Rhino Factoids: Small No More – The Faces Introduce Rod Stewart to the Fold

47 years ago today, the former Small Faces released their first full-length album with Rod Stewart fronting the band.

When Stewart entered London’s De Lane Lea Studios with Ronnie Lane, Ronnie Wood, Ian McLagan, and Kenney Jones to record the album that would officially introduce Faces to the world, they did so in what some have argued was a bit too much of a hurry. Granted, the desire to start fresh was a strong one, so it’s easy to understand why they did it, but there’s some question as to how much better the resulting album, FIRST STEP, might have sounded if they’d given their new lineup a bit more time to simmer.

Still, with an album cover that finds Wood holding a copy of First Step: How to Play the Guitar Plectrum Style, you can’t say the five-piece didn’t have their sense of humor at the ready, and given that every member of the band has a songwriting credit at some point within the album’s 10 tracks, they were clearly doing everything possible to make things as democratic as possible.

First Step may not have been a rousing commercial success, only hitting #45 in the UK and #119 in the US, but it nonetheless served its purpose: it introduced Rod Stewart as the face- and the voice – of Faces, and by the very next year, he and his bandmates would deliver unto the world a truly classic LONG PLAYER.