Thoughts on the historical figure that is Rod Stewart.

I think Every Picture Tells a Story is a great album. Some stuff he did with the faces was good. Besides that nothing to get excited about. My nickname for him the BUTCHER because he destroys every song he tries to remake. Horrible.

 

Of course I like his work with Jeff Beck and Ronnie, as well as with The Faces, but I also like Blondes Have More Fun, especially "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" A staple at 7th grade dances.

I also dig "Hot Legs" where he must have told his band, "sound like the Stones sounding like the Faces."

 

Or historically hysterical.

 

I have a very nice racy memory from watching he and Tina do that tune on late night TV. They did call it 'shag carpet' back then.

 

Didn't see the Stones until much later (Steel Wheels) but I saw The Faces around '72, they were about as good of a rock n roll band as you could want. It was an outdoor show and the stage was lined with some kind of slippery surface so Rod could slide around on it(probably had some shoes or slippers that made it even more slippery.) There were two separate vocal mikes for Rod, one stage left and one stage right. They opened with I'm Losing You and when Rod stepped up to the mic to sing "You're love is fadin" that mic was not turned on. Realizing this, Rod slides to the other side of the stage in time to reach the other mic in time to sing "I can feel your love fadin." It's a favorite concert memory for me. The rest of the band were just a reckless, ramshackle mess having the time of their lives and playing those songs just like they needed to.

 

Some Guys Have All The Luck

 

Since you can't wait , I'll oblige ya.
He jumped the shark with ' Smiler'

 

IMO, in artistic / creative terms, he peaked very early with his first four albums on Mercury; his subsequent output on WB through the mid-70s was . . . adequate, but from about 1978 on, again IMHO, he began a sustained slide into irrelevancy and oblivion which has never abated.

 

I think some of his best work are the early covers he did.

 

Well into the deep 1980's he was still one of the finest interpreters of songs.
At that time he was having huge hits with songs from Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Robbie Robertson,
Stewart was a masterful interpreter.

 

I was too young to be aware of Rod in his Faces day, so the so-called "sellout Rod" is the one I grew up with on the radio.

I liked Rod back in the day and enjoyed those "sellout" albums - still do, to some degree.

The 1979 "Greatest Hits" was my first Rod purchase, and he was the headliner at the 4th rock concert I ever saw. He should've been 2nd, as the show was supposed to happen right before Thanksgiving 1981, but he hurt his foot and delayed until March 1982, so I saw the Kinks and the Police in between those dates.

Enjoyed that 1982 show a lot and saw him every tour after that through 1993 or so, IIRC. Just got bored with his act by that point - the shows rarely changed much.

Saw him again a few years back with Stevie Nicks as the opener - same old Rod!

 

Some good records, but an overrated singer!

 

Boring Boring Boring Boring, and an utterly predictable post...

 

Yes, I agree. After "Never a Dull Moment", I sort of lost interest. I did see him at Roosevelt Stadium in 1975. He was SO drunk, he was forgetting words and repeating verses and choruses. That was it for me.

 

I can just see Rod, sitting in front of his screen, nervously awaiting the outcome of this thread.

 

Saw the Faces 1971 at the Fillmore, and it was a rollicking, shambolic, drunken affair. They were handing out bottles of wine to the audience. They were absolutely perfect, a top rock'n'roll band that made it all look like easy, devilish fun. One of my favorite shows of all time.
Didn't see The Stones until'75 when they had that stupid unfolding flower stage. I was bored.

 

Let's see, why didn't he participate in any of the Faces reunion attempts? Oh yeah, it was because he wanted to be paid more than the other guys.
So my thoughts are mostly negative.

 

I've always loved his disco hit single "Do you think I'm sexy?"

 

Indeed. I’ve liked some of his stuff over the years (early albums, Faces, Atlantic Crossing) while other stuff has been pretty grim in my opinion (Great American Songbook volumes 1-who knows how many). But through it all Rod has always seemed like a stand-up guy, comfortable in his own skin and, whatever many of us think about some of his material, he obviously keeps a lot of fans very happy. More power to him I say.

 

"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the . . . public."

~ H.L. Mencken.

 

He has a great HO train layout.

That is the extent of my interest in Rod Stewart.

 

Rod Stewart is one of the all-time greats. That's my thought.

 

Great singer. Just like everyone else he was great and then not as great. He's done pretty well for himself. He also punched a security guard on New Year's Eve.

 

Saw them both in the summer of 1972 - Boston Garden.

The Faces were on The Nod As Good As A Wink tour traveling with circus performers who opened up the show.
A few weeks later The Stone's Exile tour hit town, the same night they were busted in Warwick, RI and didn't get on stage until 1am ( 4 hours late.) The Stones were my favorite band ever since Ya-Ya's came out. Missed them on the 69 tour but was determined to get tickets for 72 and fortunately managed to do so. It was a wicked, pissa summer for sure that year for this kid!

I do think the Faces may have replaced the Stones as my favorites for awhile around this time. The Faces single "Stay With Me" was shooting up the charts and it blew me away. I already was familiar with Rod when the single "Reason To Believe" was released. It was soon replaced however in heavy rotation on the local radio stations by the B-side "Maggie May" and the rest is r&r history!

As a guitar driven band I thought the Faces rocked as hard as the Stones and Stewart could give Jagger a run for his money as a performer and vocalist to boot. The rock press had taken to calling the Faces "the working man's Rolling Stones" and that appealled to me too, as a budding working class hero who spent summers working in the old factories that peppered the old mill towns in the area where I grew up.

I read somewhere recently ( maybe Ian MacLagan's book ) that Jagger had gone to a Faces show around this time and after the show had confided to Billy Gaff ( the Faces manager at the time ) that the band had indeed put on a bettter show than the Stones. So there you have it, straight from the horses mouth! That may well have been the night that the idea of Ron Wood as a potential guitarist for the Stones first took seed in Mick's mind ( That is if Keith's nasty habits ever became an issue with future Stones tours, which may have seemed like a real possibility at the time.)