This week’s news and gossip

Hopelessly Devoted

Penny ended the week serenading Rod with a song from Greece, She sang Hopelessly Devoted To You at the launch of Hopelessly Devoted at The Ned London.

The evening was designed to celebrate the incredible bond between humans and their pets.

Hopelessly Devoted was created by Mark Aldridge to help a small charity called Celia Hammond Animal Trust who are in desperate financial need.

For a chance to win an exclusive framed hand signed photo of Rod and Penny showing love for their dog Lilly who has also signed the picture!! go to

https://bidaid.com/auction/HD

Rod later sang an impromtu version of Pennies From heaven at The Ritz

Faces Live At The BBC

The new Faces box set is still going down a storm Uncut Magazine gave it a very well deserved 9/10

And here is a great review by kcorsini from the brilliant BourbonAndVinyl blog…

Review: New Box, ‘Faces At The BBC’ – At Last A Live Set Befitting This Great Band
September 18, 2024 ~ kcorsini

And our second group for this evening are the excessively rowdy Faces…” – John Peel

The Faces have just released a new box set, Faces At The BBC, which collects almost all of their performances on the BBC from 1970 to 1973. Apparently there’s a three song set they played on one of the programs that can’t be found (yet). With eight CDs (and a Blu Ray) this box has some, ahem, heft. Between this Faces set and Pete Townshend’s recent 14 CD live set and Neil Young’s Archives Vol. III on deck at 17 CDs… these box sets may be the death of me.

I’m not sure the Faces were as big here in the U.S. as they were in the UK, which is a shame. They are one of my absolute favorite bands. Originally known as the Small Faces – Steve Marriott (guitars/vocals), Ronnie Lane (bass/vocals), Ian McLagan (keyboards), and Kenny Jones (drums) – they had a string of pop rock and psychedelic hits in the mid to late 60s. When front man/guitarist Steve Marriott split to form Humble Pie with Peter Frampton, the Small Faces found themselves at loose ends. They quickly recruited guitarist Ronnie Wood who had recently been fired from his job playing bass guitar for The Jeff Beck Group. Rod Stewart, who had also departed Jeff Beck as well, started hanging around the Small Faces rehearsals probably to drink with Woody after they were done. It wasn’t long before he’d be coaxed into the rehearsal room and into the band. His solo debut The Rod Stewart Album (aka An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down) while excellent (and boasting Ronnie on guitar) wasn’t tearing up the charts. Pretty soon both gents had joined the band to replace the hole left by Marriott’s departure and a new band – with two new members a head taller than the original three – was born. They dropped the “Small” and became simply the Faces. Their debut LP still said “Small Faces,” which feels like record company skullduggery to me… oh, the music business.

The Faces were a loose, boozy band. I’m not sure there’s another band that more perfectly represents the B&V ethos than these guys. They usually had a full bar set up on stage. Instead of an opening act, they’d come out and serve drinks to the patrons. Sadly, in their early days the BBC didn’t consider them a “serious enough” band to play their music on air. Enter influential DJ John Peel who became as enamored with the band apparently as much as I am. He started having them on his live concert programs. I didn’t grow up in London and I was only starting grade school so I missed out on a lot of this but it appears there was a real camaraderie between Peel and the Faces. You could have almost called this set “John Peel and the Faces at the BBC.” It says in the liner notes that the Faces were the only band Peel invited to his wedding… and they showed up. I’m guessing there was an open bar.

Peel’s having these guys on the various “live in concert” shows on the BBC helped break the Faces to the big time. There are performances from various BBC shows: Top Gear, In Concert, John Peel’s Sunday Concert, Sounds for Saturday, and others. I think Peel’s putting the Faces on the map at the BBC helped break them in the UK in a way it didn’t happen in the US. People were too confused by Rod Stewart’s solo career which was running parallel – a Faces album then a Rod solo album, rinse, repeat. I did a radio show once and played some Faces and a friend approached me and said, “I didn’t know Rod had a band called Faces?” However, having Rod’s solo material increased the band’s material quite a bit.

The Faces have put out a couple of box sets including the excellent Five Guys Walk Into A Bar and the deluxe packaging of all their LPs with bonus tracks with 1970 – 1975 You Can Make Me Dance Sing Or Anything. And each of those boxes contain some tracks from the BBC shows so there is some overlap – if I’m counting correctly, it’s about a dozen songs that are on the boxes that you can find here. But having the complete shows puts those live tracks into context…and yes, I’m a complete-ist. Sadly, prior to this I’m not sure the Faces ever had a true, compelling live document of their performances. They released the contractual obligation LP Coast To Coast: Overtures and Beginners, but it never captured their true spirit. It was billed to “Rod Stewart/The Faces.” They did mostly Stewart songs and a few covers. I used to tell people that I considered it a great live album as it captured a great band – albeit when chemistry was falling apart, Ronnie Lane had left – until I heard bootlegs of some of their great performances…

To read more from BourbonAndVinyl go to https://bourbonandvinyl.net

RIP Kris Kristofferson

It was announced this week that Kris Kristofferson, the country singer who ably balanced a prolific acting career alongside his music, died aged 88.

Kristofferson’s family confirmed his death on Sunday night, saying he “passed away peacefully” at home on Saturday. “We’re all so blessed for our time with him,” read the statement, which was signed by his wife Lisa, his eight children and seven grandchildren. “Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know he’s smiling down at us all.”

Rod and Kristofferson dueted together on Me and Bobby McGee at The Music for UNICEF Concert – A Gift of Song in 1979 The event was a benefit concert of popular music held in the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on January 9. It was intended to raise money for UNICEF world hunger programs and to mark the beginning of the International Year of the Child.

Rod and Kris also joined the cast for the final performance “Put A Little Love In Your Heart”

Wolfie’s Art

We asked you a couple of weeks ago what you were doing with your empty Wolfie’s bottles, well John Rafferty has come up with a great idea turning one of his [Many!] empty bottles into a very trendy light feature

Now that would look cool in the SMILER office!!

And don’t forget to enter Wolfie’s exclusive SMILER competition,

Wolfie’s Whisky is on clubcard price in Tesco in the UK for another 48 hours.. currently £10 off (down to £25) which is a steal!

So they wanted to offer Rod’s fans a chance to win one of the ten limited edition flight cases that they have previously only used as exclusive gifts for Rod’s friends and family.

To enter, Wolfie’s ask that you buy a bottle of Wolfie’s blended whisky from any Tesco (incuding their website) and email your receipt to [email protected] and they will randomly select 10 winners at random to ship them to!

WellChild Awards

On Monday Rod, Penny and Alistair Stewart headed to the WellChild Awards at Royal Lancaster London.

The WellChild Awards were attended by the charity’s patron Prince Harry, honouring children recognised at the event in a speech calling them “little legends” who remind him “of the strength of the human spirit”.

Also in attendance alongside Penny and Rod were Julia Bradbury, Oti Mabuse and rapper KSI, as well as Olympians Helen Glover, Tom Dean, broadcaster Kate Garraway.

Pictured here with Rod is Adam from Stanley Rose Furniture who’s wife Jess from Buckingham Flower Farm  donated flowers and also attended the event, and our main photo [also pictured above] is of Rod and singer Lindsay West who played his song Heart Unchained with LCGC and Beverley Knight and said ‘Rod shouted across the toilet ‘Good song that son… keep going!’..

For more information go to https://www.wellchild.org.uk

Rod on The Big Screen

In an interview with NME actor James McAvoy said The first song he rememberd hearing was Rod’s ‘Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?

And went on to say..

“We’re gonna try and get Rod Stewart to be in the film I’m about to make actually. It’s a true story about two guys from Dundee who, in the early 2000s, were rapping and they were really good. They were really talented. They came down and auditioned for Sony, and the two reps who were auditioning them laughed them out of the room because they were Scottish. Anyway, they came back months later, pretending to be two West Coast California skater-dude rappers and they got a record deal for 35 grand. It was the same songs, just re-recorded. For the next bit of their lives, for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even when they were on their own, they would pretend to be these characters. Great things happened and bad things happened and the story is pretty wild.”

When asked how does Rod Stewart come into it? James said

“You’ll have to watch the film to see if we got him. Rod, we’re coming!”

If they do get Rod it will be his second movie appearance after his cameo in Play It to the Bone the 1999 American sports comedy-drama film written and directed by Ron Shelton. that starred Woody Harrelson and Antonio Banderas as two boxers and best friends who travel together to Las Vegas to fight each other, with the winner receiving a match for the middleweight championship.

The film’s supporting cast included Lolita Davidovich, Tom Sizemore, Lucy Liu [Pictured above with Rod], and Robert Wagner.

And Finally…

Don’t forget today sees the first-ever vinyl release of Rod’s 2012 debut Christmas album, Merry Christmas, Baby, Showcasing well-loved duets with Mary J. Blige, Cee-Lo Green, and Chris Botti, as well as production by David Foster…a perfect album for a cold winters night with a glass of Wolfie’s

See you next week…