“Sha-La-La-La-Lee” / “Grow Your Own” (Decca F. 12317) January 1966
The Small Faces | Sha-La-La-La-Lee | (Decca) 1966 | A happy-go-lucky medium-pacer in the R&B style. Written by Kenny Lynch and Mort Shuman but (sorry, fellas!) very similar to several discs we’ve heard before.
You know the sort of thing – the leader solos and, at the end of each line, everyone joins in the catchy riff title phrase. But that doesn’t stop it being an enjoyable disc, which you feel compelled to join in. Specially as the Faces are so enthusiastic in their work!
Flip: Organ takes the lead in this rave-up blues instrumental with twangs galore. (NME, 28/01/66)
The Small Faces sing a Kenny Lynch – Mort Shuman number “Sha-La-La-La-Lee” (Decca). Rather Manfredyand a lot more tuneful than past efforts. (Disc Weekly, 29/01/66)
A powerful new disc from the Small Faces here, written by Kenny Lynch and Mort Shuman. A simple, but catchy number with some wailing vocal from Steve Marriott. A little more instrumental work could have varied the focal points of this record but nevertheless it should crash the Faces very high in the chart. (Melody Maker, 29/01/66)
Much better than their last, this is the Faces in bluesily-trending mood, with Steve Marriott singing very well, though remotely forced in some ways. Song is a building with a conspicuous beat and a good overall sound. Certainly of strong hit potential. And very exciting later on.
Flip is similar but with accent on organ and purely instrumental. Same beat, though. Same drive. (Record Mirror, 29/01/66)
Small Faces get hung-up – on sounds
THE word is out—the Small Faces, are “selling out”. “They’ve gone commercial,” cry distraught girls as they listen to singer Steve Marriott wailing “Sha-La-La-La-Lee”.
Yet if you have seen the boys recently it is quite obvious they have not “sold out”. On the contrary they have “sussed” the scene out.
“We’ve sussed it all out,” Stevie said. “We’ve gotta make some bread. The whole point in recording a commercial record is to try and get our name really established. If we can score two or three big hits, then we’ll start making the kind of records we want to.”
Steve was worried that he’d created the wrong impression: “It’s not that I don’t dig the group. I’m thoroughly involved — and pleased—with what we do on stage, but on record we have to conform. They’re two different scenes.”
“I know that some people don’t like our discs after seeing the stage act,” said bass guitarist Plonk Lane, “others like the records but think that the stage act is too loud and that.
“We want to get the full force of our stage numbers on record,” explained Steve. “Mind you, it’ll be further out than our present stuff-I’ve written a lot of things, and a certain Mr. Townshend, of a group whose name I won’t mention, is bringing some demo records round in a few weeks,” laughed Steve.
The Face’s newest member Ian “Mac” McLagan cornered the conversation: “Well I mean, if you get saxes into the group it’s death, death, death! I wanted to get an electric piano to sit on my organ but the only really suitable model was out of production.
“For the record we double-tracked this old upright that was sitting in the studio—it’s a very electric piano sound actually. We dig the Booker T. sounds, but we fill out some of those bad brass solos with our own weird sounds.”
“Sometimes we get hung up on a sound for hours,” muttered Plonk, “actually it’s a very bad scene that we have to watch carefully. We might hit on a riff that really jumps. We like the sound and stick to it. Then as it goes on we play subtle variations round the main riff. I can understand that some people get bored ‘cos they don’t dig the changes.
“I get hooked on a part like this and end up playing for myself.”
“It’s the worst thing,” said Mac, “you’ve got to play for the audience and not yourself. It’s something that the Small Faces have trouble with, especially as we do sort of free form numbers with completely improvised middle sections.”
“When Mac first joined us,” said Marriott, “we were so knocked out with the way he played organ that we just stood about on stage and dug it. We stuck him at the front of the stage and watched him go. Now we’ve got it under control and use him as a carpet.”
Said Mac: “What he means is that I’m a bass sound underneath the guitar, bass, and drums, keeping a steady rhythm and melody so that the vocal, bass and guitar, can loon about on top.”
“At present we only do this free form stuff on stage and sometimes on our B-sides of records,” said Steve, “I know “Sha-La-La-La-Lee” is a long haul from it, but one day we hope to be doing right weird, far-out stuff.” (Melody Maker, 12/02/66)
Small talk with the Small Faces
AT last, total acceptance for a journalist. Next week, I join the ranks of those show biz types who have had songs dedicated to them. The name of Richard Green will be added to the role of honour alongside Tony Hall, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, the Beatles and Jim Reeves.
And it’s all due to the Small Faces, bless ’em. Out of the goodness of their hearts they have decided that among the tracks on their forthcoming LP shall be one titled “Drinking Green”. I can’t quite see the connection, though.
There was a very strong smell of asthma cure in their dressing room when I went in and through the fumes I could just make out the figure of Steve Marriott sitting on the back of a chair playing a guitar.
“I got it for ten quid in Sound City this morning,” he said. “It was just laying there, so I had to get it. I don’t know what I’ll do with it.”
GREATEST GUITARIST
Steve was playing bottleneck style, but he emphatically denied that that was his particular method of playing. “Jeff Beck is the greatest bottleneck guitarist in the country, but I don’t want to play like that,” said Steve. “I dig Steve Cropper, Booker T’s guitarist. I was never taught, I just listened to Booker T records. He’s God to me. Have you heard ‘Red Beans And Rice’? It’s great. The drummer’s got touch tighter than he was. Steve Cropper makes that group,” he opined. We will do a Booker T number on the LP. We have written a lot of our own numbers, but we won’t do them on stage because they want vocals. They don’t dig instrumentals.
“I’d like to play Instrumentals all the time, but I don’t like singing when I’m playing. We’re starting on the LP next week, it should he out in a month or so.
Steve answered a knock on the door and called out: “Plonk! Sign this young lady’s autograph book,”
LAUGH SECRETLY
“Oh, what a drag,” commented Mr, Plonk. He seems to have a permanent puzzled smile on his lips.
Steve and Plonk frequently use the word “nice” in their conversation, I noticed. “This sounds nice” —”she’s nice”—”Lulu’s record’s nice” and so on. It seems to be an “In” word with them. They often make little cracks about things and laugh secretly. If that’s what they’re like in public, goodness knows what goes on in the seclusion of their house in North London where they all live together. Must be a sort of Mods’ satirical palace.
Plonk wondered aloud if the group could use castanets on one of their records. Steve told him: “Has Andrew Oldham? He will if you mention it to him. I dig Sonny Bono‘s productions, they’re nice. He’s better than Spector and I think Andrew Oldham thinks so too. That’s why he had to slate him.”
Rummaging through a drawer, someone produced a copy of “The People” from last September. On one of the pages was a headline: “The Menace At Your Local”. One of the “menaces” was given as “plonk addicts”.
I called Plonk over and showed him the feature.
“What the Hell’s plonk’?” he demanded. “It’s what? Beer and red wine? What a nickname I’ve got. OH, no! I didn’t know that’s what it meant. No one told me. We’ll do a track called ‘Drinking Green’ on the LP about you for that.”
Ah well, that’s one way of gaining fame, I suppose. (Record Mirror, 26/02/66)
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