For That Gravel Fix It Can Only Be Rod Stewart

A bit of gravel is definitely good for you. When I listen to Rod Stewart I always feel like a dirty junkie, going to a shameful, squalid place to get my fix of ‘gravel’. I don’t know why I feel Rod is such a guilty pleasure, lord knows there’s lots of equally uncool music I like without such feelings of shame.

Sure other artists have imitated the gravel voice with varying degrees of success. The Black Crowes and The Quireboys from the late 8os/early 90s both spring to mind. Then there’s the female gravel voices - Bonnie Tyler and Kim Carnes have it. Stevie Nicks - oh yeah, Sheryl Crowe kinda has it sometimes. None thought have every really matched that of Rod.

Later this year Rod celebrates 55 years since the release of his first single, “Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl.” There was stints in various groups with Long John Baldry, The Jeff Beck Group and later The Faces and he changed the music world with “Maggie May” - a track personally which I freely admit I can take or leave!

Not Cool
He’s not been ‘cool’ for more than four decades but he’s still a guilty pleasure to many, including me! I’ve even seen him live quite a number of times where he can still put on a quality show. My favourite period of his was the early seventies both solo stuff and with The Faces. My favourite albums are Every Picture Tells A Story (of course), Gasoline Alley and possibly surprisingly to many, the ‘MTV Unplugged, and Seated’ album with Ronnie Wood which is a fantastic album showcasing his, at that time 30 year career.

My ‘Go-To’ Rod Era
As I said above, Rod’s true purple patch came early in his career in the late sixties then the seventies up to release of the ‘Blondes Have More Fun’ album when his ego, money and love of blondes took over.

On his work with Jeff Beck, The Faces and his early solo albums his gravel voice worked wonders. Not a huge range of course but a good gruff snarl for rock and blues which also translated well for the softer folky pieces. It seemed that he brought so much soul to seventies rock music. 

Rod was profoundly influenced by Sam Cooke. His first 4 solo albums are marvellous blends of electric and acoustic textures with Rod's folk roots in full display. ‘Every Picture Tells a Story’ remains one of my all-time favourite albums. About the time of "Do You Think I'm Sexy", though he lost that soul sound and never quite got it back (although like I said earlier, ‘Unplugged...and Seated’ came close). Back then though, not just Maggie May but tracks like ‘Every Picture Tells a Story’, ‘Mandolin Wind’, and ‘(I Know) I’m Losing You’ showed a singer right at the top of his game, sublime in quality and never again to be matched.

The Faces stuff too was truly awesome. ‘Stay With Me’, ‘Miss Judy's Farm’, ‘Pool Hall Richard’ and ‘Too Bad’ all had out and out quality gravel vocals from Rod as did the cover of the Wings track ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’. They were everything the Black Crowes were going for two decades later but could never quite achieve.

Water Down The Drain
I think it's a real shame the direction Rod’s musical career went. I guess he's done great financially, but I think we really missed out on some great music - especially if he had stuck with Jeff Beck or Ronnie Wood, I really think those guys creatively really needed each other.

Sure there was the odd quality track after the purple patch such as ‘Passion’, ‘Hot Legs’ and ‘I Don't Want To Talk About It’. Then there was the cover versions, especially the covers of Tom Waits’ ‘Downtown Train’ and ‘Tom Traubert’s Blues’ both of which showed he could still do it when he put his mind to it. But there again, he did always have that uncanny knack of covering songs and making them better than the original.

I think Rod Stewart in his day was one of the finest voices in rock and had an original sound to his writing as well. It's sad he let all that potential go, like water down the drain. I really don't care what kind of syrupy drivel Rod has been spewing out for the last 40 years, what he did in those early days’ for me guarantees him a spot in rock voice history and that will always make me keep going back to him.