Ian McLagan – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Faces – Maybe I’m Amazed ….Under The Covers Week

This week I want to mix it up a bit so I’m doing cover versions all this week. I thought I would kick it off with The Faces. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a version of this that I don’t like. A blog that I would highly recommend that specializes in covers is Randy at Mostly Music Covers. Check him out when you can…he goes in-depth on music covers.

The Faces were fun…any band that would have a bartender on stage with a bar…has my vote. Ronnie Lane would sing the first part of this song with Rod the Mod Stewart would pick it up after the first verse. I like Ronnie’s voice a lot…it wasn’t Rod Stewart but it was very rootsy. 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 don’t come very often.

The song was on their album Long Player… They did an excellent version of this song. They added to it without losing its charm. The album was their sophomore album and it peaked at #29 on the Billboard Album Charts, #32 in Canada, and #31 in the UK in 1971. Their next album A Nod Is As Good As a Wink… to a Blind Horse (that is a great title!) peaked at #6 on the Billboard Album Charts later that year.

This song was written by Paul McCartney on his debut album. It should have been released as a single. He did release it as a single in 1976, a live version off the triple record set…Wings Over America. Paul wrote this song for Linda who helped pull him through a bad depression after The Beatles broke up. I did read an interesting fact about this song. “This was the first song with the word “amazed” in the title to reach the Hot 100. Another didn’t appear until 1999 when Lonestar charted with “Amazed.”

It’s hard to believe that the Faces single didn’t chart because McCartney never released it as a single himself…you would think the market would have been ready for it. Although FM stations did play the McCartney version.

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.

Ron Wood talks about Maybe I’m Amazed and has a special guest in this 1:24 clip.

Maybe I’m Amazed

Baby I’m amazed at the way you love me all the time
Maybe I’m afraid of the way I’ll leave you
Baby, I’m amazed at the way you fool me all the time
You hung me on a line
Baby, I’m amazed at the way I really need you

Baby, I’m a man, oh baby,
I’m a lonely man who’s in the middle of something
That he doesn’t really understand
Baby, I’m a man, oh baby,
You’re the only woman that could ever help me
Baby, won’t you try to understand

Baby, I’m a man, oh baby,
I’m a lonely man who’s in the middle of something
That he does not really understand
Baby, I’m a man, oh baby,
You’re the only one that could ever help me
Baby, won’t you try to understand

Baby, I’m amazed at the way you’re with me all the time
Baby, I’m afraid of the way I’ll leave ya’
Baby, I’m amazed at the way you help me sing the song
You right me when I’m wrong
Baby I’m amazed at the way I really need you

Baby, I’m a man, oh baby,
I’m a lonely man who’s in the middle of something
That he does not really understand
Baby, I’m a man, oh baby,
You’re the only woman that could ever help me
Baby, won’t you try to understand

Izzy Stradlin And The Ju Ju Hounds – Shuffle It All

I loved this song when it was released. I saw the video before I heard it on the radio. I knew two of the members straight off the bat. Izzy Stradlin was a founding member of Guns N Roses. The other guy I knew was Rick Richards of Georgia Satellites on lead guitar. To round out the band, Jimmy Ashhurst of Broken Homes on bass, and Charlie Quintana on drums.

To my surprise…on the organ was former Faces/Small Faces member Ian McLagan. Ron Wood also played on the album. Another surprise was super session man Nicky Hopkins. Izzy had some big guns playing with him.

Stradlin quit Guns ‘N Roses in 1991 during their hottest period. He moved back to his Indiana town Lafayette and put this band together and wrote the material. The song has a very Stonesy Keith Richards feel to it.

I was surprised, to be honest…I’ve never been a fan of lead singer Axl Rose. I liked Stradlin’s voice much more. I’ve always been a fan of voices that are a little out of the norm. This album was released within a few months of the Black Crowes The Southern Harmony & Musical Companion so the airwaves were full of rootsy blues rock and roll.

The album was self-titled Izzy Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds released in 1992…wow has it been that long? The album peaked at #102 on the Billboard Album Charts. They did a huge tour into September of 1993.

Izzy has made 10 solo albums and also two more EP’s with the JuJu Hounds. He refused to rejoin Guns N’Roses in 2016 because they refused to cut the money evenly. He also played with former bandmate Slash in Velvet Revolver.

On quitting Guns N’ Roses he said some of it was due to Axl Rose’s chronic lateness and him being a diva. He was then offered a contract. “This is right before I left – demoting me to some lower position. They were gonna cut my percentage of royalties down. I was like, ‘Fuck you! I’ve been there from Day One. Why should I do that? Fuck you, I’ll go play the Whisky.’ That’s what happened. It was utterly insane.”

Shuffle It All

Boredom saturation
It’s a never ending clue
Isn’t just to fill the time
When there’s nothing else to do

She drove on out of New York
She had enough insane
And drivin’ just though Texas two days
She ended up in L.A.

Shuffle it all
Shuffle it all, yeah
Shuffle it all
Pack up your life again

A pile of records spread out
The covers still look good
Picture here a Peter Tosh’s
startin’ down and a smokin’ wood

My dog dreaming is running
I see him twitch a paw
My woman playing Dr. Mario
On the TV all night long

Just another cigarette
Staring at the moon, yeah
Then I’m headin’ off to bed
Sleepin’ without you, yeah

Shuffle it all
Shuffle it all, yeah
Pack up your bags again

It’s a long and winding road
Sure enjoy the view, yeah
If you want to see it
Just slow down
You’re so welcome to come along

Lookin’ for a tune to play
I’m gonna see it again
When the day is over
Try to write you ’bout the rain

Feel the motors winding on
There ain’t no news
If you see those old friends out there
Tell them that I send my love

Wake up, time to leave again
Try to find my shoes
Put the luggage in the van
Roll up your Doctor Dolittle

Shuffle it all
Shuffle it all, yeah
Shuffle it all
Pack up your things again
Shuffle it all (Keep movin’ along)
Shuffle it all (Keep movin’ along)
Shuffle it all (Keep movin’ along)
Pack up your life again

Keep on shufflin’

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.

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

Small Faces – Lazy Sunday

The Small Faces were indeed small… all of them were between 5’4″ and 5’6.” They would later grow when the taller Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood joined and they became the Faces.

Lazy Sunday came off the classic album Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake. The Small Faces didn’t intend to release this song. Steve Marriott was against his manager Andrew Loog Oldham’s decision to release this as a single and that was one reason why he left the group shortly afterward to be replaced by Stewart. The band didn’t take the song seriously and made it into a joke. Steve sang some of the voices with a cockney accent.

They were touring Germany and they picked up a music paper and saw it was not only released but a hit. Steve wanted a tougher image for the band, and this was more of a novelty pop song.

This song is not a good example, but Steve Marriott may have had the best voice of all his peers. Robert Plant and Paul Rodgers have cited Marriott as an influence. Personally, I would take him over those two and that is saying a lot.

The Small Faces also recorded this critically acclaimed concept psychedelic album in 1968 with their new record company Immediate Records. They never followed it up and only performed it once live in its entirety on a television show called Colour Me Pop. It spent 6 weeks at number one on the UK Album Charts.

Lazy Sunday peaked at #2 in the UK, #42 in Canada, and #114 in the Billboard 100.

This song was written by Steve Marriott. Marriott and Ronnie Lane did most of the writing. Their songs were clever and catchy. This band should have been bigger than they were… With the right record label, manager and push, they might have broken through.

Kenney Jones: “Steve had been a child actor, he was the first Artful Dodger in Lionel Bart’s Oliver in the West End. He brought back that theatricality to this.”

Ian McLagan: “When Steve came in with this it was slower. We started taking the piss out of it while he was out of the room. The ‘Root-ti-doo-ti-di-day’ thing stop and he laughed when he came back in and heard us. So we cut it like that. It was a piss take!”

Lazy Sunday

A-wouldn’t it be nice to get on with me neighbours?
But they make it very clear, yhey’ve got no room for ravers
They stop me from groovin’, they bang on me wall
They doing me crust in, it’s no good at all, ah
Lazy Sunday afternoon
I’ve got no mind to worry
I close my eyes and drift away-a
Here we all are sittin’ in a rainbow
Gor blimey, hello Mrs. Jones, how’s old Bert’s lumbago? (he mustn’t grumble)
(Tweedle-dee) I’ll sing you a song with no words and no tune (twiddly-dee)
To sing in the khazi while you suss out the moon, oh yeah
Lazy Sunday afternoon, I’ve got no mind to worry
Close my eyes and drift away-a

Root-de-doo-de-doo, a-root-de-doot-de-doy-di
A-root-de-doot-de-dum, a-ree-de-dee-de-doo-dee (doo-doo, doo-doo)
There’s no one to hear me, there’s nothing to say
And no one can stop me from feeling this way, yeah
Lazy Sunday afternoon
I’ve got no mind to worry
Close my eyes and drift away
Lazy Sunday afternoon
I’ve got no mind to worry
Close my eyes and drift a-
Close my mind and drift away, close my eyes and drift away

Small Faces – All Or Nothing

The Small Faces were very popular in the UK in the 1960s. Because of management they never toured in America. Their best-known songs are Itchycoo Park and Lazy Sunday in America but had many hits in the UK.

All or Nothing was written by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane. The song peaked at #1 in the UK in 1966.

The Small Faces would splinter in 1969 and Steve Marriott would start Humble Pie with Peter Frampton. The Small Faces would welcome Ron Wood and Rod Stewart and become the Faces…Kenney Jones would later replace Keith Moon in the Who.

It was said to be written either about Marriott’s break up with his with ex-fiancée Sue Oliver, or for his first wife who once dated Rod Stewart. It is possible that both these explanations may be true…somehow.

Drummer Kenney Jones: “It was us getting to where we wanted to be musically. It wasn’t as poppy as our previous hits, but still commercial enough and better than anything we’d done before.”

Steve Marriott in 1984: “I think ‘All Or Nothing’ takes a lot of beating. To me, if there’s a song that typifies that era, then that might be it.”

From Songfacts

Not to be confused with a later song of the same title, “All Or Nothing” was recorded by the Small Faces in 1966. In his 2004 autobiography Mr Big, their manager at the time, Don Arden, said this was “top-drawer…[and] still gets played on the radio today”. Arden produced the record. Co-written by guitarist Steve Marriott and bass player Ronnie Lane, it was backed by “Understanding” and was written

For Marriott it was very much all or nothing; he married three times and appears to have sired at least two children out of wedlock. He died in a fire in April 1991, apparently after lighting a cigarette in bed and falling asleep. Prior to his death, he had taken cocaine as well as Valium and alcohol.

Here are two quotes about the song from 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh.

Kenney Jones recalled to Uncut magazine: “We were on tour and staying in the Station Hotel, Leeds, when Steve suddenly run down the corridor screaming, ‘I’ve got it! I’ve just written our next hit!”‘

Jones based his opening drum fill on the intro of Wilson Pickett’s “In The Midnight Hour.”

All Or Nothing

I thought you’d listen to my reason
But now I see, you don’t hear a thing
Try to make you see, how it’s got to be

Yes it’s all, all or nothing
Yeah yeah, all or nothing
All or nothing, for me

Things could work out
Just like I want them to, yeah
If I could have
The other half of you, yeah
You know I would,
If I only could

Yes it’s yeah, all or nothing
Oh yeah, all or nothing
You’ll hear my children say,
All or nothing, for me

I didn’t tell you no lies
So don’t you sit there and cry girl
Yeah, all or nothing
Oh yeah, all or nothing
Oh yeah, all or nothing

Do you know what I mean
You got to, got to, go to keep on trying, yeah
All or nothing, mm yeah
All or nothing, to keep on working on to me
All or nothing for me, for me, for me

Come on children, yeah
All or nothing, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah
All or nothing, I kept on singing to myself
All or nothing, yeah for me, yeah

Ooh La La 1973

What a great song from The Faces. The song was written by Ronnie Lane and Ronnie Wood and sung by Wood. That is strange because The Faces had one of the best lead singers around at the time…Rod Stewart.

Stewart by this time was soaring as a solo artist and his interest in the Faces was waning. He claimed the song was not in his key to sing. He did do vocals for it then and Lane but Wood ended up singing the released version.

The Faces had one big hit…Stay With Me but this song is their greatest song to me. Rod Stewart finally covered the song in 1998 for a tribute to Ronnie Lane. Ronnie Lane did his own version with his band Slim Chance. Ronnie Wood also does it live in solo shows.

A song between Granddad and Son about the ways of love. The song never ages because the subject matter never changes and it is continually passed along. The song creates an atmosphere and Wood not known for his singing ability did a great job on this one.

The song was included in the 1998 film Rushmore and enjoyed renewed popularity.

It’s one of my favorite songs of all time. Just a beautiful melody and words.

Poor old granddad
I laughed at all his words
I thought he was a bitter man
He spoke of woman’s ways

They’ll trap you, then they use you
Before you even know
For love is blind and you’re far too kind
Don’t ever let it show

I wish that I knew what I know now
When I was younger
I wish that I knew what I know now
When I was stronger

The can can’s such a pretty show
They’ll steal your heart away
But backstage, back on earth again
The dressing rooms are gray

They come on strong and it ain’t too long
Before they make you feel a man
But love is blind and you soon will find
You’re just a boy again

When you want her lips, you get a cheek
Makes you wonder where you are
If you want some more and she’s fast asleep
Then she’s twinkling with the stars

Poor young grandson, there’s nothing I can say
You’ll have to learn, just like me
And that’s the hardest way
Ooh la la, ooh la la la yeh

I wish that I knew what I know now
When I was younger
I wish that I knew what I know now
When I was stronger