Rod Stewart : Every Picture Tells a Story
Genre: Rock	Dates: 1971

One of my students recently asked me to recommend an album that would be the perfect musical companion for a road trip from innocence to experience. Well, kid, this is it. If you only know Rod the Mod (or Rod the Bod) from his standards-singin’ present or his “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” past—all I’ve got to say, and I know it’s his fault for squandering his talent, is you don’t know what you’re missing. Once upon a time—to be exact, on his first four solo recordings and the best of his work with the Faces—he was Dylan with a voice from God. Weaned on Sam Cooke (the influence of whom you can still hear on his standards singing), he could break hearts and unlock chastity belts, but it was his writing, which reached deep and specifically and compassionately into human experience, that was the biggest marvel. His first two records, The Rod Stewart Album and Gasoline Alley, were major, with cut-from-life tracks like “Handbags and Gladrags,” “An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down,” and “Gasoline Alley”; this, his third, is one of the most perfectly conceived rock and roll records of all time. His singing is sublime, the band (especially Mick Waller on mad drums and future Stone Ron Wood on all sorts of stringed things) is tough, but the songs! The covers are spot-on (Arthur Crudup and Elvis Presley’s “That’s All Right”; Dylan’s obscure but beautiful “Tomorrow is a Long Time”; an uncredited “Amazing Grace”; the Temptations’ “I’m Losing You”; Tim Hardin’s “Reason to Believe”), but Rod’s originals top ‘em. The almost unimaginably-rocking title song’s one of the truest songs about losing innocence and gaining adulthood ever written. “Maggie May,” #1 in 1970 and for eternity, lays out a disastrous romance with helpless good will (and the greatest intro in pop music history). And “Mandolin Wind” could have been meticulously cribbed from the diary of an 1800s settler—‘cept it wasn’t...it was written by a soccer-loving, bird-dogging, whiskey-swilling Scot who’d become rock’s classic prodigal son within two years of its writing. You can tell from the space I’ve spent in the writing that I want you to check this out—I haven’t been able to control myself actually—but one more attempted sales pitch: this is the closest any white man’s gotten to Al Green. Alright—I’ll shut up now.

Playlist:

1. Every Picture Tells A Story
2. Seems Like A Long Time
3. That's All Right
4. Tomorrow Is A Long Time
5. Maggie May
6. Mandolin Wind
7. I'm Losing You
8. Reason To Believe