Sing or Anything (LP: Snakes & Ladders) Warner Brothers
  • 01 October 1997: Three Button Hand Me Down (1972 concert) (JP 30 years on Radio 1 special)
  • 04 November 1999: You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything (CD-The Best Of Faces: Good Boys....When They're Asleep...)' (Warner) (JP: "Family, Faces, Fairport Convention, the Fall...amazing how many of my favourite bands have begun with the letters Fa.")
2000s
Other

See Also[]

External Links[]

References[]

  1. ↑ See for example, My Top Ten (Transcript), 05 April 1993 (John Peel Is Jakki Brambles), Gigography 1973. The gig took place on 1973-04-13.
  2. ↑ Peel said on 18 August 1976 that the Newcastle show also featuring The Nice had been with the Small Faces, presumably before the band split up at the very end of 1968. The exact date of the gig is unclear, but both the Small Faces and the Nice played the venue in summer 1968, although possibly separately.[1]
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