The Rod Stewart Post

I feel obligated to begin this adventure in a semi-chronological way. So while I will be writing about music of the 1970's in this post, I do so because this music is currently on my mind. Indeed, 'on my mind' is perhaps too weak of a statement; rather, I may say that I am currently obsessed with Rod Stewart's 1970's output. Nothing that follows is revolutionary, however I've come to love this music in a way that many of my friends seem unable to. Rod's cultural cache could hardly be lower with many music lovers, and this is too bad.
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My great shame is that I'm something of a classicist these days when it comes to pop music. This isn't entirely true, exceptions abound. On the whole, however, I have little interest much contemporary music. As a result, I've spent much of the past six or seven years researching the highlights of pop music. This does not make me any kind of expert, and in truth many of my evaluations of 'classic' pop have tended to be lower than those of conventional wisdom. Cheap Trick, to wit. I sold 'Live at Budokan' in my last purge. I rarely listened to it, never loved it, and just don't 'get' it in the way that many people do. My loss, I suppose.

Anyway. Some years ago, I was perusing a local used record shop (one that has mightily gone downhill) and came across a cheap BMG CD club reissue of 'Sing it Again, Rod'--the first compilation of Rod Stewart's Mercury Records-era solo work. I'd read that his early stuff was great, indeed 'Every Picture Tells a Story' often receives 4-5 star ratings. And I had to admit, uncool as it was, that I'd always liked 'Maggie May.'

Like many others, my opinion of Rod Stewart has always been rather low, if I spent much time thinking about him. 'Infatuation' and 'Do Ya Think I'm Sexy' tended to dominate my impression, as did an unpleasant cover of Tom Waits' 'Downtown Train' and the horrid 'Forever Young.' Little did I know that Rod-hatred is a long standing pop music tradition. Critics and fans HATE him, I have learned. Why so? I mean sure, most of his music that I knew of was poor, and he was kind of a tacky figure. But why the overwhelming animosity?

Only a fall from grace could account for this. As I believe The Rolling Stone Album Guide mentions, Rod Stewart proves that 'selling out' isn't just some kind of hipster paranoia. Rod Stewart is the great sell-out, the great Benedict Arnold of the 60's and 70's. Why this happened is not really my concern here, and I'm sure there are many reasons. In the end, it doesn't really matter. Like many 'classic' musicians, Rod is better forgotten after 1974 or so. However, I encourage the unfamiliar listener to try to move past the vitriol of the Stewart backlash and listen closely to his Mercury solo work. It's time well-spent. Again, this is not revolutionary. The critical community has long touted these records, but music fans of my era can't seem to tolerate Rod and this is why I'm writing.
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Ok, let's a spend a little while tracing Rod's career. His first band of note was The Steampacket, a nascent blues/R&B group also featuring the important, if less than brilliant, 'Long John' Baldry. There are a few recordings from this era, none of them supposed to be very interesting. Rod's next gig, and his first major one, was as singer for the Jeff Beck Group. The albums 'Truth' and 'Beck-ola' are nascent heavy metal, full of Beck's signature guitar flash. I do not think the albums have aged well. They are perhaps even less subtle than Led Zeppelin's work, and resemble Iron Butterfly and Vanilla Fudge more than they do Black Sabbath. Rod is in full hard-rock blossom here: screaming and over-emoting. If I were to name this early form of metal, I'd call it 'bloating the blues.' Thankfully, the Jeff Beck Group didn't last long, and Rod moved on to the former Small Faces just in time for their transmutation into the Faces.

The Faces are worthy of a digression. A fascinating sub-plot to Rod-imosity regards this seminal band. Despite the omnipresent hatred of Rod, the Faces have managed to keep their hipster cred all this time. I think this results largely from two things. First, the Faces were strongly championed by many of the first-wave of 'serious' rock music critics. They were adored by the Creem set. Somewhat more recently, the use of 'Ooh La La' Wes Anderson's 'Rushmore' spawned a small scale indie tryst with the Faces.

In a very perceptive review of the newest Faces collection, a PitchforkMedia writer noted that The Faces will always be 'cooler' than the Rolling Stones or The Who. The Faces, then, have cred for days. The larger question is: Do they live up to this cred? In two words, I'd say: not really.

The liner notes of 'Good Boys... When They're Asleep' admits as much, subtly. The fact of the matter is that most Faces songs go on for too long; they're attempts by a primarily live band to reproduce their vibe in the studio. This rarely works for anyone. Much as we 'rockists' might like to deny it, studiocraft and live performance are not necessarily related. Thus, like many of AC/DC's earlier songs, the Faces' stuff tends to drag -- too many vamps, too many rave ups.

There's a second problem, one that the recent Pitchfork reviewer nails. A lot of the Faces material lacks melody, and at times the songs degenerate into tuneless crashing. This kind of thing is induces headaches, and big Faces fans seem unaware of it. It's at times like this that the Faces resemble other 'boogie bands,' like Ten Years After, Foghat, or Cactus, and it is at these times that they are at their worst. 'Pool Hall Richard' is a good example.

Finally, Rod Stewart's talent lies firmly with mid-tempo and slower songs. Fundamentally, his voice doesn't work as well in the uptempo Faces stuff. Like Al Green, whom I will post about some day, Stewart's golden era came when he mostly eschewed the hard-driving rock stuff, i.e. his solo work.

None of this is to say that the Faces are terrible. 'Flyin',' 'Stay With Me,' and all of the Ronnie Lane/Ron Wood-sung tunes ('Debris,' 'Ooh La La') are great songs. But when there's more chaff to be found than great songs on a greats compilation, the legacy of the band needs to be reexamined. My feeling is that you probably had to 'be there' for the Faces. I'm sure they were a great live show, and most critics like what they represent, but the music is not of the calibre we'd like. Compare the sloppy, bluesy/folky vibe of the Faces with the Stones' 'Exile' and you can clearly see the difference between good times and brilliance.

So, back to the topic at hand: Rod Stewart's early solo work. As I noted above, my first experience with this material came with 'Sing it Again, Rod.' I honestly don't remember my first few listens to the album, but I do know that it didn't take long to get under my skin. There's two odd-ball songs on the record that I don't care for much, 'Twistin' the Night Away' and the orchestral 'Pinball Wizard,' neither of which play to Rod's strengths. But overall, holy shit. 'Gasoline Alley,' 'Handbag and Gladrags,' 'You Wear it Well,' 'Country Comforts,' 'I'm Losing You,' '(Find A) Reason to Believe' -- it's all gold. Here, Rod finally slows it down enough and drops the hard-rock pretensions enough to let his voice really shine. The result is a very different kind of 'folk-rock' than that of the Byrds or Dylan. The drums crash (sometimes a little too much), the electric guitar is usually used as a background shade rather than a lead, and many of the songs make extensive use of mandolin, acoustic guitars, fiddle, and piano.

The most important part of all this is Stewart, of course. Not only is his voice striking, he's deceptively in control of it. Like the Faces, Rod's solo work tends toward the sloppy. Of course, members of his full-time band were major contributors to the solo stuff as well. And this was the Faces/Stewart aesthetic, sloppy good times. But not so unlike Glenn Danzig in the Misfits, the overall roughness of the music tends to overshadow the vocal sophistication. Simply put, in this era Rod Stewart was one of the best singers rock'n'roll has ever seen. Certainly none of his British counterparts even get close, with the dubious exception of Joe Cocker who had the power but none of the subtly. I will put 'Gasoline Alley' and 'Mandolin Wind' against any rock vocal performance. Indeed, the Faces-backed cover of the Temptations' '(I Know) I'm Losing You' is the only good Motown cover I've ever heard. While it's not perfect (it goes on too long, just like the Faces tunes mentioned above), Rod kills it. It takes some serious balls for a skinny white dude to mess with David Ruffin, but holy christ, he just nails it. Like the original, the Faces/Stewart version brings ominous shivers to your spine. The secret of that song is that it's actually a threat, it seethes a hidden danger and Rod brings that home as well as Ruffin did.

Rod really shines on the slower, ballad type songs. He was a great interpreter, in fact this was his great talent. His songwriting was never spectacular, but his songs reflected his own orientation at the time: the fun-loving, roguish, sentimental young man. Of course 'Maggie May' is the epitome of this role, one which Stewart embodied. And in the final account, that's what makes these songs so great. There's always something wistful in these ballad performances, a sense of bittersweetness, sometimes a sense of loss. It's truly precocious for a young man, and in light of his later work, one wonders where the hell it came from. In a way, Rod Stewart channeled the male emotional life. Not saccharine or maudlin, but just honest. I'm listening to 'Country Comforts' right now and it's all there. It's a performance with a tear in the eye and a wan smile on the face. You can't bottle that shit.

I think the real achievements of this era stand as 'Gasoline Alley' and 'Mandolin Wind.' Both of these songs were written by Stewart, and while the first is perfect, the second kind of doesn't make sense. However if we forget about logic (and this is pop music after all), these songs are statements of purpose. 'Gasoline Alley' is a lament of sorts, Rod wishes for a return to the simple life of his youth in his old neighborhood. 'But if anything should happen and my plans go wrong/Should I stray to the house on the hill/Let it be known that my intentions were good/I'd be singing in my alley if I could,' sings Rod. And he means it. I don't wanna be rich and famous, I'm just a local boy, a regular guy. I just wanna have a good time and live a modest life.

'Mandolin Wind' is as sincere of a love song as I've ever heard. You can just feel the resonance, indeed this song is a palliative for the relentless misogyny of much of the uptempo stuff ('Los Paragauyos,' 'Every Picture Tells a Story'):

Oh I never was good with romantic words
So the next few lines come really hard
Don't have much but what I've got is yours
Except of course my steel guitar
Ha, cause I know you don't play
But Ill teach you one day
Because I love ya

Other songs deserve mention here, 'Handbags and Gladrags,' 'Jo's Lament,' 'You Wear it Well,' 'Someone Like You,' and many others. In the end, I don't know there's been any music quite like the Rod Stewart Mercury solo stuff. It was it's own sound, it's own feel, it's own aesthetic and it was truly beautiful.

Where could Rod go from here? Only down of course. Indeed, Rod abandonded his sincerity, his richness of interpretation and his depth of emotion. Everything that made him great was thrown aside to do exactly what he said he didn't want to do in 'Gasoline Alley'; Rod perpetrated the great rock'n'roll betrayal. In the past 30 years, he's produced a raft of schlock and pabulum that's really no worse than that of any other adult contemporary tool.

But no one in pop music has ever fallen from such heights in such a calculated way. While many critics have noted that by the time of Rod's fourth solo record his folk-rock formula had begun to wear thin, no one expected the travesty that followed. And this travesty can't be ignored. But don't hate on the early Rod, and don't stop with the Faces. Immerse yourself in the good stuff. You soul will thank you for it.

And raise a pint to the old Rod. Just like in 'Country Comforts' (the only Elton John related song I've ever liked), have a drink, remember the good times and shake your head at what's happened since.