Hmm.
His American Songbook series was sniggered at by everybody with a sophisticated take on pop - how perfectly kitsch! - but the first volume, in 2002, pulled him out of a career nosedive in the US, the market he always wanted to conquer. Not many UK acts have killed it in Vegas (th' Home of Foam, leave us not forget), and by getting his name in neon here he joined chest-hair balloon animals Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck. But Stewart did it right. Executive Producer Clive Davis, who'd rescued Carlos Santana's career, opened the coffers and got the best possible producers, arrangers and musicians and unlimited studio time to create something remarkable. And it was wildly, unexpectedly successful, spawning four best-selling follow-ups.
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| Hey, Rod - uh, fella? |
The arrangements are never schlocky or generic, and the songs are among the most beautiful and intelligent ever written. I'm scratching my noggin to come up with a demerit, but other than the fact that the guy looks like a cross between a Cabbage Patch Doll and a keychain Troll, I can't.
I'll take him over Bronx funeral foghorn Tony Bennett any day. And having always been a Billie/Basie man, I'll take this set over Ella's songbooks, too (*shocked intake of breath*). The whole thing's a stone delight. Especially on a Sunday.
Your musical tastes have been revelatory for me in many instances, but I don't know about this one. I loved Stewart both with the Faces and his early solo. Anything he touched was superb. But those of us who loved him cringed at the GAS (and the Christmas album). I have to say I haven't converted to them. I may never. Give me Gasoline Alley any day of the week.
ReplyDeleteOh, and next to Sinatra (Frank), Tony Bennett kills it. Maybe not now (Lady Gaga?), but he can sing "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" for me anytime. And many others, too.
ReplyDeleteHappy for you.
DeleteOver Ella!!! BLASPHEMY in the HOF!!! BLASHPEMY!!!! Get thee to a nunnery, stat!
ReplyDeleteExcuse me whileI go hide/burn my Tony Clifton albums...........
DeleteBillie and Basie beats Ella and Ellington every time. Stewart's vocals are much more in the Billie style. I never took to Ella's smiling buttermilk perfection - she makes everything she sings sound so damn pleasant.
DeleteStewart's interpretations, and the arrangements behind him, are way better than most people are ever going to appreciate. They can't get over the fact that it's, duh, Rod Stewart - and what right does he have to do this?
I will concede that there is an argument to be made between Billie/Basie vs Ella/Ellington. But, I'm just not getting the Stewart comparison. Loved his work with Beck/Faces/Every Pic Tells a Story. But, as a crooner of the great American songbook?!? Nah....
DeleteYou guys forgot to remove your shoes. Viva Las Vegas
ReplyDeleteYou're stopping short of an actual request, FGW!
DeleteMan up!
There are some who'd say that Rod the Mod's MOR mood manglings and/or Lonunge Lizard act of recent years equate to merely poor man's Steve Tyrell imitations (which in turn, some may say, is a poor man's Billy Vera...)
ReplyDeleteBut, I digress (who, moi?!)
To itch foam-head his own, I guess.
Hearing the Rodster guy croon must have make the old skool fans cringe enough to wish that he'd get in an old-fashioned football riot. Or something like it. Roddy & his body guard (O.K., SON) was only too happy to oblige (Y'all just HAVE TO have heard this recent news bitlit...):
"Rod Stewart and his eldest son Sean face battery charges after a New Year's Eve altercation with a security guard . . . Stewart punched a security guard who refused to allow him into an event, and his eldest son, Sean, shoved the guard, a police report said."
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/04/us/rod-stewart-son-simple-battery-trnd/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/04/arts/rod-sean-stewart-nye-battery.html
It's a GAS GAS GAS . . .
Or, Gas x 5 ?
(Hmmm... I ain't seen no one beggin' the head Foam Domer fer these yet...)(It's O.K., everyone's allowed a guilty pleasure or two...)
(Anyone have any Little Joe Pesci albums...?)
("No it's not a joke"... )("I Confess"... Crooned the Special Beat servant...)
https://www.discogs.com/Little-Joe-Little-Joe-Sure-Can-Sing/master/1341901
I'm not defending him as a human being, nor the many sub-below-par albums he's made. I don't care.
DeleteThe reason most of your readers hate his ''GAS'' is for the simple reason that their parents loved it.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that's one of the factors. The context of this music works against it on almost every level.
Delete1 The artist cannot be taken seriously
2 The artist lost it after [your favorite album here]
3 The artist "sold out" by recording this material
4 The artist has no right to cover these songs
5 The artist is a twat
6 The artist's core fans are a bunch of twats
6 This is the kind of thing that people you have little or no respect for like
7 You are way too cool to even consider it
Any or all of which may be more or less true. And none of which affects the music, which, if listened to free of context, is revealed as a beautiful work of art in its own right.
Context colors a lot of our perception. At Th' House O'Foam©, there is no cultural baggage weighing stuff down, no back story that "makes us wise". Only appreciation, and enjoyment.
I listened to it when it was released. To me, it lacks soul. It just sounds generic and like someone was out to make a buck.
DeleteAs to generic - you do the musicians and the arrangers a disservice. Nothing cookie-cutter easy-listening here. Nobody dozing at the charts.
DeleteAs to lacking soul - he understands what the songs are saying, and he wears them well. But would you say that Ella sings soul?
And out to make a buck? Well, that's a rarity in the music business, I grant you. But it does happen. Tsk.
Oy vey
ReplyDeleteAs someone who has listened to dozens of Buddy Greco's variations on 'The Lady is a Tramp' to find that "one" special one, I'd like to give Rod a chance. if you'd be so kind....?
ReplyDeleteObey_Gravity
For me, it will always be the one he sang at Salvatore La Barbera's birthday party here at the Sands in '62. Your mileage may differ.
DeleteOnly The Brave
Rod was blessed with a voice and a true love of music, like his fellow Soho scuffler Reg. From Steampacket to Mandolin Wind to Brighton Beach was a long and winding road but one worth following.
ReplyDeleteCheers, Peanuts Molloy.
The problem with Rod is Rod, not the music. As a personality, he's tough to like, and tougher to respect. It's perfectly okay to admire his albums up to (whichever), but when he started coining it in the US his artistic credibility plummeted like a stone. So when he does come up with something wonderful, as most of his songbooks are (and you're right to mention Brighton Beach from the superb Time album) people who would otherwise still get out of him what they got back then give him a miss. Their loss - but I suspect they're happier with the kneejerk dismissal.
DeleteMeanwhile, of course, Neil Young continues his decades-long exploration of how little he can get away with, respect intact.
Just to stick my oar in. Everyone knows Rod can do crass but he can do sensitive and intelligent too. He's got the brain, he's got the voice - let's face it, he's got the chops. If he wants to do something well, he can. It just depends on whether he can be arsed. Though if I were in the mood for a Sunday Morning GAS Chill, I'd probably go for Harry's 'A Little Touch of Schmilsson In The Night' or Carly's wondrous 'Torch'. I'd take Billie over Ella too, though Sarah Vaughn and Anita O'Day are not to be sneezed at either.
ReplyDeleteDese is fine woids, pontyboy, expressin' noble sentiment what dose you credit.
DeleteWe gots Sassy n' Nita n' other swell shantoozies comin' up.
I just plugged my nose and invested my invaluable finger-click (x2!) on this after wrestling with the Super-Ego of conventional wisdom and now I feel like I got the cooties! Is it too late to return it (I ain't pulled the zipper down yet)?!?! Will it put hair on my chest? I feel so conflicted!
ReplyDeleteYou had the cooties before you clicked, MrDave.
Delete