New Biography Documents Much-Loved Hall Of Fame Inductee Ronnie Lane

The life and work of late and much-loved Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Ronnie Lane will be examined in a new biography from Omnibus Press on August 17. Anymore For Anymore: The Ronnie Lane Story, by David and Caroline Stafford, is based on extensive research and interviews with Lane’s friends and family.

The authors have worked together on many dramas, documentaries, and comedy series for radio and TV. Their previous biographies together include works on Billy Fury, Randy Newman, Adam Faith, The Police, and the late British broadcaster Kenny Everett.

Their biography of Lane, affectionately known as “Plonk,” acknowledges his continuing relevance in contemporary music, and his posthumous induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012. It describes the early life of an east London boy who took his first musical steps on the ukulele at the age of six, and how his first meeting with Steve Marriott in 1965 led to them forming one of the UK’s most important and creatively relevant British groups of the mid to late 1960s, the Small Faces.

On the demise of the original group in 1968, Lane went on to be a founder member of the Faces, who became one of the UK’s best-loved rock bands of the early 1970s. Says the book’s publicity: “After a rollercoaster five years, despite – and maybe because of – their success, tensions were running high and Ronnie Lane left the band in June 1973 to pursue solo projects.”

Lane’s years with his own band, the eclectic Slim Chance are also described, as are his collaborations with Faces bandmate Ronnie Wood on the film soundtrack Mahoney’s Last Stand and with Pete Townshend on the greatly admired 1977 album Rough Mix. It was during the recording of that LP that Lane was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, but he continued to record and tour, releasing his last studio album See Me, featuring such guests as Eric Clapton, in 1979. He moved to Texas in 1984 and died from MS-related pneumonia in Trinidad, Colorado in 1997.

Buy or stream the Small Faces’ From The Beginning album.