A miss with Hey Girl four months later was followed by All Or Nothing, a chart topper that could have shot them right up into the big time except for a drug conviction (keyboard player Ian McLagan 13 November 1967 at Heathrow airport en route to Greece for a holiday) that ruled out a US tour with the Lovin' Spoonful and the Mamas & the Papas. It wasn't too long after All Or Nothing before the band split with manager Arden and record label Decca, signing with former Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate label, resulting in a situation where the two labels were simultaneously releasing competing product. A Decca album From The Beginning combining old hits and previously unreleased recordings and Immediate's Small Faces both appeared in June 1967. Messy...
I have vague memories of looking at both albums when they came out, scratching my head and giving both the flick pass. In the case of the Decca album, I'd guess it was a combination of lack of funds and a majority of tracks I'd never heard of along with the two big singles, while the same lack of funds and anything familiar would have ruled the Immediate release out of contention. These days, of course, you can pick up both with bonus tracks, and a glance at my preferred on-line seller revealed reasonably priced (<$12) copies of both and having had a chance to run through both I have to admit I'm more impressed by the Immediate offering, and not just because what lobbed on the doorstep was a two-disk set (material in stereo on the first disk largely reprised in mono on the second) with forty-eight tracks. Not too shabby for $11.97!
Still, while From the Beginning might have been an exercise in emptying the vaults and causing maximum disruption to the rival product it still ain't too shabby. Admittedly I didn't really need the album, having already got all the Decca hit singles (What'cha Gonna Do About It, Sha-La-La-La-Lee, Hey Girl, All Or Nothing and My Mind's Eye) on an earlier Faces compilation, but from the opening reworking of Del Shannon's Runaway it's a reasonably interesting collection, largely drawn from the band's stage repertoire over the preceding year or two. There's material from both versions of the lineup, with keyboard duties attended to by former member Jimmy Winston (interesting take on the Marvin Gaye cover Baby, Don't You Do It with a Winston vocal) and his replacement Ian McLagan. Other covers include readings of Don Covay's Take This Hurt Off Me and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles' You've Really Got A Hold On Me that underline what a great R&B vocalist they had in Mr Marriott.