A brand new blog by By Dan Perreira has gone up in The SMILER Blog Section
If I had the chance to interview any of the Faces members, next to the late great Ian McLagan (my personal favorite Face), it would have to be Mr. Kenney Jones – and instead of the usual obvious questions regarding his involvement with The Small Faces, Faces and The Who, I’d like to know some of the history behind all the interesting session work that Kenney did during his time with the Faces (how did he ever find the time?!) – not even bringing up the enormous amount he did after the group broke-up. Kenney’s inventive playing provides a rock solid backbeat that is always in the pocket on every track he plays on (it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing!), and that’s the reason why he’s been asked to take part in so many different albums by so many different artists. In my book, Kenney ranks between Charlie Watts and Ringo Starr as a drummer, and I suspect that a great deal of rock and roll music pundits “in the know” feel the same way. After all, Kenney has been asked to lend his remarkable skills to such legends as Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis as well as many obscure artists.
Like many others, as a deep fan and serious collector of all Faces related projects, besides obviously Rod’s albums, I also of course, collect all solo works by Ron Wood and Ronnie Lane – as any true devoted Faces fan should do. It still amazes me how much extensive session recordings were done by Wood, Lane, McLagan, Jones and yes, even Stewart (co-producing two John Baldry albums) did while touring and recording their own material. Individually and in various combinations, The Faces lent their talents to several albums, which means that in our collections we probably have more Faces related albums than actual Faces albums!
For this imaginary question and answer interview with Kenney, I’m only going to focus on his outside projects during the Faces years. Most of us know about his contributions to Berry, Jerry Lee, the Tommy soundtrack – plus, let’s not forget the fact that he also played for the Stones on the classic cut “It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll” (with Charlie’s blessings). But how many know about his playing on albums by Billy Lawrie (1973), Vigrass and Osborne (1974) and Flash Fearless Versus The Zorg Women Parts 5 & 6 (1975)?
Now that’s what I call a title!
To read Dan’s full blog and find out what the questions were go to The SMILER Blog section