Search - Rod Stewart :: Playlist Plus (Dig) (Spkg)

A great job with a much-needed product

T. A. Smith | iowa city | 10/16/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"For years I pined for a good cut on CD of "Cut Across Shorty" and in fact the whole Gasoline Alley album. Old college day memories of a mostly out-of-print album. Now, most of my rocking friends back then were audiophiles in their own way, and one thing I always have noticed is that the production quality of Rod's albums left a little something to be desired, while personnel, song choices, arrangement, were all mostly fantastic. At the time you could take Highway by Free and just be blown away by the dynamics of Kossoff's guitar and Paul Rodgers vocals: so why couldn't Rod's people capture that close realistic sound?



The truth is that it's got something to do with Rod's vocal style, which is a remarkable head voice charging up effortlessly into falsetto range while retaining most of the power of a full-out tenor in his throat range. It's simply much harder to mike up a voice like this accurately, compared to more baritone voices like the abovementioned Rodgers or, say, Freddie Mercury or David Bowie. This shows up with Led Zep also, since Plant's voice, which like Rod's may not be a falsetto, is in the falsetto range and requires the same kind of breathing and acoustics. There is a certain muddiness to the mixes for what were usually two and four track mixes at the time. Still, a lot can be done.



These masterings, I am pretty sure, coming over a Cambridge audio system and Athena floor speakers, or over my Tascam reference desktop monitors, are done about as well as they could be, and the result is very gratifying in that it sounds a lot better than the original albums did. Rod's instrumental arrangements, for these early albums, favored acoustic and folk-like ensemble play, similar to amny Faces arrangements. I should add that this offering culls pretty near all of the memorable and well-done tracks from The Rod Stewart album, Gasoline Alley, Every Picture Tells a Story, Never a Dull Moment, and Smiler. I think. So here you have a full album version of Maggie May, Cut Across Shorty, I'm Losing You, Twisting the Night Away, Every Picture Tells A Story, Mandolin Wind...and so on. I don't think I have to vouch for the quality of recording or of the songs, even with the very negative review this has received so far. What I found was several hours of real listening pleasure where I could hear ever nuance of the mandolin and Ron Wood's guitars and slides and Rod's amazing voice. (Most of the personnel were usually the same familiar suspects who show up on Faces albums, and absolutely tight and excellent as an ensemble.)

This CD was exactly what I had been looking for, and I am glad I found it, at a very bargain bin price, and I continue to listen to it, misogyny, excess. folkiness , and all: I love the Rod from this era, I had wanted to replace all that old vinyl and the old memories with something fresh for years: this CD allowed me to do exactly that. If you don't already have the whole works from 1969 up to about 1975, then forget about it until they release updates authorized by Rod of all his back catalog, and get the individual albums, which are usually a fantastic value these days. But for now, if you just wanted to hear some of that old, early Rod, this is quite a good deal."