Today would have been Ronnie Lane’s 65th birthday. One of the founding members for both the Small Faces and then later Faces, Ronnie spent 10 years living in Austin from 1984 until moving to Colorado in 1994 where he died on June 4th, 1997 at the age of 51 from pneumonia.
I was only 23 when he died, and honestly couldn’t comprehend at the time why the music community in this city was very saddened by his death. I knew who he was, but I couldn’t call myself a fan back in those days. To me, he was just another guy from the Faces that lived in Austin. Like Ian McLagan did. What can I say? I was young and dumb.
In 1997, I was already a fan of the band Golden Smog, and had played their album, Down by the Old Mainstream, religiously. But it wasn’t until after Ronnie’s passing that I put two and two together that “Glad & Sorry” was a Ronnie Lane tune they were covering. Then, in 1998, Rod Stewart released the album When We Were The New Boys with Ronnie’s “Ooh La La” being my favorite track on that album.
Ok, now I realized there was something pretty special about Ronnie Lane. The first Faces album I bought was Ooh La La because those two songs were on there. Yeah, I was hooked immediately. I then went on to gather as much Faces, Small Faces, and solo albums that I could find. Now, I’m doing the same thing, but tracking them down on vinyl. That’s not the easiest thing to do since it’s rare when you find any of his work in the vinyl bins. Especially in this town that adopted him as one of its own.
So happy birthday, Ronnie. You will be on my turntable tonight.
