Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells a Story

Ya know, Rod Stewart had a real, real good run going in the beginning of the 70’s.  I know he became the butt of some crude jokes when he “went Disco” and he never really recovered from that stuff with the cool kids.  Maybe it was because he was just this close to being mentioned in the same breaths as The Stones, Beatles and Dylan, and he just started kind of losing direction shortly after, and then instead of just losing direction the dude jumped off a cliff into a mountain of money.

I’m trying to think of when I first got this album.  I think it was the late 80’s, on cd.  I had friends that had this, and I had some other Rod Stewart albums, but it’s not like they didn’t play damn near the whole thing on Cleveland’s radio stations.  I think I found my vinyl copy of this in the 90’s at a flea market or a used record store that’s long gone.  I remember just grabbing it because it was cheap, and then one day putting it on the old B&O and wondering what the hell happened between the vinyl version and the cd.  The vinyl I have is a red label Mercury on Energy Crisis weight vinyl, but man, does it sound great!

I’m a sucker for a great, dry drum sound.  I like it when drums sound just like they do if you’re in someone’s basement and they’re banging away right in front of you.  Mickey Waller is a shambling mess that sounds like he’s gonna lose the beat at any second, but he never quite does and he gives Rod and the band a terrific, wobbly foundation that reminds me of a getting a good drunk on and being a little unsteady, but happy and more in control that people suspect.  A tricky balancing act indeed, but everything just works perfectly here.

What I find interesting is that the best songs here are written or co written by Stewart, but most of the songs are Stewart’s interpretations of songs other people wrote.  It seems kind of strange, especially coming from an era where it was really expected of people to write their own songs.  Maybe Rod didn’t have much in his tank, but three of his songs here are three of his all time best.  Sure, if you’re my age you can live without hearing Maggie May again, but the way it jumps off the record makes it sound as fresh as it did coming out of mom’s AM radio in her ’65 Valiant (sure, it sounded like crap but I was 8 and it was good enough for me!).  Then there’s the “wow, that’s (high school) deep” of Mandolin Wind and the “man, that sounds like a (college aged) great trip” of the title track.  That’s three songs that have held up for over forty years and they still, even after all these years, sound like they were recorded just yesterday.  That’s craftsmanship, and maybe Rod couldn’t do it prolifically, but when he was good he made it count.  Rod’s true claim to fame may be that he can be a brilliant interpreter, but at least here the three very best songs were his.

As far as the record goes, I wish the cover weren’t perforated.  Mine is still attached, but barely.  It’s still in good enough shape and I’m not looking for another one, but still…The record itself is almost as flexible as a Dynaflex disc, but it sounds terrific.  The blend of the acoustic guitars and drums with electric bass and guitars has such an open quality that it’s like you can reach out and touch the space between the instruments.  The whole thing sounds like the band is in the room with you, with a beautiful stereo separation that presents a soundstage producers don’t seem interested in presenting anymore.  Maybe it’s because everyone listens to music with earbuds or near field in front of their computers, but when I hear something like this I have to think that we aren’t exactly hearing recorded music as well as it can be done these days, and I’m not bitching about compression and loudness.

Usually when I decide to give something an Audiophile Alert I check online afterwards to see if I’m alone in this opinion.  It turns out that there are a lot of people that prefer the red label Mercury pressings to Mobile Fidelity vinyl and gold cd’s.  So you should be able to find the best sounding copies of this album easily for less than ten bucks!