Ronnie Wood
on the occasion of his June 1st birthday
Ronnie Wood and Ian McLagan - FACES - are a vital part of my origin story as a Rock Chick1 and as a photographer. This is much more about me and my discovering Faces and loving their music and antics and finding a way to hitch a ride on their wagon. I do owe both Woody and Mac a lot… and it will be revealed in my memoir (not so much here). But June 1 is Ronnie Wood’s birthday, and I am happy he was born to make music and art. He is also a riotously funny man, and once had a dog called Herman (I appreciate the human naming of dogs).
Once were Mods, but always rockers, Woody and Mac were also diehard fans of music and their infectious love of it turned me on to the music I still love today. I listened to them since I was an adolescent - the radio back then was amazing, but so were the album covers. Browsing record bins was the equivalent of going to art school for me.
I was taken by the album cover, and that is how I first heard this record. I had already been bitten by the Hammond B3 bug with “Green Onions,” which if it was playing on the car radio when we were parking, I would ask whoever was driving to let the song finish before turning off the engine. It’s not a difficult jump from Booker T. to Ian McLagan, who also was bitten by the same “Green Onions” bug and that was the first step in his storied career. This album is called FIRST STEP.
As a student of liner notes and album credits, I wondered how they could get by with just one of each instrument, since so many bands had two guitars. But soon I noticed that bands with keyboard players didn’t lose anything without that second guitar,2 especially if there was an organ in the lineup. The organ delivered so many harmonics that the guitar could explore and the rhythm section could be just that. When the piano chimed in, it could be percussive and part of the rhythm and it could also take its own beautiful melodic leads.
I was 12 years old when I got this record, and was already pretty much a Dylan-phile and to my surprise and delight, it opened with his “Wicked Messenger.” I liked the jaunty “Three Button Hand Me Down” that closes the record, but I especially loved that they had two instrumentals ! Their 1971 follow-up, LONG PLAYER included some live tracks - the Big Bill Broonzy song “Feel So Good,” and an original party anthem, “Had Me a Real Good Time.” The combination of their swinging and rocking version of a Chicago Blues chestnut that I already knew from listening to records with my Chicago born and raised dad, together with their own style of English rock and roll swagger just won me over. They were charming to me. They had a sense of humor.
Later the same year, they released A NOD IS AS GOOD AS A WINK … TO A BLIND HORSE, which included their hit, “Stay With Me.” That’s when it clicked for everyone. I was all of 13, but you know - the little girls understand. And for me, while I understood the underlying sleaze factor, I was much more enamored of the sound of the band and the fun they seemed to have when you saw photographs of them in concert.
At the same time, their lead singer, Rod Stewart was releasing solo albums that I also enjoyed and thought were pretty damn great. And all the Faces were on his solo albums too. Then, in 1973, at the same time I was beginning to drive, Faces toured the United States, and I did not miss them!
I will give you the TLDR version of the long and winding tale of meeting Mac and Woody in 1973 - it is in my memoir, and I’m kind of pleased at how the chapter turned out. My sister and I went to see FACES at the stadium at UCSB, and before the show was over, we made our way to where the limos that would whisk them away were parked. We wanted to take photos and get autographs. And we did. I told Ronnie Wood and Ian McLagan that I had shot Super 8 film of the show and they asked when they would be able to see it. We had an actual conversation about this! Mac gave me his hotel fake name and in a few days, right before their show in Anaheim, armed with this intel, I found them and met them in the parking lot of their hotel.
I had a movie projector in my car and I showed them the 5 minutes of that concert I’d shot. I projected it on to a blank wall in Mac’s hotel room. Mac and Woody joked about Rod’s pink blouse (yes, it was a blouse! He stripped it off to reveal a white satin tank top) and gave us tickets to that night’s show.
Three years later, I ran into Woody at the Roxy when Lou Reed was playing. He attended the show and sat at an all-star table with Neil Young, Cat Stevens, Al Stewart, and Ollie Brown. I asked him if he was going to do another solo album (he had released two already; he wouldn't release another until 1979) and Neil Young made Dad Jokes about that (“his solo record is gonna be SO LOW!”) as they both drank Tequila Sunrises. I will never forget their drinks because the glasses were tall and clear and the gradient colors of the orange juice and the grenadine were strong and truly looked like a sunrise. And there were paper umbrellas as a garnish. Not the kind of drink one would imagine her guitar heros drinking, but what do you ever know?
Mac and I became fast and lifelong friends. Mac brought me along as his assistant on two Rolling Stones tours he played on. I ended up having the task of making sure Woody got to the studio on time each day in the summer of 1981 to finish mixing his solo album, 1 2 3 4 before embarking on tour with the Rolling Stones. This was accomplished with the aid of innovative ideas from producer Andy Johns. That Andy did not drive did not dissuade him from encouraging me to challenge Woody to a race from his house to the studio across Sunset Blvd. Woody had just bought a Checker Cab and seemed to be prime for a race. All of us lived in Los Angeles at the time, and somehow (without consulting one another) both Woody and I moved to New York. There, I was able to see him play the occasional solo gig (including a tour he did with Bo Diddley!).
Ronnie Wood frequently gets short shrift among guitar players, and I don’t understand why. He’s sort of like Dean Martin - the stage persona of a drunken clown, a man so amiable and comical that you simply forget that he has the talent to be on that stage, commanding a crowd…
I like the man. I always found him to be fun and funny. And he was the greatest friend to Mac, who was the greatest friend to me. Woody will always be golden.
Happy Birthday Ronnie Wood!
Lest any women, womyn, or other female-identifying or supporting individuals (@ ) me, let me explain MY PREFERENCE regarding my double-X-chromosome identifying nomenclature. I love and live by poetry, and scansion is a key to poetry - how words SOUND together - it all boils down to THAT.
“Woman” and “women” have two syllables; “man” and “men” are a single syllable. The sound of the two consonants in “man/men” are crisp and authoritative. The soft, malleable “W” is not loaded with authority (in ANY word). The “W” in any word is easily swallowed or slurred. If you are old enough, you may remember a sketch on SNL where Gilda Radner spoofs Barbara Walters as “Baba WaWa.”
“W” isn’t a bold enough sound to represent the strength that we have. “Girl” on the other hand is a single syllable, crisp, authoritative, and flexible enough to elongate (grrrl, etc); and for me, the same applies to “chick.”
This doesn’t have to apply to you, and I will refer to you as “woman” if you prefer, but I have no problem being called a girl or a chick.
On the Y chromosome side, “boy” has negative connotations, especially if the person is of color. I don’t like “guy” because it is generic and I don’t like the way it sounds unless you’re pronouncing it as a French first name (GHEE). But either way, Y chromosome’d or so-identifying individuals enjoy the punch of a single syllable identifier in both their youth and adulthood; my sex does not, so I changed that FOR ME.
Finally, the only times I do not object to the sound of the word “woman” are in two songs:
“I Am Woman” - Helen Reddy’s anthem. Helen co-wrote it (with Ray Burton) and got the scansion to work in every placement of the word in the song. She is woman, hear her roar.
“Whole Lotta Love” - Led Zeppelin - at the end of the song, Robert Plant’s famous wail is “WOMAN YOU NEED………LLOOOOOOOOOOOVE” and then Bonzo kicks in and into Jimmy Page’s iconic riff and that finishes the song.
Ironic, I know, that these hooligan womanizers scan the word “woman” incredibly well into their machinations of machismo. What can I say? Plant’s a poet.
The Band, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Procol Harum - there’s more, but these are the ones that just popped out of my head
The Faces ❤️
I loved Faces - from Small Faces days with Steve Marriott to Woody’s collaborations with Rod Stewart and the great and tragic Martin Quittenton with Faces and Rod’s “solo” efforts. Woody had his own vibe that was distinctive. You could always tell it was his guitar tone (pre Stones). Then there was Ron Lane, also a top shelf musician and songwriter. Ooh LaLa is one of the greatest folk rock songs ever written. You still hear it everywhere from movie trailers to adverts.one of my favorite Woody songs is “You Can Make Me Dance, Sing” etc. which features one of the best R&B riffs I’ve ever heard.