Faces – Richmond

A great song by the Faces that was written by Ronnie Lane.  Lane was a very good singer in a band with a great singer…twice. He was in the Small Faces with Steve Marriott and The Faces with Rod Stewart. Those two types of singers come just once a generation.

He takes the lead in this song.  The Faces were a raucous fun band. They stormed the stage with a full bar and bartender. They WERE banned from the Holiday Inn chain…but that didn’t stop them from staying there. They soon started to check in at Holiday Inns as Fleetwood Mac…and it worked! They didn’t take anything seriously and wanted to have fun and take the audience with them.

One US tour billed as a Rock’n’Roll Circus, involved sharing the bill with jugglers, acrobats, Blinko the clown, and a Chinese high-wire stripper called Ming Wung. All the while they were leaping about the stage, swapping mics, whispering in huddles, and booting soccer balls into the crowd.

This song came off of their album Long Player released in 1971. The album peaked at #29 on the Billboard Album Charts, #34 in Canada, and #41 in the UK. Their next album A Nod Is As Good As a Wink… to a Blind Horse would peak at #6 in the same year.

Stewart always called Ronnie Lane the heart of the band and that was probably true. Lane got frustrated not being able to sing many songs and was upset at Stewart’s lack of commitment… and quit. After Lane quit in 1973, Tetsu Yamauchi took his place for touring but then they broke up in 1975 when Ron Wood joined the Stones and Stewart continued his solo career.

Drummer Kenney Jones: “It wasn’t just at gigs, everywhere we went we fell on the floor – airports, restaurants, hotels, bars. We were saying to people that you don’t have to take rock’n’roll too seriously. Every gig was like going to a party. The Faces were undoubtedly the most fun band I was ever in.”

Kenney Jones: “We were the first to do a lot of things, we’d have a white stage, and insist that Chuch Magee, who was our roadie, wore black trousers, a white shirt, and a waistcoat, so he looked like a barman. So he’d tend the bar, then quickly do Woody’s guitar and various other things. And we’d have palm trees on stage with us. It was very over-the-top. We took the piss out of ourselves, more than anything.”

Kenney Jones: “Rod summed it up really well, he told me that once Ronnie Lane left the band, the spirit of the Faces left too. Ronnie was integral to the band. It was the complete line-up when he was there. It never quite felt the same afterwards.”

Free Drummer Simon Kirke: .“Touring with the Faces was wonderful, they were at their peak and had Rod Stewart singing. Jeez, he could sing so well back then. He’s like Paul Rodgers, really; he never sung a bad show, he just had variations on brilliant. They always had such fun on stage. There were drinks in abundance, and Woody was there with the ever-present ciggie hanging out of his mouth or tucked in the end of his guitar. Ian would be grinning from ear to ear. And they dressed so flamboyantly, too, all silks and satins and flares. I loved ’em. They just had a great time, whereas Free were slightly serious.”

This video is just 7 minutes long…it is Ronnie Lane’s son talking about his dad and Cat Stevens is at the end of the video. 

Richmond

I wish I
I wish I was in Richmond
I do, I would I
I wish I
I wish I was back home

I’m waitin’
Here in New York City
The rain is falling
There’s no one who cares
There’s no one loves me here

The women
They may look very pretty
And some they know it
But some look good
They show a leg and smile
But they all look like the flowers
In someone else’s garden
I’ve no act of love
for anyone but you

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball fan, old movie and tv show fan... and a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

37 thoughts on “Faces – Richmond”

  1. My three music regrets; 1) not seeing The Faces play live; 2) Ditto, Status Quo. 3) Giving up my ticket to see The Clash at the famous Glasgow Apollo gig (a bit of a full-on riot) an going to football /athletics training instead!

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    1. I can see why in all of them! My regret is not seeing Springsteen in 1984…I waited until the 90s.
      The Faces seemed like a lot of fun…equipped with a Stage Bartender on one tour.

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  2. I quite like it, never heard it before. I like the guitar especially. He sounds a wee bit like George Harrison on this one, don’t you think? A Chinese high-wire stripper? That’s something you don’t see at every concert!

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    1. Yes it does a little with the slide… I know…what a great idea…a stage bartender! lol. Yea the Chinese high-wire stripper… what a show!

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  11. Did he also sing Ooh La La? Cuz that’s my favorite song in the whole world but I never knew that much about Faces, except that my father had those ones with Rod Stewart. And I know Stay with Me. And I like the old Small Faces and Itchycoo Park and all that, but I don’t know if it was all the same guys as Faces.

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    1. No but it sounded like him…Ronnie Wood did the vocals on Ooh La La. Lane would sing it live though solo.
      I favor the Small Faces a little more…Marriott was such a great singer.

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      2. No… I didn’t know until like 2 years ago…I saw Ronnie Lane do it live solo so I thought it was him…then I found out it was Wood on the recording. Rod Stewart didn’t think much of it at the time.

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      3. He probably said he ater didn’t like it because he knew it would have been perfect for him, and he probably regrets that he didn’t sing it himself. It would have been perfect on Every Picture Tells a Story. Ain’t it? It’s so much in his style that it’s embarrassing.

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      4. It was his style and Every Picture Tells A Story is my favorite era by him hands down. He later covered it in the 90s or 2000s….I can’t remember which. To his credit he donated money from it to MS for Ronnie Lane.

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    1. There is a documentary on youtube called The Passing Show that is broken up in 3 parts. It shows the house more and that period a lot. It’s worth a watch if you find time.

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      2. Ronnie has a sad story Matt. HIs mom had MS and he feared he would get it but the doctor said no he wouldn’t….well he was diagnosed in 1976 or so…about 4 years after this song. He lived to around 1997.
        The guy made pure music…what I call back porch music.
        He wrote this song…if you watched the movie Rush it plays at the end.

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  16. Pingback: Faces – Richmond – MobsterTiger

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