HERE COME THE NICE!

RECENTLY, Kenney Jones has recently been digging through his personal archive. He has been searching for Small Faces songs he stored away as a young man, just hours after they were recorded, but which have since languished in obscurity. “Every time we recorded something, I always asked for a reel-to-reel copy to take home,” the sole surviving Small Face explains. “So I’ve got backing tracks, rough mixes and unmixed tracks, among other things.”

Some of these, he acknowledges, will finally see the light of day on an expanded boxset of their compilation album, The Autumn Stone. Originally released in 1969, The Autumn Stone capped the Small Faces’ brief but magnificent recording career. Although together for less than four years, the Small Faces’ mastered R&B, psychedelia, Essex folk-rock reveries and blissed-out spiritual ballads – high-water marks of ’60s pop. To celebrate The Autumn Stone boxset, Uncut has convened a panel of the band’s friends and labelmates to join Jones in considering 20 of their greatest songs. These include former Humble Pie man Peter Frampton, erstwhile Immediate Records manager Andrew Loog Oldham, US soul singer PP Arnold and Brit R&B singer Chris Farlowe, along with rock photographer Gered Mankowitz, Jerry Shirley – a teenage signing to Oldham’s Immediate label who became Steve Marriott’s Humble Pie drummer – and Lyn Dobson, session man for the Small Faces and folk-rock loyalty such as Nick Drake. They all have fond stories to tell about the mod scamps – and all concur that the Small Faces had the songs and the singer to take on the world.

“Steve had two sides,” says engineer Alan O’Duffy. “One was the cockney, happy stage man who’d played the Artful Dodger. The other was a black soul singer. When he worked with PP Arnold, she was like the ambition of Steve’s heart, in musical terms.” Arnold herself is keen that he’s properly remembered: “So long as I’m alive, I’m going to keep Steve’s vibe alive.”

Along with keyboardist Ian McLagan and bassist Ronnie Lane, all four Small Faces’ work is recalled here with equal affection