To me, Ronnie Lane was the heart & soul of the Small Faces & Faces. And if you ever found yourself drawn to the evocative, pastoral-esque ballads on the Faces records, then you owe it to yourself to give this debut from Ronnie Lane & Slim Chance a listen. The other day, after watching a film, I left Netflix on autoplay and it picked an awful-looking romantic comedy staring Jimmy O. Yang which I proceeded to tune out while washing dishes or something, until I heard a song off this album. I think it was a cover version and not actually Ronnie Lane. I could find by skipping to the credits but life is short, you know.
I waited an awful long time to see this album reissued. It finally happened, albeit only in the UK — much like the original run of Ronnie Lane & Slim Chance, I guess the label suits don’t think it has much appeal outside of Britain? Which is weird for a few reasons, such as a) it’s not as if Ronnie Lane is an obscure figure to music fans, and b) these albums draw deeply from Americana (as well as English Music Hall and some blue-eyed soul). There was a 1975 album credited to Lane and titled ‘Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance’ that has a similar vibe, but it is a different band. (It did reuse the tracks ‘The Poacher’ and “Chicken Wired” from this album, though). In this iteration, Lane had help from the folk-rock duo Gallagher & Lyle, among others.
Backing Vocals – The Tanners Of Montgomery
Bass – Steve Bingham
Bass, Guitar, Accordion [Squeeze Box] – Benny Gallagher
Engineer – Andy Knight
Fiddle – Ken Slaven
Guitar – Kevin Westlake
Keyboards – Billy Livsey
Lacquer Cut By – Melvyn Abrahams
Percussion, Co-producer – Bruce Rowland
Producer – Glyn Johns
Saxophone – Jimmy Jewell
Slide Guitar [Bottleneck Guitar], Twelve-String Guitar, Guitar, Mandolin, Banjo – Graham Lyle
Vocals, Guitar, Producer – Ronnie Lane
Notes
Pressed on 180 gram vinyl. Includes poster and download codes.
Made in Germany on back of sleeve & on labels.
LINEAGE: 2021 UMC (UK) 355 046-6 vinyl ; Pro-Ject RM-5SE with Audio Tecnica Signet TK7E cartridge; Speedbox power supply; Creek Audio OBH-15; Audioquest Black Mamba and Pangea Premier interconnect cables; RME Babyface Pro interface ; Adobe Audition at 32-bit float 192khz; clicks and pops removed manually with Adobe Audition 3.0; resampled and dithered using iZotope RX Advanced. Converted to FLAC in either Trader’s Little Helper or dBPoweramp. Tags done with Foobar 2000 and Tag and Rename.
All FLAC resolutions: 16/44.1, 24/96, 24/192
password: vibes
Thank you, thank you! Although I was a fan of Small Faces, then Faces, then Jeff Beck Group, then Rod Stewart, it never occurred to me that one constant among all those albums was Ronnie Lane. It wasn’t until I listened to the Pete Townshend & Ronnie Lane album Rough Mix that I realized just how good Lane was (listen to “Nowhere to Run”), and how he made his bandmates better. Thanks for uploading this gem.
Hi Norio, I don’t believe Lane was ever in the Jeff Beck Group. Are you thinking of that other Ronnie in the Faces, the one made of wood?
Thank for this Dr. V!