Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #175 - 151

Welcome back to Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500, in which I count my personal fave psych songs from 500 all the way down to #1! Today, let's see what's discovering the meaning of life in a blade of grass from 175 to 151...

175. The Incredible String Band- "You Get Brighter" (1968), in which The Incredible String Band create such a light and joyful psych-folk confection that even atheists get wrapped up in their chants of "Krishna!"

Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #200 - 176

 Welcome back to Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500, in which I count my personal fave psych songs from 500 all the way down to #1! Today, let's see what's 2000 light years from home from 200 to 176...

200. The Beatles- "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" (1967), in which John Lennon takes full advantage of all the grey areas in circus-poster copyright law.

Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #225 - 201

Welcome back to Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500, in which I count my personal fave psych songs from 500 all the way down to #1! Today, let's see what's bogarting that joint from 225 to 201...

225. The Pretty Things- "Private Sorrow" (1968), in which S.F. Sorrow is drafted into the army and kicks off an adulthood of non-stop trauma.

Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #325 - 301

 Welcome back to Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500, in which I count my personal fave psych songs from 500 all the way down to #1! Today, let's see what's smoking a number from 325 to 301...

325. Os Mutantes- "Adeus Maria Fulô" (1968), in which Os Mutantes give the clearest possible response to the question, "Wait...so what exactly is Tropicália?"

Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #450 - 426

Welcome back to Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500, in which I count my personal fave psych songs from 500 all the way down to #1! Today, let's see what's being beautiful from 450 to 426...

450. The Byrds- "Old John Robinson" (1968). in which The Byrds take a sort of old-fashioned folk tune and bring it up to date with a baroque string interlude and mega-phasing.

Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500: #475 - 451

Welcome back to Psychobabble's Psychedelic 500, in which I count my personal fave psych songs from 500 all the way down to #1! Today, let's see what's freaking out from 475 to 451...

475. The Association- "Pandora's Golden Heebie Jeebies" (1966), in which you refuse to listen to today's song because The Association is the band that did the wretchedly sappy "Cherish" and because it's called "Pandora's Golden Heebie Jeebies", and I shout, "You're the one who's missing out!" just as you turn the corner and disappear from view forever.

Review: 'A New Day Yesterday: UK Progressive Rock & the 1970s'

Prog rock was never exactly cool, but you can’t say no one liked it. Contemporary critics tended to mock it and sighed sighs of relief when punk blew in at the end of the seventies, but punk did not sell like prog did. Even my square-as-a-chessboard dad bought a copy of Aqualung because that’s what everyone else was doing in 1971.

Decades removed from questions of “what the hell was with Topographic Oceans?”, its now generally okay to just like what you like, especially if it’s pretty geeky. Though prog was never really all about Tolkien and complex mathematical theorems as the naysayers would have you believe, it was still pretty geeky.

What I’m trying to say in my confused, convoluted, proggy way is that the time is now right for a deep plunge into prog to both determine what it is and celebrate it. That’s what Mike Barnes does with his new book A New Day Yesterday: UK Progressive Rock & the 1970s. The UK designation in that title is fairly pointless since prog is such a distinctly British phenomenon (Rush being one exception, as well as a band that does not get so much as a single name-drop in this book. The author does cede precisely 1% of his book to a discussion of German prog bands, though).

Review: The Fox's 'For Fox Sake'

Had the breaks been a little better, The Fox might now be spoken of in the same breath as Small Faces, The Creation, The Move, The Action, Traffic, and the other mod and/or psych bands they resemble. Alas, the Brighton quintet only made one album, because as frontman Steve Brayne relates in the liner notes of a vinyl reissue of the For Fox Sake LP, their management “poached” Black Sabbath and decided to put all of its eggs in that gloomy basket. Timing might have something to do with The Fox’s failure since their mid-sixties sound was so out of step the times when they released their one and only LP in 1970.

Review: 'Humble Pie: Life & Times of Steve Marriott + 1973 Complete Winterland Show'

There’s never been a singer quite like Steve Marriott, with his banshee cry streaking out of his elfin frame. He was one of the very few British soul shouters who never seemed to force the energy, never seemed to be doing a parody of authentic, African-American singers (sorry, Mick). Monumentally talented yet still underrated, particularly outside of his home country, Marriott is certainly worthy of more attention. Setting that issue straight seems to be the goal of Gary Katz’s goal when putting together Humble Pie: Life & Times of Steve Marriott. However, as that title suggests, the storytelling is a bit lop-sided, with little attention paid to Marriott’s most vital years as a Small Face and most of the documentary focusing on his seventies work as a member of Humble Pie.

Since Humble Pie was produced in the late nineties, it was shot on full-frame video. That video presentation means its new Blu-ray presentation does nothing for its images, but audio is an improvement over the included DVD in this Blu-ray/DVD/CD set. The decision to fill the screen’s margins with distracting visual noise was a bad one, though.

The documentary itself offers plenty of opportunities to hear Steve wail, though its abundant performance footage leaves the talking heads (Humble Pie members Peter Frampton, Jerry Shirley and Clem Clempson, friends Chris Farlowe and Spencer Davis, fans Chris Robinson and Kevin Dubrow, two of his ex-wives, etc.) to take a back seat and deprives the doc of a complete picture of the man. Fortunately, an hour of bonus interview footage fleshes out Marriott to a certain degree with personal stories from many of the main movie’s participants. Still, the most enticing bonus of this set is that CD capturing a ferocious Humble Pie set from Winterland in 1973.

Review: Small Faces' 'The Decca Years 1966-1967'

Small Faces’ Decca catalogue has been reissued and reissued and reissued, but that situation seemed like it had come to an end in 2012 with the release of double-disc deluxe editions of the band’s two official Decca albums remastered on CD from the original master tapes for the first time. Not so. Three years later, Decca and Universal are bringing out Small Faces and From the Beginning and their numerous bonus tracks yet again as part of a five-disc box set called The Decca Years 1966-1967.

Just to save the faithful some time, I will be up front about the question on all of your modishly mop-topped minds: these masters of Small Faces and From the Beginning, as well as all their bonus tracks, sound identical to the 2012 ones to my ears. Yes, they still sound fabulous… if a bit loud, though Rob Caiger assures us in his liner notes that the loudness is all due to the band’s tendency to crank it up in the studio and not remastering engineer Nick Robbins’s heavy hand. However, if you’re happy with your 2012 CDs and aren’t overly desirous of cool packaging and a few recently unearthed radio sessions, then this might not be the box set for you. If you never dropped your pence on those previous deluxe editions, and you want to grab all of Small Faces electrifying Decca recordings in one sweet package, then The Decca Years 1966-1967 is the ideal way to do it.

Augmenting Small Faces and From the Beginning, which are both on their own discs, is a disc of all the bonus tracks from the 2012 deluxe discs (the only deletions are eight fake stereo tracks, the absence of which won’t exactly cause purists to weep), a Greatest Hits disc that collects essential tracks from the two albums with all the single A and B sides missing from them (this box’s tendency to repeat tracks is one notable flaw… the original versions of “Sha La La La Lee” and “What’Cha Gonna Do About It” each appear three times!), and a disc of BBC sessions. Perhaps it was the discovery of four tracks recorded for the “Joe Loss Pop Show” that were not included on 2000’s The BBC Sessions that justified this box set, but these are the roughest sounding recordings on the set (on the up side, they include the groovy instrumental “Comin’ Home Baby” unavailable in any version elsewhere on The Decca Years).

Unlike Rhino’s recent Faces box set, which sounds great but suffers from chintzy packaging, all attention to detail has been paid to Mac, Kenney, and Plonk’s early work. The Decca Years arrives in a high quality, though not-oversized, box with four over-sized, full-color postcards you’d be a dope to post. Each disc is housed in a mini-LP sleeve about the quality of the ones in the Faces box. There’s a great 74-page booklet full of color photos, essays, and profiles of each band member, their two Decca records, and their biggest hit songs for the label. So despite redundancy issues that may prevent you from wanting to spin the whole thing in one sitting, The Decca Years 1966-1967 is still a fab re-packaging of some of the best hard soul and rock & roll of the sixties… and if there’s one thing a bunch of mods should appreciate, it’s a slick package.

Review: 'Small Faces' and 'From the Beginning' Reissues

Universal Music last remastered and reissued Small Faces’ first two albums in 2012 as double-disc deluxe editions in conjunction with Sanctuary Records. Remastered from second-generation tapes, the discs sounded really good and you can read my original review here to also get my assessment of the music (spoiler alert: it’s great). Shortly after the release of these discs, UMe and Sanctuary parted ways, which may account for why UMe is currently mounting a whole new SF reissue campaign, although those old deluxe editions are still in print. The gem of this latest campaign will apparently be The Decca Years, a five-disc CD box coming next month that was “remastered from the original analogue sources,” according to the official copy. However, the campaign began late last month with 180 gram vinyl reissues of Small Faces and From the Beginning. I received CD review copies to examine, and after A/B-ing them against the 2012 deluxe editions, I can’t really discern any significant mastering differences. So I guess the big draw of these initial reissues is that they’re on vinyl. As I said, the mastering sounds really good, but I’d hesitate to purchase these new discs if you already own the bonus track-laden 2012 deluxes and you’re primarily looking for a significant mastering upgrade. Presumably, these review discs contain the same masters that will be included on The Decca Years. I’m going to try to get my hands on a review copy of that box set to confirm whether or not it features any significant sound upgrade from the 2012 editions. Stay tuned…

Review: 'Boof! The Complete Pussy Cat: 1966-1969'

France’s Yé-Yé girls were known for singing—or often speak-singing—coquettish or girlish lollipop pop and looking cute. Pussy Cat would have none of that. Her stage name was the only cutesy pie thing about Évelyne Courtois, a serious rocker who sang and played guitar in France’s first all-female band, Les Petites Souris, and later drummed in Les Pussy Cat. Moving outside of that band while taking along its name for herself, Pussy Cat performed tough-ass, modish rock and pop, appropriately debuting with a version of “Sha La La La Lee” (“Ce N’Est Pas Une Vie”) that doesn’t hold back any of Small Faces’ bottom-heavy bash. Her attitudinal singing has none of Bardot’s disaffected meow. Stand back when her rage boils over on an electrifying cover of Betty Everett’s “You’re No Good” (“Mais Pourquoi…”).

Having also cut tracks by and popularized by The Hollies, The Moody Blues, Paul Revere and the Raiders, The Ballroom, and Herman’s Hermits (okay…she does have her odd cutesy moment), Pussy Cat eventually distinguished herself as a good songwriter in her own right in the late sixties, though by that point she’d shed a lot of her Rock & Roll hellfire and went in more of an emotive ballad direction. Nevertheless, her rock and pop roots were still very detectable, as when she stole a bit of The Ronettes’ “Walking in the Rain” for “Cette Nuit” or did a pretty good version of The Zombies’ “She’s Not There”.

RPM Records’ Boof! The Complete Pussy Cat: 1966-1969 collects all of Pussy Cat’s sides for her first anthology released outside of France. A couple of unreleased cuts and four Les Petites Souris sides that reveal Courtois had been penning her own material as early as 1965 complete a revelatory portrait of one of France’s most legit rockers.

Farewell, Ian McLagan

He pounded the keys with some of the best British bands in Rock & Roll history. Ian McLagan's career began when he replaced original Small Face Jimmy Winston, and continued barreling ahead when that band lost its "Small" and gained Rod Stewart. His bluesy yet joyful playing also gave a boost to Rod's excellent early solo albums. After Faces broke up and guitarist Ronnie Wood joined The Rolling Stones, Ian could often be found doing what he did best on stage (and on occasion in the studio) with the biggest Rock & Roll band in the world, even if he was doing his work outside the spotlight.

McLagan's story doesn't end with his four highest profile gigs. Dylan, Springsteen, Chuck Berry, Nick Lowe, and Frank Black are a few of the other incredible artists who've benefited from Ian McLagan's assistance. So did the former Kim Moon when she fled an unstable and dangerous home life with Keith Moon and found a calmer one with a guy who played in some of Rock's wildest acts.

Of course, we should not mistakenly cast Ian as some sort of perpetual sideman. He also had a long-running solo career since 1979's Troublemaker, right up to United States released just this past.

Tragically, Kim McLagan died in a car accident in 2006. Eight years later, Ian has followed her at the age of 69 after suffering a fatal stroke. We fans can still find a lot of joy in the amazing work he left behind, such as the intro of "Too Bad". Damn!

Psychobabble’s 90 Favorite Songs of the Sixties!

Well, Psychobabblers, today is a banner day for Psychobabble as I cross the threshold of 900 fun-filled posts (amazing to think that the quadruple digits are not that far away!). To mark this milestone, I’m knocking a zero off that 900 to present my personal 90 favorite songs of my favorite musical decade, the sixties. Read carefully now, kiddies: these choices are personal and this is not in anyway intended as some sort of definitive “these are the best songs of the sixties” list. No one person can select such a list. The personal nature will really become apparent in the top twenty, which is seriously dominated by my all-time favorite band, a 17-headed beast I like to call The Beatlestoneskinkswho.

So here it is from my keyboard to your eyes and ears… my 900^th post... 

90. “All Our Yesterdays” by Small Faces

And now, for your delight, we begin with a good-time song with an exhilarating introductory shout, a wild knees up from the darlings of Whapping Warf launderette that comes in just under two minutes. Think of “All Our Yesterdays” as an hors d'oeuvre for all the psych/garage/soul mania to follow.

89. “Reflections” by The Supremes

Here’s a hit that bridges the soul and psych gap with pulsing genius. Motown gets with the times for a lysergic peak through the window of lost time. Diana Ross breaks her cool with a touch of desperation on the ever-escalating bridge and James Jamerson pumps out one of the all-time bass lines of all-time.

88. “Alone Again, Or” by Love

Some Updates on That Small Faces Box and Other SF News for 2013

A regular Psychobabble reader by the name of Pete recently asked me if there are any updates on that long-gestating Small Faces box set we were hoping might see a late 2012 release. Well, Pete, you inspired me to do a little research, and a little research was all it took to bring up a message recently posted on Mick Taylor's Small Faces facebook page (not that Mick Taylor, of course). The message, which I read second-hand on the Steve Hoffman forum (posted this past November 14), apparently came from reissue producer Rob Caiger, who informed Mick that the box is still in the works and he's "still recovering tapes" (!). Disc One is to "cover all the Immediate worldwide singles A, B's, and EP's" and Disc Five will feature alternate takes and live recordings.  The set will also include a hardback book, "red, white and blue coloured vinyl, facsimile 'Mystery' acetate, a facsimile Ogdens’ press kit, poster, art prints, postcards." No word yet on what Discs Two through Four have in store, nor is there a release date. 

If this message is legit, then the set definitely sounds like a work in progress, so let's be patient and allow the team to give us the very best and most comprehensive Small Faces set imaginable. In the meantime, there will be special vinyl releases for this coming Record Store Day as well as a double-disc reissue of The Autumn Stone, which will also appear on 180g vinyl. Here come the nice, indeed!

Review: Deluxe Edition of Small Faces' 'Ogden's Nut Gone Flake'

Small Faces had really hit their stride by 1968. They'd moved from Decca to Andrew Oldham's more sympathetic indie Immediate. They'd finally cracked the U.S. top twenty with “Itchycoo Park”. Now they were poised to create their defining statement, which would distance them from their early bubblegummy hits and put them into serious competition with The Beatles, Stones, Who, and the rest. A conversation with Pete Townshend about his latest pet project inspired Small Faces to bin the covers of “Every Little Bit Hurts” and “Be My Baby” they'd recorded to pad out their next L.P. and spend some time crafting a narrative suite. Glued together with some inspired gibberish from double-speaker extraordinaire Stanley Unwin, the “Happiness Stan” suite would be Small Faces’ magnum opus and Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake their most convincing bid for major artistdom.

What set the album apart from the similar psychedelicized concept albums of the time are its unflagging humor, complete lack of pretentions, and fidelity to the hard R&B and R&R that was Small Faces’ specialty. Ogden’s was a smash sensation in the U.K. and a particularly well-loved album in a year crowded with such well-loved items as “The White Album”, Beggars Banquet, Electric Ladyland, Music from Big Pink, and Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Everyone was gaga over the novelty round cover done up to look like a tobacco tin too. Too bad that Small Faces’ most sweeping triumph also signaled their end.

Ever unsettled and hardly placated by Ogden’s’s success, Steve Marriott insisted on bringing Peter Frampton into the band to give it a fresh boost. When the other guys resisted, Steve and Pete went off to form Humble Pie. The remaining Small Faces hooked up with Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood and ceased to be Small. With a recording career that lasted a scant four years and three official albums, Small Faces had ceased to be, leaving Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake as their defining statement.

Considering the album’s weighty rep, it’s appropriate that Charly Records has also given it the most elaborate treatment of any album in the recent Small Faces reissue campaign. Housed in a round box and expanded to three discs, Charly’s deluxe, limited edition Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake is a pretty impressive looking package. It would have been nice if the set was in an actual tin tin, but it's still a neat little container, if a little tight to uncover. Inside are a few variations on the original round artwork, photos, and band member profiles, which are collected in a lightweight foldout booklet and on individual, coaster-style discs. The hand numbering indicating your standing in the limited edition run of 5,000 is scrawled on the back of a reproduction of Mick Swan’s psychedelic artwork (I'm almost dead center at #2,455). Oh yeah, there are some CDs too.

As was the case with those previously released deluxe editions, the sound here is aces. The expansion, however, is a bit overinflated. We get the album presented in stereo and mono, each mix on its own disc and undiluted by bonus tracks. The bonuses are relegated to their own disc, which basically recreates the album’s original running order with alternate mixes that uncloak few revelations and some backing tracks. The most interesting things here are a mix of “Lazy Sunday” with more prominent acoustic guitar and electric piano that is probably the clearest stereo version I've heard, the backing track of a chunky alternate take of “Mad John”, and best of all, the backing track of “Happiness Stan”, which reveals a panorama of amazing textures, particularly the Prokofievian string pizzicatos and Kenney Jones’s titanic drumming. “Every Little Bit Hurts” (“Be My Baby” is apparently lost), the backing track of a funky raver called “Kamikhazi”, and what sounds like “Ogden's Nut Gone Flake” played backwards round out the disc.

As soon as this tracklisting hit the Internet, fans came out of their hidey-holes to start the inevitable griping orgy. If this is the last word in Small Faces remasters then where is “The Universal”? Where is the Ogden’s era b-side “Wham Bam Thank You Mam”? Where is “Donkey Rides a Penny a Glass”? Where are all the tracks (finished and unfinished) Small Faces cut for their aborted final album 1862? As the griping got heated, Tosh Flood (a project assistant on these reissues) took to the comments section of The Second Disc to ensure fans that all this and more would populate a four or five disc box set— without any overlap with these recent deluxe editions— sometime in the near future. So while Ogden's Nut Gone Flake brings an end to the Small Faces story, the Small Faces reissue-campaign story still has a few chapters to go.

Review: 'Small Faces' (Immediate) Deluxe Edition

When we last left Small Faces they were suffering ignominiously at the hands of a record label cobbling together an unrepresentative compilation and tossing it out just two weeks before the band's second proper album was due for release on their new label. Just as the Small Faces’ story shifted from Decca to Immediate back in 1967, it moves from UMe to Charly music today. The latter label is reissuing multi-disc deluxe editions of the Immediate albums Small Faces and Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake. The change in labels (both of the original and reissue variety) is most appropriate as Small Faces had become a very different band during the switch. The band could still whip up a mighty soul wallop, and Steve Marriott could still unleash his Stax howl to shred the shingles from the roof, but an acid infused Small Faces now made music of great delicacy too. Their second eponymous album is a more diverse affair than the first one, mixing soul, heavy Rock, British folk, baroque tinkling, calypso, rowdy knees-ups, and swirling psychedelia in equal proportions.

Charly presents this intricate music in a classier package than the UMe deluxes, stowing it in a high-quality digibook instead of the flimsier digi-pak foldouts that housed Small Faces (Decca) and From the Beginning. While all the material on those previous deluxes really could have fit on single-disc editions, there’s enough stuff on Charly’s Small Faces (Immediate) to warrant a double. We get the album in both its mono and stereo incarnations, as well as some of the group’s finest singles and radical alternate-mixes as bonuses. “Green Circles” is presented in four totally distinct iterations that sport diverging experiments with phasing and equalization, as well as unusual vocal arrangements. An alternate version of “Things are Going to Get Better” features some cheeky whistling, and a mono alternate of “(Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me” has super upfront lead vocals and a creepier blend on the bridge. You’ll have further fun spotting the differences between the standard mono and stereo mixes, particularly on the delightful hit “Itchycoo Park”. Fortunately, one avenue in which the Charly reissue copies the UMe ones is sound: the same remastering team worked on Small Faces (Immediate) and it sounds phenomenal. You’ll think Ronnie Lane is trapped in your speaker when he starts cooing “Something I Want to Tell You”.

Review: 'The A to Z of Mod'

Mod culture was defined by rigorous rules of style and musical tastes. Razor sharp mohair suits were donned for shimmying all night to the very latest Northern soul records while pilled to the clouds on bennies and dexys. Mod enthusiasts Paolo Hewitt and Mark Baxter realize Mod is a lot more elastic than that. In The A to Z of Mod, the writers both pay reverence to the strictures of the pioneer modernists and acknowledge how much the culture has changed throughout the ensuing decades. Archetypal Modernalia (A is for The Action! R is for “Ready, Steady, Go!” S is for The Scooter!) is filed amongst less typical entries (F is for Martin Freeman! G is for Glam and Pub Rock! Y is for The Young Disciples!). The A to Z of Mod redefines Modernism while remaining true to its essence by way of slick design. Published by Prestel, it’s a handy volume busting with fab full color photos and smashing pop art flourishes. Plus it’s compact enough to fit right in the pocket of your Parka.

Review: Deluxe Editions of ‘Small Faces’ and ‘From the Beginning’

Small Faces were the quintessential Mod band, one of England’s biggest hit makers of the ‘60s, and recent inductees into a certain turgid popularity club. Ample evidence that their wonderful recorded output should be ripe for double-disc deluxe editions, right? However, there are but four Small Faces albums, and they have been reissued and reissued and reissued since the dawn of the compact disc. But wait. Those myriad reissues have all shared one significant flaw: they’ve all been assembled from second-generation tapes. UMe’s new Small Faces deluxe campaign corrects this wrong, pulling their classic albums from the original masters. The sonic improvement will stop you in your tracks. I have Decca’s expanded edition of Small Faces from 2006, and I always thought it sounded pretty damn great. Playing it alongside UMe’s new edition reveals an anemic, overly trebly master. The UMe version sounds deep, dimensional, and very, very heavy.

Too Beautiful: Steve Marriott and the Rise of British Soul

It’s no huge stretch to suggest Rock & Roll may have died the death had it not been for British musicians. Following a period when many of the first wave of rockers were out of commission—jailed, drafted, or fiddling with born-again salvation—America had Roy Orbison, Dion, and The Beach Boys but few other new rockers of depth (and some might argue that The Beach Boys didn’t even acquire much depth until after the British Invasion). The years immediately preceding The Beatles’ arrival were pretty dire. Chuck Berry eventually managed a respectable return with “Nadine”, “No Particular Place to Go” and “You Never Can Tell” in 1963. Back from the army, Elvis still produced tremendous work on occasion, such as “His Latest Flame” or “Little Sister”, but his spark was largely gone. The charts were dominated by old-fashioned crooners and vapid teen idols: Shelley Fabares, Connie Francis, Bobby Rydell, Bobby Vinton, Neil Sedaka, Tommy Roe, Steve Lawrence, Bobby Vee. There was also a horrid trend of novelty acts like Ray Stevens and The Singing Nun. By far the most vital American music of the period was coming from the soul and R&B artists enjoying their initial successes on new labels like Tamla/Motown and Stax or with wunderkind producer Phil Spector. They had their share of massive hits—The Shirelles’ “Soldier Boy”, Booker T. & the MG’s “Green Onions”, The Crystals’ “He’s a Rebel”, The Contours’ “Do You Love Me”, The Drifters’ “Up on the Roof”, The Chiffon’s “He’s So Fine”, Martha and the Vandellas’ “Heat Wave”, The Impressions’ “It’s All Right” to name a few—but they had little affect on the pop singers marshalling together to make American radio as dreary and dull as possible.

In Great Britain, young musicians were listening intently to their more soulful neighbors. Americans tended to stereotype England as a tiny, quaint berg of manners and repression. Yet few American rockers of the period captured the spontaneity, excitement, and commitment of their R&B countrymen and countrywomen with the authenticity of the new wave of singers emerging in the U.K. Though none of them had anything on, say, Otis Redding or Wilson Pickett, they were still capable of delivering their own impressive brand of fierce rhythm and blues. These are the artists who most assuredly gave Rock & Roll its second life.

The mightiest British shouters of the bunch—Mick Jagger, Eric Burdon, Paul McCartney, Roger Daltrey, Reg King, Chris Farlowe, Steve Marriott—got their starts singing the American R&B of the period. Why this music resounded so thoroughly in the U.K. is a matter of debate. Class has often factored into the discussion, yet a zeal for American R&B flourished at the posh art colleges that churned out blues and R&B-influenced guitar legends Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend as powerfully as it did among cats like sheet-metal worker and James Brown-fanatic Roger Daltrey. Steve Marriott’s father owned a modest jellied eels stand and his mother was a factory worker. Whatever the cause, the results are beyond debate. The Beatles, The Stones, The Animals, The Who, The Yardbirds, and other groups of their ilk completely resuscitated Rock & Roll and continued to keep it vital as their less soulful peers—The Dave Clark Five, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Freddie and the Dreamers—fell by the wayside.

This new crop had its share of amazing singers, and the one to beat may have been one of the less successful and respected ones. Steve Marriott of Small Faces was more confident than Jagger, more skilled than Daltrey, less dependent on mimicry than McCartney, and possessed a wider range than Burdon, yet he and his band suffered a troubled reputation. They were major stars and chart regulars in the U.K., but were often dismissed as lightweights because some of their early material was deemed too poppy (not that “Love Me Do” or The Stones’ reading of Chuck Berry’s “Come On” were any weightier than “Sha La La La Lee”). Small Faces were branded teeny-bop pop early on, and the tag dogged them despite the tremendous power they always displayed throughout their brief career. The band’s eponymous debut album is only rivaled by The Who’s My Generation in terms of noisy excitement. To exacerbate matters, their indifference to touring the U.S.—and Ian McLagen’s international-travel-stifling drug bust— meant they didn’t make much impact in that essential market. Only the psychedelic “Itchycoo Park” cracked the U.S. top twenty.

None of this diminishes the case that Steve Marriott was England’s rawest, most effortless R&B singer. He was not an imitator like Paul McCartney, a technically superb and exhilarating singer who borrowed liberally from Little Richard, Fats Domino, Wilson Pickett, and others. He required no adjustment period as that other great mimic, Mick Jagger (his voice was fairly weedy until “Satisfaction”), did. From the very first Small Faces record, the Solomon Burke rip “Whatcha Gonna Do About It”, Marriott was in top form, tearing his larynx in two and still game to keep doing it all night. He sang in naturally, even allowing his Cockney to emerge whenever his voice descended from the hysteria stratosphere. As the band began experimenting with lighter forms of music during the psychedelic era, Marriott was always quick to remind listeners of what a stunning R&B shouter he was. “Itchycoo Park” climaxes in raging wails of its hippie refrain that might have been laughable if sung by anyone else. “IT’S ALL TOO BEAUTIFUL!” Marriott howled. The psych concept album Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake levels many of its peers because it motors on the R&B power. Marriott brings as much force to “Afterglow”, “Song of a Baker”, “Rollin’ Over”, and others as he had to the cover of “Shake” (Sam Cooke by way of Otis) that opened the first Small Faces album. The fiercest, most R&B moment on The Stones’ own psychedelic opus, Their Satanic Majesties Request, comes not from Jagger but from Marriott’s guest cameo on the Bill Wyman-composed “In Another Land” (“THEN I AWOKE!”).

The critics could say what they will about Small Faces being bubblegummers. The band’s fellow rockers knew the score. In 1968, Jimmy Page considered Marriott (along with another great, underrated British R&B singer, Terry Reid) as frontman for his new band, Led Zeppelin. Today that bubblegum reputation has largely evaporated, though Small Faces are still relegated to cult-band status in the U.S. That may be so, but make no mistake, when it comes to shouting and raving, when it comes to going toe-to-toe with the great American R&B singers that inspired the single most important Rock & Roll movement of the ‘60s, Steve Marriott still stands in a class of his own.

Steve Marriott was born 65 years ago today.