music.wikisort.org - Composition

First Step is the debut album by the British group Faces, released in early 1970. The album was released only a few months after the Faces had formed from the ashes of the Small Faces (from which Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones and Ian McLagan hailed) and The Jeff Beck Group (from which Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood hailed.) The album is credited to the Small Faces on all North American issues and reissues,[1] while record labels for initial vinyl printings give the title as The First Step.[2]

This article needs additional citations for verification. (September 2007)

First Step
Studio album by Faces
Released	March 27, 1970
Recorded	December 1969 – January 1970 at De Lane Lea Studios, London
Genre	Rock, R&B
Length	46:22
Label	Warner Bros.
Producer	Faces
Faces chronology
First Step (1970) Long Player (1971)
Singles from First Step
"Flying" Released: 1969

The album cover shows Ronnie Wood holding a copy of Geoffrey Sisley's seminal guitar tutorial First Step: How to Play the Guitar Plectrum Style.

While the album was recorded after the group's official formation and signing to Warner Bros. Records in the Autumn of 1969, the band members had been rehearsing, performing and recording together in various combinations since May of that year.

At 46:22, First Step is the band's lengthiest original release and many modern critics regard it as promising, but sprawling and unfocused - their least cohesive and most undisciplined offering. It is however perhaps the most democratic of the Faces releases, highlighting the band's talents as a unified whole and affording each member at least one composer credit, as opposed to the perceived dominance of Stewart and his songwriting partnership with Wood as their career progressed.

On 28 August 2015, the album was reissued in a remastered and expanded form, including two previously-unreleased bonus tracks recorded shortly after the album's release, "Behind The Sun" and "Mona: The Blues" (the latter was remade and refined by Lane and Wood in 1972 for their Mahoney's Last Stand film soundtrack).

Reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[3]
Christgau's Record Guide	C+[4]

The album reached #119 on the Billboard 200.[5]

Reviewing in 1970 for Rolling Stone, Joel Selvin found the Faces to be "a fine rock band" but also "highly derivative" and who "play with more control than soul", going on to say, "They know exactly what they are doing and they do it well, as good musicians should, but the precision and purity of their sound seems a little sterile, and they lack the drive and power to make their music work without subtleties."[6]

Reviewing in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau viewed the record as "one more complication in the Rod Stewart mystery", saying, "With Jeff Beck he parodies himself before he's established a self to parody. With Lou Reizner he establishes himself as a singer-songwriter of uncommon spunk and a vocal interpreter of uncommon individuality. And here he steps into the shoes of a purveyor of Humble Pie to pose as the leader of a mediocre white r&b band. Best cut: Ronnie Lane's 'Stone.'"[4]

Track listing

All lead vocals by Rod Stewart except where indicated

Side One

1. "Wicked Messenger" (Bob Dylan) - 4:00
2. "Devotion" (Ronnie Lane) - 4:48 (lead vocals: Rod Stewart, Ronnie Lane)
3. "Shake, Shudder, Shiver" (Lane, Ronnie Wood) - 3:09 (lead vocals: Rod Stewart, Ronnie Lane)(duet)
4. "Stone" (Lane) - 5:33 (lead vocals: Ronnie Lane)
5. "Around The Plynth" (Rod Stewart, Wood) - 5:45

Side Two

1. "Flying" (Lane, Stewart, Wood) - 4:10
2. "Pineapple and the Monkey" (instrumental) (Wood) - 4:23
3. "Nobody Knows" (Lane, Wood) - 4:05 (lead vocals: Rod Stewart, Ronnie Lane)(duet) - 4:04
4. "Looking Out the Window" (instrumental) (Kenney Jones, Ian McLagan) - 5:00
5. "Three Button Hand Me Down" (McLagan, Stewart) - 5:30

2015 Reissue bonus tracks

1. "Behind The Sun" (Jones, Lane, McLagan, Stewart, Wood)
2. "Mona: The Blues" (instrumental) (Lane, Wood)
3. "Shake, Shudder, Shiver" [BBC Session] (Lane, Wood)(lead vocals: Rod Stewart, Ronnie Lane)(duet)
4. "Flying" [Take 3] (Lane, Stewart, Wood)
5. "Nobody Knows" [Take 2] (Lane, Wood)

• The 2015 reissue replicates the US edition of the LP, containing minor edits not present on the UK original, most noticeably the omission of Stewart shouting "That's yer lot!" at the end of "Around the Plynth".

Personnel

• Rod Stewart - lead and backing vocals, harmonica, banjo (track 4)
• Ronnie Lane - bass, rhythm and acoustic guitars, backing vocals, lead vocal (track 4), co-lead vocal (tracks 2,3 & 8)
• Ronnie Wood - lead, rhythm and acoustic guitars, second bass guitar (track 10), backing vocals
• Ian McLagan - Hammond organ, Wurlitzer electric and acoustic pianos, backing vocals
• Kenney Jones - drums and percussion
• Martin Birch - engineer
• Faces - producer

References

External links

• (The) First Step at Discogs (list of releases)

---