lunes, 17 de diciembre de 2018

Small Faces - "1862" - (Steve Marriott set list).



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.