About Face [Limited Edition, Box set]

3#cd's--one for each artist. A generalist survey for each ; culled from a random variety of sources. The Ronnie Lane one works best as far as overall quality goes . Ron Wood and Steve Marriot fare less well, but there are exciting moments .Ron Wood is pulled from aspects of his career from the Faces on ( I think; I'm guessing---and that's the problem! ), Steve Marriot from late Humble Pie and beyond. The main problem is , apart from the track listings there is NO other information. No dates , no albums --either in terms of where this assemblage was pulled from ; no history of the artists recorded output. This kind of packaging is truly insulting. The tendency to rely heavily on loose , sloppy Live material doesn't help (especially for Ron Wood)in the overall navigation over the 3 discs ; there's no directional overview or editorial "policy" apparent.
I was a big Small Faces , Faces,Humble Pie listener in the early 70's. Lately I've been trying to see where it all went post-73...I was hoping this compilation would help fill in some gaps.
This set then, is only the meanest taster. It should be a third of it's price . It's certainly only good in that no matter how badly packaged and presented , the music of each artist is redeemed by his own inherent genius. Isn't it time the 2 dead guys were treated with a bit of respect? The live one oughta shout a bit louder about this sort of crassness , too.

Yes, the sound quality is mostly pretty weak especially on the Ron Wood and Steve Marriot cds and there is no info about where the songs are coming from, just some vague reference about various points in their careers. The Ron Wood cd is mostly a live set at what seems to be a small club venue. From the liner notes (spelling mistakes corrected):

"Ron Wood is best known for his association with 'The Rolling Stones' but he started his recording career with Mod Band 'The Creation'. He then went on to play bass with 'The Jeff Beck Group', making his first association with Rod Stewart who was the vocalist. When the band split they went on to form 'The Faces' where Ron switched from bass to guitar and had numerous successes, live and on record. Ron also played on some of Rod Stewarts early solo albums including 'Every Picture Tells a Story' which featured the now legendary Maggie May.

After The Faces split in '74, Ron temporarily joined The Rolling Stones replacing the departed Mick Taylor and recording his first album with them, 'Black and Blue', in 1976 and formally joining in 1977. Still being a member to this day, he has issued various solo albums and collaborations with Keith Richards in 'The New Barbarians'."

Thus the live show recorded here contains a selection of hits from various stages in his career, though we are not told when the show was. The songs:

ALWAYS WANTED MORE (album title)
1. Show Me
2. Flying
3. Always Wanted More
4. Stay With Me
5. I Know I'm Losing You
6. It's Only Rock 'n' Roll
7. Mona The Blues
8. Woody's Thing
9. Rooster Funeral
10. Tonight's Number
11. I Can Feel the Fire


The Steve Marriot cd, while again of varying low-grade quality, has some great tunes that I'd never heard before - in terms of content there's some excellent stuff on here from "Shake", "Street Rat", to "Ruthy" and most of the songs on this cd will be appreciated by any Steve Marriot fan - with the exception of the slightly hokey rendition of Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well".

From the illustrious liner notes:

"The leader of the legendary 'Small Faces', Marriott split in '68 to form 'Humble Pie' who acheived monster status in the United States....Marriott penned some classic 60s anthems with Ronnie Lane in The Small Faces including 'Itchycoo Park, 'Lazy Afternoon', 'Tin Soldier', & 'All or Nothing'.."

Song list on this album (titled SIGNED, SEALED) include:

1. Midnight Rollin'
2. Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am
3. Oh Well
4. Lonely No More
5. Cocaine
6. It's All Over
7. Shake
8. Street Rat
9. Ruthy
10. Stay With Me Baby
11. You Sport It
12. I Don't Need No Doctor - Live
13. Tin Soldier - Live


Finally, the Ronnie Lane cd titled "How Come" is one of the better cds in terms of both recording quality and content. Lane and Marriott formed The Small Faces. Later, Lane and drummer Kenny Jones were joined by Rod Stewart and Ron Wood to form The Faces. In 1973, Lane left to form his own band Slim Chance culminating in two hits "How Come" and "The Poacher". In 1976, Lane and Wood collaborated to make "Mahoney's Last Stand" and the year after, Lane worked with Pete Townsend to make the album "Rough Mix". Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the late 70s, Lane passed away in 1997 (liner notes in summary).

Judging by these notes I assume the songlist is composed of songs from various points in his career (which, as with all 3 cds, should have been listed clearly but were not). The song list:


HOW COME
1. The Poacher
2. Ooh La La
3. How come
4. Kuschty Rye
5. Brother Can You Spare a Dime
6. Only You
7. You Never Can Tell (a live Chuck Berry tune; the same tune, although not this Ronnie Lane version, was incidentally featured in the 50's diner scene in Pulp Fiction).
9. One Step
10. Just For A Moment

In terms of the better albums here, this one, and Marriott's SIGNED, SEALED stand out. "How Come" is a hands down good album and is interesting in that it highlights fine songs from an important guitar figure that I knew nothing about. This cd set is obviously a low-budget production and only goes for the high price that it does due to the fact that it's long out of print (for better or worse).

› Go to Amazon U.S. to see both reviews  3.0 out of 5 stars