Before he had hooked up with Clive Davis to transform himself into a dubious version of Tony Bennett...many MANY years before...Rod Stewart was a seriously good rock singer. I don't mean to imply that his raspy pipes are now shot to hell or anything like that. Rather, I mean that the material he covered, the style of his music and his attitude, made Rod The Mod a force to be reckoned with all those years ago.
Back in 1971 Stewart had all three of those areas covered well when he unveiled the second of his holy trinity of classic albums, Every Picture Tells A Story (the first being Gasoline Alley and the third Never A Dull Moment).
This is the record that contained his signature hit "Maggie May," and the fine English folk album cut "Mandolin Wind." It also commences with one whale of a rocker, with a song by the same name as the album.
Anyone only vaguely familiar with classic rock, might think I'm only stating the painfully obvious up to this point. But I'm painfully reminded of that lost glory when my playlist touches on most any pre-1977 selection of Stewart's. He was on one helluva roll for a time, and the one selection that to me stands in the most direct contrast to what has become of his music is the topic of this One Track Mind.
An original Rod co-write with his Faces cohort at the time, the brunette look-alike Ron Wood, "Picture" epitomizes Stewart's footloose and fancy free outlook. Stewart takes the role of a young man looking for cheap thrills around the globe, until he went to China and "fell in love with a slit-eyed lady." Amidst all the racism and sexism is his carefree humor with lines like "my body stunk but I kept my funk" and "she took me up on deck and bit my neck/Oh people I was glad I found her."
Article comments
1 - Glen Boyd
Another choice cut on that album is Rod's take on "I Know I'm Losing You," where both Ron Wood and Kenny Jones rock like a house a fire. yeah, it is kinda sad how Rod sold out, but you can't take away what he did on those early records (you should also check out his two albums with Jeff Beck if you haven't already).
Good stuff Pico!
-Glen
2 - Pico
Amen, Brother Glen, I didn't even touch on the stuff ol' Rod did with The Jeff Beck Group or Faces (I wanted to keep it fairly brief), but those recordings were the equal of his early solo stuff.
3 - JC Mosquito
Get that Mercury box with the complete recordings on it - yes indeed - Rod was once one of the finest rock and roll singers in the world.
4 - OldGeezer
This was the very first album I purchased with my own money back in nineteen and seventy-two. Every cut on it is a classic. (Not like nowadays when you're lucky if you like even ONE song on an overstuffed CD.) I still have that piece of vinyl, which is by now completely threadbare.
I certainly wouldn't want to deny Mr. Stewart the freedom to do whatever he felt he had to do to earn a buck, but it is a shame about the musical direction he went in.