Egan/Long Agos and Worlds Apart, 6. Wham Bam Thank You Mam

The Small Faces epitomised the maxim, “Never mind the width, feel the quality.” In their brief original lifespan, they released just three official albums and a dozen-and-a-half authorised non-album singles and B-sides. Yet more than five decades after the London quartet’s split the phenomenal quality of that compact body of work has ensured a continuing and unassailable musical esteem bordering on legend. Gut-bucket vocalist Steve Marriott brought a bluesy grit to both compositions of gravitas and effervescent pop numbers. Bassist Ronnie Lane collaborated with him to form one of the most formidable songwriting partnerships of the era. Ian McLagan was an exhilaratingly blurred-fingered keyboardist. Kenney Jones brought up the rear with blistering drum patterns, with his rolls often used to provide an explosive fanfare to Small Faces singles. Such a talent-oozing line-up was virtually predestined to conjure excellence. ‘Tin Soldier’, their exquisitely sophisticated psychedelic-soul release of 1967, regularly a