Rod Stewart, pt. 1: Anthony's Album Guide
This is an oh-so-slightly edited version of a post I made on Tumblr almost a decade ago(!). My handy dandy profoundly subjective numerical rating scheme is explained here.
The Rod Stewart Album (1969) 7
Gasoline Alley (1970) 8
Every Picture Tells A Story (1971) 10
Never A Dull Moment (1972) 8
Sing It Again, Rod (1973) 6
Smiler (1974) 4
Atlantic Crossing (1975) 7
A Night On The Town (1976) 6
The Best Of Rod Stewart, Vol. 1 (1976) 4
The Best Of Rod Stewart, Vol. 2 (1976) 5
Footloose & Fancy Free (1977) 5
Blondes Have More Fun (1978) 5
As loosely detailed in the first song off his best album, football enthusiast Rod Stewart spent his late adolescence as a vagabond, studying many a music over land and sea, perfecting his tolerance level and mack game. A confident soul singer by 19, his earliest singles and sides are worth checking out once you’ve heard everything Sam Cooke and Otis Redding recorded during their brief lifetimes.
If I bothered with a GLIB XENNIAL ALERT on this post, it would probably be that I likely underrate Jeff Beck.
Jeff Beck – the third most famous guitarist for blooze rawk pioneers the Yardbirds – plucked Rod from obscurity to bellow on Truth, the third best album recorded in 1968 by a former guitarist for the Yardbirds. Both Led Zeppelin and the Jeff Beck Group heavied up Muddy Waters’ “You Shook Me” on their ‘68 debuts, but only the Jeff Beck Group socked it to “Ol’ Man River.” Their second album, Beck-Ola, is a looser affair, with two rambling Elvis Presley covers bracketing a pretty piano piece on Side A. A seven-minute show-off stomp titled “Rice Pudding” owns the B. Rod – when allowed to sing – sounds considerably more relaxed, maybe cuz he’d already signed a solo contract with Mercury.
Despite this independent income, when Beck Group bassist Ron Wood joined the Small Faces as their new guitarist, Rod came along as their new singer. But with the Faces (no longer Small) all over Rod’s initial solo work, the distinction was almost clerical. His solo debut, named An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down in the UK and The Rod Stewart Album in the US (we don’t appreciate your pub riddles here, thank you), reveals how great a time these guys had when Beck wasn’t around. Done serving hard rock flash, Rod now demands the flash serve him. Technical accuracy takes a backseat to rollicking good times, and sinking your teeth into the song. The only issue is Rod’s originals aren’t up to his taste in covers, which veer from recent hits like “Street Fighting Man” to traditionals like “Man Of Constant Sorrow.” Gasoline Alley improves the cover-to-original ratio from 1:1 to 2:1, the music’s jocular grandeur boosted by mandolins and strings. The title track is Rod’s first original you’d assume came from a better writer, its melody worthy of a granny on a field recording.
Those sweaty, booze-blossomed Faces!!
Oh right, The Faces. On First Step, Rod is once again the “frontperson” of a festival-bound boogie-rock combo (only one song clocks in under four minutes). The irony that he gets more songwriting credits in this role than on his own albums isn’t in itself rewarding. Long Player is more winning (their increase in confidence is right in the title), but the arrangements still suffer from blatant, extended beer breaks.
The track lengths are plenty long on Rod’s third album, too, but when Rod steps away from the mic on Every Picture Tells A Story, there’s usually a better reason than thirst. Story will go down as Rod’s aesthetic apex – music as mighty and majestic as Led Zeppelin or the Stones, with none of the self-serious preening. Show-stopping Elvis, Dylan, Tim Hardin & Motown covers share space with memoirs of young studhood both victorious (the titular travelogue) and bittersweet (“Maggie May,” a May-December tale he’ll be playing until the calendar falls off the wall). Stewart himself will tell you he doesn’t get better than “Mandolin Wind,” a genre-blurring valentine so varied and vivacious in tone it makes Van Morrison look like a try-hard. Screen legends need a couple years to show they can do it all with style – Rod did it in 40 minutes, and it made him a superstar.
I'd almost believe they were kicking a football around while recording the track, honestly.
The hits kept coming, with a third Faces album and Never A Dull Moment: lean, punchy affairs even shorter than Every Picture. Moment’s “Italian Girls” and “You Wear It Well” could have been named “Every Picture Tells A Story II” and “Maggie May II” but are more 22 Jump Street than The Hangover Part II – you know they know you know, so why not have fun, right? Aiming for the radio royalties Rod was enjoying, less than half the songs on The Faces’ A Pub Joke Is Funnier…If You’re Drunk hit the four-minute mark. Ironically, one of the relative epics, the boisterous, churlish come-on “Stay With Me,” wound up their only US pop hit.
The stopgap compilation Sing It Again, Rod may have a cover cut like a whiskey glass, but the ghastly orchestral cover of the Who’s “Pinball Wizard” leaves a shit aftertaste (The Best Of Rod Stewart, Vol.1 gets - and stays - shittier even quicker, but Vol. 2 at least doesn’t have “Pinball Wizard”). Nothing on the last Faces album reaches four minutes, as no one in the rapidly dissolving band would return to their instrument after drinking (the fondly recalled title track was veteran wingman Ronnie Lane’s, and wouldn’t be sung by Rod until the late ‘90s). I only wish Smiler, the last solo album to feature the extended Faces family, was as expedient. The attempts at casual grandeur are embarrassing self-parodies, with “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Man” only the most obvious. Listening to Smiler is like watching someone pretend to have a great time with their phone at a bar, refusing to admit they’ve been stood up.
"Where are the Faces? Did they fall off the boat before filming started?"
Seeking new friends and associates (not to mention a more forgiving tax rate), Rod skipped off to LA and Atlantic Records. The none-more-aptly-titled Atlantic Crossing sounds best when heard after Smiler, its MGs and Muscle Shoals musicians showing a significant increase in enthusiasm & heart – sympathetic support, at least – on some juicy cover ballads, ranging from Crazy Horse to the Isley Brothers. Reassured, Rod the songwriter returns on A Night On The Town, mourning someone’s uncle (“The Killing Of Georgie (Parts I & Part II)”) and deflowering someone’s niece (“Tonight’s The Night (Gonna Be Alright)”). The downside of this confidence is his uninspired cover choices – Cat Stevens, Manfred Mann and the Three Degrees.
Foot Loose & Fancy Free introduces the grinning goofballs who’d mime behind him in countless early MTV clips, and help him write the entire A side (the first half of an album to go cover-free in his entire career). “You’re In My Heart (The Final Acclaim)” is a sweetly sappy tribute to his favorite football team (somehow that’s never been tied to that stomach-pumping story), but folks hoping for another “Mandolin Wind” had to settle for “I Was Only Joking,” a cocksman’s apology made all the smarmier following “Hot Legs” and “Born Loose.” Folks hoping for another “(I Know) I’m Losing You” got a Vanilla Fudge tribute.
Oh, good! He's made some new friends.
Blondes Have More Fun has but one – one! – cover, where Phil Chen and Carmen Appice apply the same humpity-pumpity disco throb to the Four Tops’ “Standing In The Shadows Of Love” that they do to Rod’s Oldest Guy At The Singles Bar anthem “D’Ya Think I’m Sexy?” Ironically, this notoriously decadent period was his most singer-songwriterly to date, confounding most rockist notions of “heart and soul” with his earnest assman shtick. After all, wasn’t he being more “authentic” cackling “Ain’t Love A Bitch” and “Attractive Female Wanted” at heartbreakers by the hotel pool in his thirties than recalling old country winters in his twenties? Rod the Mod, however unpretentiously, aimed for timelessness. Rod the Man in the “Sex Police” T-shirt, however crassly, made the best of the moment.
Coming up in pt. 2: Rod continues to make the best of the moment.
Every Picture Tells A Story is rocket number 9 on My Top 400 Albums Of All Time. I'm telling you this because I've found people are more inclined to discuss and share reviews if there's a quantitative element at the top or bottom they can easily debate. Prove me right! If you think I'm underrating Beck-ola or the Sex Police, that's ok. My e-mail is anthonyisright at gmail dot com.
