Faces – A Nod Is as Good as a Wink to a Blind Horse (1971):  Small Faces was a pivotal British Invasion band that was described by Bruce Eder for Allmusic as “the best English band never to hit it big in America”.  Their sole Top 40 hit in the US was “Itchykoo Park” (1968), one of the first songs to use an electronic effect called phasing or flanging.  In the same time period, Small Faces recorded one of the best psychedelic rock albums of all time, Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake that unfortunately has still not surfaced among the albums that I have cleaned up from Hurricane Katrina.  The cover was originally round and has the design of an old-fashioned tobacco tin.  After key bandmember Steve Marriott exited to help start another band called Humble Pie, two British heavyweights, Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood joined Small Faces; and the band shortly changed its name to Faces.  They quickly became one of the top touring rock bands in the world.  After a series of just four albums, Faces broke up in 1975, although that was easy to foresee – Rod Stewart started his solo career at about the same time that Faces was formed, with one of his biggest selling singles, “Maggie May” also coming out in 1971, along with the accompanying hit album, Every Picture Tells a Story (the other bandmembers in Faces also played on that album).  Additionally, the Rolling Stones lured Ronnie Wood away from Faces (and Wood appropriately presented the craggy visage of the other Stones before long); Ronnie Wood joined the Rolling Stones in 1975 but was not an official member of the band until the retirement of Bill Wyman in 1993.  Also, drummer Kenney Jones of Faces joined the Who upon the death of their drummer Keith Moon.  A Nod Is as Good as a Wink to a Blind Horse was the third album by Faces and was a #10 album in the Billboard charts that included a Top 20 U.S. hit single, “Stay with Me”, along with a fine cover of the Chuck Berry song “Memphis”.  The consensus among rock critics is that this is the best album by Faces.