Rod Stewart stepped in to financially support his former bandmate Ronnie Lane, who tragically passed away at just 51 after years of battling illness and financial hardship. Ronnie, who co-founded the legendary groups Small Faces in 1965 and Faces in 1969, lost thousands of pounds on a failed rock tour and couldn’t afford his own medical treatment in his final years.
After departing Faces in 1973, Ronnie retreated to a farm near the Welsh border and poured his remaining money into two ambitious ventures – a mobile recording studio and a travelling music and performance troupe called The Passing Show. His dream was to create a “rock and roll circus” featuring musicians, dancers, jugglers, and fire-eaters. But the reality was far from glamorous.
According to a blog by Norman Lamont, the tour was plagued by faulty equipment and poor planning. Their trucks and generators constantly broke down, and council regulations hindered performances. The tour ended abruptly after just 30 people turned up over three nights in Newcastle. Fellow musician Bruce Rowland recalled, “I lost about four and a half grand — a huge amount back then. Everything was broken. It took me three days to drive a 40-foot caravan home in a Land Rover because nothing worked properly.”
Worse still, Ronnie wasn’t receiving royalties from his work with the Small Faces. While drummer Kenney Jones fought to renegotiate the band’s contracts, the changes came too late — Ronnie had already succumbed to complications from multiple sclerosis in 1997.
In his final years, close friends Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood helped pay for his hyperbaric oxygen therapy and medical costs. Ronnie eventually passed away from pneumonia in the late stages of MS and was laid to rest in Trinidad, Colorado. In a last attempt to cover his care, he had even recorded an unreleased live BBC album.
