Give us a (good) song, Rod…….
Regular readers of this blog will not be surprised to learn my completest tendencies with regard to rock music cover The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Kinks and The Who, to which could be added near as dammit near full collections of The Clash, Jackson Browne, the Rolling Stones and Neil Young. It may therefore raise an eyebrow or two when I reveal the work of Rod Stewart could be added to the latter list.
Coming clean about Rod brings with it full admission of there being at least half of a dozen of his albums that are unlikely to ever darken my turn table again, their paucity of decent material usually rendering them a discard after just one listen. But on the other hand his run of solo albums between 1969 and 1974 stand comparison with the best five sequence of records ever recorded – their charm and warmth never bettered – while latterly ‘The Great American Songbook’ series have re-affirmed Rod’s status as a singer in a class of his own.
After taking a twenty year break from song writing Stewart returned to recording self-penned material (lyrics at least) with ‘Time’ (2013) a set offering more accomplishment and validity then anyone had a right to expect. Two years later ‘Another Country’ contained enough decent songs of his own to make it a worthwhile project, so it is disappointing to report his latest album ‘Blood Red Roses’ falls well short of its predecessors, with a significant drop in the standard of his own compositions.
Throughout the nineties in particular, his excellence as a vocalist very often made underwhelming songs (his own and those of others) at least sound listenable and much the same happens here. Indeed, at times ‘Blood Red Roses’ sounds like it could belong between ‘Vagabond Heart’ (1991) and ‘Spanner in the Works’ (1995), both of which have little to recommend them either.
The four covers on ‘Blood Red Roses’ are unable to lift the album above the general malaise – a traditional Gaelic folk song, Paddy McAloon contribution, a reading of ‘It Was A Very Good Year’ (Rod adding a verse of his own to ramp up the schmaltz) and a re-working of blues standard ‘Rollin’ & Tumblin’ that is probably the worst offender in the over-wrought production stakes.
Of his own songs ‘Rest Of My Life’ is a Motown pastiche, although writing an unoriginal carbon copy seems a strange way of paying tribute, while the title track, a raucous shanty about whaling – not usual subject matter admittedly for a Rod song – deserves marks for effort, but would have benefitted from a less is more approach to production. On ‘Cold Old London’ Rod comes up with an intriguing title but then spends too long not saying very much. Altogether it leaves ‘Farewell,’ ‘Didn’t I’ and ‘Honey Gold’ as the only songs worthy of deeper investigation. All three show Rod can still tug a heart string when the mood takes him – ‘Farewell’ being a lament for a recently deceased friend and good enough to be mentioned in the same breath as the masterpiece with the same title who wrote for his 1974 ‘Smiler’ album, ‘Didn’t I’ the affecting tale of a young girl being drawn into drug addition (the melody similar in structure to ‘It’s Over’ from ‘Time’) and with ‘Honey Gold’ Rod emphasises he can still come up with a good line and in the case of ‘You know what, there’s a rumour going around the street you even partied with The Faces,’ – a very good one.
Over the years sticking up for Rod has not always been an easy task – the spandex trousers, tabloid lifestyle, support for the Scottish National football team and that’s before getting around to some samey, lacklustre music. Never one to suffer for art, at his best Rod won our hearts by making genius sound accidental – listen to ‘Gasoline Alley,’ ‘Every Picture Tells A Story’ or ‘Never A Dull Moment’ to hear how brilliance is made to sound no sweat. Nobody expects him to write anything approaching ‘Lady Day,’ Mandolin Wind’ or ‘True Blue’ again but better songs than what the majority of ‘Blood Red Roses’ has to offer would certainly help his cause – and mine in trying to defend him.
NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of MONTY’S DOUBLE – an acclaimed thriller now available as an Amazon Kindle Book.