Mahoney's Last Stand

Ronnie Lane was initially approached to produce a soundtrack for the film through his acquaintance with lead actor and producer Alexis Kanner, and Lane, at a loose end between Faces recording commitments, soon involved his bandmate Ronnie Wood. Lane and Wood were already an established songwriting team within the Faces (and would soon go on to write one of the group's best-remembered numbers, "Ooh La La", together), although by 1972 their partnership had begun to take a back seat to Wood's more commercially-driven writing alliance with Rod Stewart. The Mahoney soundtrack album is a mostly laid-back affair, strongly influenced by folk and country styles in line with the bulk of Ronnie Lane's later solo work, and in keeping with the themes of the film itself. Half of the tracks are instrumentals but one of the others, "Mona (The Blues)", is a re-arrangement of an instrumental Faces outtake from 1970 with a new lead vocal by Wood. Another vocal number, "Just For A Moment", is one of Lane's most tender ballads, recently rehearsed with the Faces but set aside for this project.

For such a seemingly small-scale project the album attracted an all-star guest cast of 1970s musicians (see below), and fellow Faces Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones also guest on "Tonight's Number", one of the more uptempo rock-oriented tracks. In some ways the album offered a tantalising glimpse of the musical direction the originally intended Faces lineup might have taken under Lane and Wood's leadership without Rod Stewart in the group, while also demonstrating how crucial Stewart was to their commercial - if not necessarily artistic - success (Stewart was the last member to join the band in mid-1969 despite the misgivings of Lane and Ian McLagan, who were still smarting after being summarily abandoned by their previous lead singer Steve Marriott only a few months earlier, in their previous formation as Small Faces).

Although it was recorded in 1972 the album remained unfinished and unreleased until 1976, by which time the Faces were defunct, Lane had established a modest but creatively fulfilling solo career, and Wood had joined the Rolling Stones. The album was released to little fanfare and the lack of information on the original release initially led fans (and reviewers) to believe the work was a reunion for the two bandmates rather than an extracurricular project recorded while Lane was still an active member of the Faces (he left the group in 1973 and they dissolved in 1975). This false assumption remained uncorrected until the album was reissued on CD nearly thirty years later with new, more detailed recording notes (although even today some reviewers seemingly still remain ignorant of the facts).

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[2]
Christgau's Record Guide	B–[3]
MusicHound Rock	2/5[4]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[5]

All tracks composed by Ron Wood and Ronnie Lane.

1. "Tonight's Number"
2. "From the Late to the Early"
3. "Chicken Wire"
4. "Chicken Wired"
5. "I'll Fly Away" (Traditional; arranged by Wood and Lane)
6. "Title One"
7. "Just for a Moment" (Instrumental)
8. "'Mona' the Blues"
9. "Car Radio"
10. "Hay Tumble"
11. "Woody's Thing"
12. "Rooster Funeral"
13. "Just for a Moment"

• Ron Wood – vocals, guitar, bass, harmonica
• Ronnie Lane – vocals, guitar, bass, banjo, percussion
• Pete Townshend – guitar, percussion on "Tonight's Number" & "Car Radio"
• Rick Grech – bass, violin, drums
• Benny Gallagher – bass
• Kenney Jones – drums on "Tonight's Number"
• Bruce Rowland – drums
• Micky Waller – percussion
• Ian McLagan – piano, harmonium, keyboards on "Tonight's Number", "Car Radio" and "Chicken Wire/d"
• Ian Stewart – piano, keyboards
• Bobby Keys – saxophone
• Jim Price – trumpet
• Billy Nicholls – vocals on "I'll Fly Away"
• Glyn Johns – vocals on "I'll Fly Away"

• Mahoney's Last Stand at IMDb