Just a couple of days before their third studio album "Ogdens'
Nut Gone Flake" was published, on May 24, 1968, the Small
Faces were already reunited at Olympic Studios recording
new songs with the engineer Glyn Johns.
The album, was going to be called "1862", date that
corresponded with the one that had been recorded in an old wood of an abandoned
chapel, near the house of Steve Marriott, in the village of High
Laver in the county of Essex, England. Place in
which he had played when he was a child; now, 1968, Steve wanted to buy
this chapel, to turn it in a personal recording studio.
During these new sessions that ran from May 23 to
September 11, 1968, the group recorded just a dozen songs, some of them instrumental.
At the end of these sessions, which remained pending material to finish, Steve
Marriott provided the sound engineer Glyn Johns an provisional "line
up" of how he wanted the songs appear on the album to make a first
acetate.
Side A:
1.Hello, The Universal.
2.Blues Jam. (A.k.a: War of the Worlds.
3.Me You & Us Too. (A.k.a : Wham Bam Thank You Mam).
4.Wide-Eyed Girl On The Wall.
5.Call it
Something Nice.
6.Red Balloon.
Side
B:
2.Fred. (a.k.a: Wrist Job)
3.Donkey
Rides, A Penny, A Glass.
4.A Collibosher.
5.Jenny's Song. (A.k.a. Autumn
Song).
As the group did not meet again to improve and expand the material that
existed, partly because they were in a world tour that began in
Europe; In the month of february, while Glyn Johns trying to improve the live
recordings made in Newcastle, he resumed work in 1862, and added:
"Every Little Bit Hurts", as closing of the
album to complete the B-side, and rescued too an instrumental piece from
March´68:"Mind The Doors Please", edited
and placed at the end, like a hidden track, because it was not going to make
mentioned in the future titles of the album´s songs.
Days after, the result was shown to Andrew Loog Oldman,
manager of the group and to Inmediate Records, but they decided
to wait as long as possible for its publication, to see if things were arranged
in the group, because they were already in the process of separation; meanwhile
as an advance to LP and without authorization from Small Faces,
Inmediate released on March 7, 1969, a new single, in principle was going to
be: "Wham Bam Thank You Mam" / "A Collibosher";
but it was changed by an alternative version of "Afterglow",
now as "Afterglow of your love" going to the B
side: "Wham Bam..."
This annoyed the boys even more and precipitated
things, a couple of days later, Steve Marriot announced that he was definitely
leaving the group, for his dissatisfaction at the musical level with the rest
of the group and formed: Humble Pie, disregarding what could
happen to "1862", a hard blow for Inmediate Records, in a precarious
situation, because the escape of artists in search of more substantial
contracts, had placed her in a complicated position, now without Small Faces,
even worse. The rest of the group: Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan and
Kenney Jones, did the same and formed Faces with Ron
Wood and Rod Stewart.
Andrew Loog Oldman, wanted that "1862", was
published coinciding with the first dates of the summer, as it was, but it was
not possible, because Inmediate wanted a different Lp, with live material
in one side from Newcastle tapes and the best songs from 1862 in other side.
Finally it became a 2 lp "Greatest Hits" with unpublished
material in november of 1969, called "Autumn Stone".
Here I bring you, a reconstruction in MONO and STEREO, listened to a copy
of the original acetate, of how, the unpublished or lost album "1862"
of Small Faces was going to be, that I hope to put peace among those who
shuffle alternative "line-ups" from the album and discuss and
discuss in forums for many years of how it could have been and was not, even
mixing themes of Humble Pie with Pete Townshend. Bit.ly/SF862sx
Finally, the cover is a photomontage of what it was really like, the boys
photographed around the High Laver chapel.
