And More Again...

Other tracks, like My Way Of Giving (rushed out as a single by Decca while it was still at the demo stage, an act that was largely responsible for the move to Immediate) were more or less works in progress (Tell Me Have You Ever Seen Me may well have actually been finished, but was re-recorded for the new label) or demos for material handed over to other singers (My Way of Giving was done by Chris Farlowe and re-recorded for the new label). There's a Booker T & the MGs style instrumental (Plum Nellie), a couple of interesting bits of semi psychedelia (Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow and That Man) a handful of dance floor numbers and the reissue comes with around a half dozen alternative tracks and BBC recordings. Taken all together, while it mightn't have quite been in the same league as the classic albums from 1967 (The DoorsSomething Else By The Kinks, or Disraeli Gears to name a couple of less obvious suspects from a very strong year) it's not that far behind.

And, remember, it's the leftovers after a label switch. When you look at it in that light (not that the band wanted you to back then, going as far as discouraging the punters from investing in a copy in the advertising for the Immediate Small Faces) it, even at the time you could have done far worse...

The conflicting philosophies behind those two albums, however, reflects some of the changes the music industry was going through in the late sixties.  Up to this point everything was based around the hit single in a market environment that was significantly different to the one that operates today. For a start chart success was largely based on sales rather than some algorithm based on a mixture of sales, airplay and the number some market researcher started with.

In the British context radio airplay might have been a significant influence but it probably didn't matter as much as the number of units that the record company could actually move. In today's environment broadcast royalties are a significant income stream for artists, publishers and labels, but in mid- to late-sixties Britain they probably weren't such a big deal since the pirate stations probably didn't pay them (at least I assume they didn't, I may well be wrong) and once the pirates had been shut down their replacement, BBC Radio One, had severe restrictions on what they termed needle time, with the rest of the broadcast content coming in the form of covers played by working musicians or sessions specially recorded for the BBC by the artists themselves.

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© Ian Hughes 2015