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Sha-La-La-La-Lee, etc.

What we have here is a three-track "Maxi-Single" issued in 1977 including the third, first and fifth of the Small Faces' A-sides: 'Sha-La-La-La-Lee', 'What'cha Gonna Do About It' and 'All Or Nothing'. I'm far from the biggest Faces fan, but knew and liked the songs and thought it worth the outlay of a pound to give them another hearing.

The label bears a few words that might strike fear into a purist's heart: "Electronically Re-processed Stereo" (though this only applies to 'What'cha Gonna Do About It'). To this casual listener's ears, however, it all sounds excellent: no-one involved in the recording, mastering or pressing can have put a foot wrong, and these songs practically jump off the disc, very much alive.

'All Or Nothing', in particular, here relegated to the B-side, sounds outstandingly good. Wikipedia tells me: "according to Kay Marriott, Steve's mother, Steve wrote this song about his split with ex-fiancée Sue Oliver, though first wife Jenny Rylance states that Marriott told her he wrote the song for her as a result of her split with Rod Stewart. Both statements are said to be correct."

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A note to the imaginary reader: up to this point, all entries on this blog have been "randomly" selected, as per the strapline, courtesy of the Discogs "Random Item" link. I have done some steering, inasmuch as rejecting choices that would duplicate mention of artists/composers already discussed, with a little subsequent sorting of the choices to maximize variety. The random items are now turning up duplicates annoyingly too often, so for the remainder of this blog's short life I'll be providing the "randomness" myself.

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