Small Faces — Immediate Records Era, Carnaby Street, London

The Small Faces — Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones, Ian McLagan — were the quintessential Mod band of the mid-1960s, and their world was centred on the Carnaby Street and Soho district of London where the Mod scene had its commercial and social heart. Signed to Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate Records (whose offices were in the West End), the band produced a run of singles and albums between 1967 and 1969 — 'Itchycoo Park,' 'Lazy Sunday,' 'Tin Soldier,' Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake — that represent some of the most inventive British pop of the era. Ogdens' was released in a circular sleeve designed to look like a tobacco tin and reached number one in 1968.

Marriott's voice was one of the great white soul instruments in British pop — raw, gospel-inflected, and capable of extraordinary emotional range. After he departed to form Humble Pie in 1969, the remaining members recruited Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood to become the Faces — a rougher, more good-time band that was beloved for their shambolic live shows. Lane went on to a respected solo career before being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis; Marriott died in a house fire in 1991.

Carnaby Street in Soho is now a tourist shopping street whose Mod heritage is marketed aggressively but authentically — the street genuinely was the epicentre of 1960s London fashion and music culture. The Immediate Records offices and the club circuit the Small Faces inhabited are commemorated in plaques and walking tour guides throughout the West End.