ABSTRACT
It’s interesting to try to reconstruct this. I must have first read Simon Frith in March 1970 – just under 43 years ago. Early that month, he reviewed the double album summary of the Small Faces career, The Autumn Stone, in Rolling Stone. The review was positive: the prose not attitudinal but explanatory. Writing for an American readership still unfamiliar with the Wapping Wharf wonders, Simon nailed their mystique: ‘they had a naive eagerness to try everything without understanding anything, and the results had their own appeal … whatever they tried to do, in the end their real strength came through. Their songs are all high-powered dance tunes straight from the mod discotheques.’
