Rod Stewart - Gasoline Alley (1970)

Rod Stewart became a big international star with the release of Every Picture Tells a Story in 1971, as it topped the British, American and Australian charts, and though it's a magnificent album, its success led Stewart on a road to ruin.  Soon, he was pandering to pop tastes.  At the beginning of the seventies, as both the frontman for the Faces and as a solo artist on the side, Stewart made some of the most heartfelt, most engaging records in rock and roll; by the end of decade, he was asking us if we thought he was sexy.  His eighties work is best described by the title of his 1980 album: Foolish Behaviour.  By the time Stewart added former and future Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor to his backing band and suckered his other guitarist, the normally reliable Jim Cregan, into helping him rewrite a Bob Dylan song and hoping no one would notice, he was too much of a hack to take seriously anymore.

It's probably because Every Picture Tells a Story was such a huge success that I find it overrated, despite former rock critic Jimmy Guterman declaring it the greatest rock album ever.   I keep going back to Stewart's previous  album, 1970's Gasoline Alley, for evidence of his greatness.  It's probably the most intimate album he's ever made, combining achingly personal originals with covers that find him capturing the very essence of the material.  Not a moment is wasted on Gasoline Alley; Stewart and his musicians imbue the LP's nine tracks with pure soul and deep meaning.  

The acoustically dominated title song finds Stewart seeking a desire to return from whence he started, eager to return to Gasoline Alley and hoping to be laid to rest there when it's his turn to die; with only the guitars of fellow Face Ron Wood (who composed "Gasoline Alley" with Stewart) and the mandolin of Stanley Matthews, the real magic is in the pleas and ruminations in Stewart's voice. He evokes the same yearning for home in a rustic cover of Elton John's "Country Comfort" that's far more effective than even Elton's great version. Similarly, his cover of Bob Dylan's "Only a Hobo" is so intimate, it's almost claustrophobic; its muted guitars and muffled rhythms make the listener feel like being on Skid Row with society's outcasts. And heartbreaking original ballads such as "Lady Day" and "Jo's Lament" (the latter song about a wayward man who's abandoned his child to seek a fortune, to no avail) are no less evocative; with the sound on each so raw and smoky, they're about as intimate as Stewart's own songs ever got.  His attempts to explain himself to the female second parties he's addressing are revealing when it comes to his own relations with women.

Stewart throws out some sly, winking rave-ups on Gasoline Alley with his energetic reworking of Bobby Womack's "It's All Over Now" and his down-home recording of the country rocker "Cut Across Shorty," and his personal appreciation for the Faces produces a sharp rock performance in "You're My Girl (I Don't Want To Discuss It)" that features the band (minus keyboardist Ian McLagan, who was unavailable) as well as a strong cover of their 1966 song "My Way Of Giving" (from their Small Faces days, before Stewart and Wood joined; "My Way Of Giving" was co-written by guitarist/vocalist Steve Marriott and bassist Ronnie Lane).  Throughout Gasoline Alley, the alternating between the Faces and Stewart sidemen such as guitarist Martin Quittenton, bassist Pete Sears, and drummer Mick Waller offer a kaleidoscope of some of the earthiest mix of rock, folk and blue-eyed soul ever to emanate from a British recording studio.

I think Stewart knew he was at his best when he recorded Gasoline Alley, and for proof you need only check out work from the 1990s, when he suddenly decided to stop being a hack.  Singles like "Rhythm Of My Heart" and "Leave Virginia Alone" returned  Stewart to that same vibe, albeit in a more polished iteration, and there was less of a pretense of stardom and more of a musical commitment to his efforts in the nineties than we'd had from him in years.  In an odd twist, he seemed to wish that he knew later what he knew when he was younger.    

(Note: The album sleeve at top is the American sleeve for Gasoline Alley; the one at the bottom is the British sleeve.)