Small Faces

Here's the question for Small Faces fans: Is it better to own the original Immediate albums or to invest in the splendid double-disc set, The Darlings of Wapping Wharf Launderette? The question is a tricky one, since Darlings contains all of their Immediate recordings, meaning all of Autumn Stone (or There Are But Four Small Faces, as it's known in its American incarnation), plus all of the landmark Ogden's Nut Gone Flake. Granted, Ogden's is divided cleanly in half, with the first side appearing on disc one and the second on disc two, which may irritate listeners who like to hear the concept album uninterrupted…

During the British Invasion of the mid-60s, while the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Who were conquering America, one quintessentially English band stayed at home. Today, in America, the Small Faces are known primarily for their single "Itchykoo Park", and the fact that their drummer, Kenney Jones, went on to replace Keith Moon in the Who…

The Small Faces split from manager Don Arden to sign with Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate label and, in retaliation, Decca and Arden rounded up the remaining recordings the group made for the label and released them as From the Beginning. Appearing just months before their Immediate debut - entitled The Small Faces, just like their first album for Decca - From the Beginning includes early version of "My Way of Giving" and "(Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me," and it reprises songs that were on the 1966 Decca LP ("Sha La La La Lee," "What'cha Gonna Do About It"), moves that muddy an already confusing situation. And From the Beginning really doesn't play as a cohesive album by any stretch of the imagination, as it opens with a burst of burgeoning psychedelia then doubles back to the group's early R&B, flaws that matter less as years pass by because, on a track by track basis, there is a lot of wondrous material here…

The Small Faces split from manager Don Arden to sign with Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate label and, in retaliation, Decca and Arden rounded up the remaining recordings the group made for the label and released them as From the Beginning. Appearing just months before their Immediate debut – entitled The Small Faces, just like their first album for Decca – From the Beginning includes early version of "My Way of Giving" and "(Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me," and it reprises songs that were on the 1966 …

There was no shortage of good psychedelic albums emerging from England in 1967-1968, but Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake is special even within their ranks. The Small Faces had already shown a surprising adaptability to psychedelia with the single "Itchycoo Park" and much of their other 1967 output, but Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake pretty much ripped the envelope. British bands had an unusual approach to psychedelia from the get-go, often preferring to assume different musical "personae" on their albums, either feigning actual "roles" in the context of a variety show (as on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album), or simply as storytellers in the manner of the Pretty Things on S.F. Sorrow, or actor/performers as on the Who's Tommy…