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{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2014}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2014}}

{{Infobox album
| name = First Step
| type = Album
| artist = [[Faces (band)|Faces]]
| cover = FacesFirstStep.jpg
| alt =
| released = 27 March 1970<ref>{{Cite web |date=27 March 2018 |title=This Day in 1970: Faces, FIRST STEP |url=https://www.rhino.com/article/this-day-in-1970-faces-first-step |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221011182051/https://www.rhino.com/article/this-day-in-1970-faces-first-step |archive-date=11 October 2022 |access-date=16 March 2023 |website=[[Rhino Entertainment]]}}</ref>
| recorded = December 1969 – January 1970
| studio = [[De Lane Lea Studios]], London
| genre = [[Blues rock]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=Toland |first=Michael |date=25 December 2015 |title=Faces – ''1970–1975: You Can Make Me Dance, Sing or Anything ...'' Album Review |url=https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2015-12-25/faces-1970-1975-you-can-make-me-dance-sing-or-anything/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201128202128/https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2015-12-25/faces-1970-1975-you-can-make-me-dance-sing-or-anything/ |archive-date=28 November 2020 |access-date=17 March 2023 |website=[[The Austin Chronicle]]}}</ref> [[Rhythm and blues|R&B]]
| length = 46:22
| label = [[Warner Bros. Records|Warner Bros.]]
| producer = [[Faces (band)|Faces]]
| prev_title =
| prev_year =
| next_title = [[Long Player (album)|Long Player]]
| next_year = 1971
| misc = {{Singles
| name = First Step
| type = studio
| single1 = Flying" / "Three Button Hand Me Down
| single1date = 1970
| single2 = Around the Plynth" / "[[The Wicked Messenger|Wicked Messenger]]
| single2date = 1970 (US)
}}
}}

'''''First Step''''' is the debut studio album by the English [[Rock music|rock]] band [[Faces (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,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.discogs.com/release/1165159 |title=Small Faces* – First Step |publisher=discogs.com |accessdate=10 August 2014}}</ref> while record labels for initial vinyl printings give the title as '''''The First Step'''''.{{Sfn|Neill|2016|p=159}}

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.

At 46:22, ''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.

On 28 August 2015, the album was reissued in a remastered and expanded form, including two previously unreleased bonus tracks recorded shortly after the album's release, "Behind The Sun" and "Mona: The Blues" (the latter was remade and refined by Lane and Wood in 1972 for their ''[[Mahoney's Last Stand]]'' film soundtrack).

== Artwork ==
The photography for ''First Step'' was taken at [[Barbican Estate|Willoughby House]], the home of artist Mike McInnerney and his wife Kate, who, like Lane, were followers of [[Meher Baba]].{{Sfn|Neill|2016|pp=130–133, 162}} During the shoot, Kate served the band punch spiked with [[methanol]]; McLagan recalled: "We ended up getting extremely drunk ... jumping up and down on this low table and smashing it to splinters."{{Sfn|Neill|2016|p=162}} The front cover photo was taken by photographer and fellow Baba follower Martin Cook.{{Sfn|Neill|2016|p=162}} It shows Wood holding a copy of the book ''First Step: How to Play the Guitar Plectrum Style'',<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=21 March 2017 |title=Rhino Factoids: Small No More – The Faces Introduce Rod Stewart to the Fold |url=https://www.rhino.com/article/rhino-factoids-small-no-more-the-faces-introduce-rod-stewart-to-the-fold |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220823093112/https://www.rhino.com/article/rhino-factoids-small-no-more-the-faces-introduce-rod-stewart-to-the-fold |archive-date=23 August 2022 |access-date=19 March 2023 |website=[[Rhino Entertainment]]}}</ref> which biographer Terry Rawlings suggests is symbolic of the public perceiving him as only a bassist due to the Jeff Beck Group.{{Sfn|Rawlings|2010|p=102}} McLagan and Lane are shown holding [[Mickey Mouse]] figures,{{Sfn|Rawlings|2010|p=102}} of which McLagan said: "I don't remember bringing [them] along with us ... I get a feeling the doll must have been at Mike and Kate's house although Ronnie Lane is wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt so maybe they were his."{{Sfn|Neill|2016|p=162}} The album's black-and-white [[gatefold]] photo was taken in the garden and shows the band pretending to play their instruments, except Lane, who was oblivious and instead has his hands in his pockets.{{Sfn|Neill|2016|p=162}}

==Release and reception==
{{Album ratings
| rev1 = [[AllMusic]]
| rev1score = {{Rating|4|5}}<ref>{{Cite web |last=Erlewine |first=Stephen Thomas |author-link=Stephen Thomas Erlewine |title=Faces / Small Faces – ''First Step'' Review |url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/first-step-mw0000100613 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221020051239/https://www.allmusic.com/album/first-step-mw0000100613 |archive-date=20 October 2022 |access-date=16 March 2023 |website=[[AllMusic]]}}</ref>
| rev2 = ''[[Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies|Christgau's Record Guide]]''
| rev2Score = C+<ref name="CG">{{cite book|last=Christgau|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Christgau|year=1981|title=[[Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies]]|publisher=[[Ticknor & Fields]]|isbn=089919026X|chapter=Consumer Guide '70s: S|chapter-url=https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_chap.php?k=S&bk=70|accessdate=March 12, 2019|via=robertchristgau.com}}</ref>
| rev3 = ''[[MusicHound|MusicHound Rock]]''
| rev3score = {{Rating|3|5}}{{Sfn|Yonke|1999|p=404}}
| rev4 = ''[[The Rolling Stone Album Guide]]''
| rev4score = {{Rating|3.5|5}}{{Sfn|Evans|1992|p=236}}
| rev5 = The Vinyl District
| rev5score = B+<ref>{{Cite web |last=Little |first=Michael H. |date=3 March 2017 |title=Graded on a Curve: Faces, ''First Step'' |url=https://www.thevinyldistrict.com/storefront/2017/03/graded-on-a-curve-faces-first-step/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170304042841/https://www.thevinyldistrict.com/storefront/2017/03/graded-on-a-curve-faces-first-step/ |archive-date=4 March 2017 |access-date=19 March 2023 |website=The Vinyl District}}</ref>
| rev6 = ''[[The Encyclopedia of Popular Music|The Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music]]''
| rev6score = {{Rating|3|5}}{{Sfn|Larkin|2002|p=428}}
}}
The single "Flying" / "Three Button Hand Me Down" was issued prior to the album's release. The band promoted it by appearing on the BBC TV shows ''[[Top of the Pops]]'' and ''[[Disco 2 (TV series)|Disco 2]]'', but it still failed to chart.{{Sfn|Neill|2016|pp=167–168}} Lane said that the band "didn't really want to put out a single" and as such "didn't really care if it was a hit, but it would have been nice if it was."{{Sfn|Rawlings|2010|p=102}} Released on 27 March 1970,<ref name=":0" />{{Sfn|Twelker|Schmitt|2011|p=122}}{{Refn|The release date of 21 March 1970 is given by an article from [[Rhino Entertainment]]<ref name=":0" /> and the book ''The Small Faces & Other Stories'' by Uli Twelker and Roland Schmitt.{{Sfn|Twelker|Schmitt|2011|p=122}} Another article from Rhino, however, gives 27 March.<ref>{{Cite web |date=27 March 2018 |title=This Day in 1970: Faces, FIRST STEP |url=https://www.rhino.com/article/this-day-in-1970-faces-first-step |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221011182051/https://www.rhino.com/article/this-day-in-1970-faces-first-step |archive-date=11 October 2022 |access-date=16 March 2023 |website=[[Rhino Entertainment]]}}</ref>|group=nb}} the album reached number 45 on the UK [[UK Albums Chart|Official Albums Chart]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=first step {{!}} full Official Chart History |url=https://www.officialcharts.com/search/albums/first-step/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221113092020/https://www.officialcharts.com/search/albums/first-step/ |archive-date=13 November 2022 |access-date=18 March 2023 |website= |publisher=[[Official Charts Company]]}}</ref> and number 119 on the [[Billboard 200|''Billboard'' Top LPs]].<ref>{{Cite magazine |title=Chart History: Faces (Billboard 200) |url=https://www.billboard.com/artist/faces/chart-history/tlp/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220925154142/https://www.billboard.com/artist/faces/chart-history/tlp/ |archive-date=25 September 2022 |access-date=18 March 2023 |magazine=[[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]]}}</ref> Another single, an edited version of "Around the Plynth" backed with "[[The Wicked Messenger|Wicked Messenger]]", was released in the US, but also failed to chart.{{Sfn|Neill|2016|pp=175, 423}} Stewart claimed that the album sold 250,000 copies within a month.{{Sfn|Giuliano|1994|p=74}}

''First Step'' received lukewarm reviews on release.{{Sfn|Rawlings|2010|pp=102–103}} [[Joel Selvin]] from ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' wrote that the album was "original" but also "highly derivative" and failed to live up to the expectations of Faces' lineup.{{Sfn|Neill|2016|p=175}} ''[[NME|New Musical Express]]'' described it as "weirdo sounds" and doubted if it would be accepted by Small Faces fans. ''[[Melody Maker]]'' wrote that the band kept Small Faces' appeal, but the album was nonetheless "rather patchy." A review from ''[[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]]'' was more enthusiastic, proclaiming it to be "[t]he most together of any first album I've heard in a long time!"{{Sfn|Rawlings|2010|pp=102–103}}

Reviewing in ''[[Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies]]'' (1981), [[Robert Christgau]] viewed the album as "one more complication in the Rod Stewart mystery", saying: "With [[The Jeff Beck Group|Jeff Beck]] he parodies himself before he's established a self to parody. With [[Lou Reizner]] he establishes himself as a singer-songwriter of uncommon spunk and a vocal interpreter of uncommon individuality. And here he steps into the shoes of a purveyor of [[Humble Pie]] to pose as the leader of a mediocre white r&b band. Best cut: Ronnie Lane's 'Stone.{{'"}}<ref name="CG"/>

==Track listing==
All lead vocals by [[Rod Stewart]] except where indicated

'''Side one'''
# "[[Wicked Messenger]]" ([[Bob Dylan]]) – 4:00
# "Devotion" ([[Ronnie Lane]]) – 4:48 (lead vocals: Rod Stewart, Ronnie Lane)
# "Shake, Shudder, Shiver" (Lane, [[Ronnie Wood]]) – 3:09 (lead vocals: Rod Stewart, Ronnie Lane) (duet)
# "Stone" (Lane) – 5:33 (lead vocals: Ronnie Lane)
# "Around the Plynth" ([[Rod Stewart]], Wood) – 5:45

'''Side two'''
# "Flying" (Lane, Stewart, Wood) – 4:10
# "Pineapple and the Monkey" (instrumental) (Wood) – 4:23
# "Nobody Knows" (Lane, Wood) – 4:05 (lead vocals: Rod Stewart, Ronnie Lane) (duet) – 4:04
# "Looking Out the Window" (instrumental) ([[Kenney Jones]], [[Ian McLagan]]) – 5:00
# "Three Button Hand Me Down" (McLagan, Stewart) – 5:30

'''2015 reissue bonus tracks'''
# "Behind the Sun" (Jones, Lane, McLagan, Stewart, Wood)
# "Mona: The Blues" (instrumental) (Lane, Wood)
# "Shake, Shudder, Shiver" [BBC Session] (Lane, Wood) (lead vocals: Rod Stewart, Ronnie Lane) (duet)
# "Flying" [Take 3] (Lane, Stewart, Wood)
# "Nobody Knows" [Take 2] (Lane, Wood)

* The 2015 reissue replicates the US edition of the LP, containing minor edits not present on the UK original, most noticeably the omission of Stewart shouting "That's yer lot!" at the end of "Around the Plynth".

==Personnel==

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

==Charts==
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders sortable" style="text-align:center;"
|-
! Chart (1970)
! Peak<br />position
|-
{{album chart|Canada|74|artist=Faces|album=First Step|chartid=3825|access-date=January 26, 2025|rowheader=true}}
|-
{{album chart|UK2|45|date=19700329|access-date=January 26, 2025|rowheader=true}}
|-
{{album chart|Billboard200|119|artist=Faces|access-date=January 26, 2025|rowheader=true}}
|}

== Notes ==
{{Reflist|group=nb}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== Bibliography ==

* {{Cite book |last=Evans |first=Paul |title=[[The Rolling Stone Album Guide]] |publisher=[[Random House]] |year=1992 |isbn=978-0-679-73729-2 |editor-last=DeCurtis |editor-first=Anthony |editor-link=Anthony DeCurtis |location=New York, NY |pages=236–237 |chapter=The Faces |editor-last2=Henke |editor-first2=James |editor-last3=George-Warren |editor-first3=Holly |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/rollingstonealbu0000unse/page/236 |via=the [[Internet Archive]] |chapter-url-access=registration}}
* {{Cite book |last=Giuliano |first=Geoffrey |url=https://archive.org/details/rodstewartvagabo00giul |title=Rod Stewart: Vagabond Heart |publisher=[[Carroll & Graf Publishers]] |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-7867-0163-6 |location=New York, NY |author-link=Geoffrey Giuliano |url-access=registration}}
* {{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/virginencycloped0000unse_u0e7 |title=The Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music |publisher=[[Virgin Books]] |year=2002 |isbn=978-1-85227-923-3 |editor-last=Larkin |editor-first=Colin |editor-link=Colin Larkin |edition=4th |location=London |url-access=registration |via=the [[Internet Archive]]}}
* {{Cite book |last=Neill |first=Andy |url=https://archive.org/details/hadmerealgoodtim0000neil |title=Had Me a Real Good Time: Faces Before During and After |publisher=[[Omnibus Press]] |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-78305-995-9 |edition=Updated |location=London |url-access=registration |via=the [[Internet Archive]]}}
* {{Cite book |last=Rawlings |first=Terry |url=https://archive.org/details/rockonwoodronnie0000rawl |title=Rock on Wood: Ronnie Wood – The Origin of a Rock & Roll Face |publisher=[[Acid Jazz Records|Acid Jazz Books]] |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-9523935-2-8 |edition=2nd |location=London |url-access=registration |via=the [[Internet Archive]]}}
* {{Cite book |last1=Twelker |first1=Uli |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1d6aAwAAQBAJ |title=The Small Faces & Other Stories |last2=Schmitt |first2=Roland |publisher=[[Omnibus Press]] |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-85712-451-7 |edition=2nd |location=London |via=[[Google Books]]}}
* {{Cite book |last=Yonke |first=David |title=MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide |publisher=[[Visible Ink Press]] |year=1999 |isbn=978-1-57859-061-2 |editor-last=Graff |editor-first=Gary |editor-link=Gary Graff |edition=Second |location=Farmington Hills, MI |pages=403–404 |chapter=The Faces/The Small Faces |editor-last2=Durcholz |editor-first2=Daniel |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781578590612/page/403 |via=the [[Internet Archive]] |chapter-url-access=registration}}

==External links==
*{{Discogs master|master=119948|name=(The) First Step|type=album}}

{{Faces}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:First Step (Album)}}
[[Category:1970 debut albums]]
[[Category:Faces (band) albums]]
[[Category:Warner Records albums]]
[[Category:Albums produced by Kenney Jones]]
[[Category:Albums produced by Ronnie Lane]]
[[Category:Albums produced by Ian McLagan]]
[[Category:Albums produced by Ronnie Wood]]
[[Category:Albums produced by Rod Stewart]]

First Step (Faces album) - Revision history

imported>Chris the speller: /* top */ replaced: Autumn → autumn