Faces - First Step (1970) [Full Album]

First Step is the debut studio album by the English rock band Faces, released on 27 March 1970 by Warner Bros. Records. The album was released only a few months after Faces had formed from the ashes of Small Faces (from which Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones and Ian McLagan hailed) and The Jeff Beck Group (from which Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood hailed). The album is credited to the Small Faces on all North American issues and reissues, while record labels for initial vinyl printings give the title as The First Step.

The album cover shows Ronnie Wood holding a copy of Geoffrey Sisley's seminal guitar tutorial First Step: How to Play the Guitar Plectrum Style.

While the album was recorded after the group's official formation and signing to Warner Bros. Records in the Autumn of 1969, the band members had been rehearsing, performing and recording together in various combinations since May of that year.

First Step is the band's lengthiest original release and many modern critics regard it as promising, but sprawling and unfocused – their least cohesive and most undisciplined offering. It is however perhaps the most democratic of the Faces releases, highlighting the band's talents as a unified whole and affording each member at least one composer credit, as opposed to the perceived dominance of Stewart and his songwriting partnership with Wood as their career progressed.

Tracklist:
A1 Wicked Messenger 0:00
A2 Devotion 4:07
A3 Shake Shudder Shiver 9:04
A4 Stone 12:23
A5 Around The Plynth 18:07
B1 Flying 24:07
B2 Pineapple And The Monkey 28:24
B3 Nobody Knows 32:51
B4 Looking Out The Window 37:02
B5 Three Button Hand Me Down 42:05

Personnel
Rod Stewart – lead and backing vocals, banjo (track 4)
Ronnie Lane – bass, rhythm and acoustic guitars, backing vocals, lead vocal (track 4), co-lead vocal (tracks 2,3 & 8)
Ronnie Wood – lead, rhythm and acoustic guitars, harmonica (track 4), second bass guitar (track 10), backing vocals
Ian McLagan – Hammond organ, Wurlitzer electric and acoustic pianos, backing vocals
Kenney Jones – drums and percussion
Martin Birch – engineer
Faces – producers