Rod Stewart

Recorded right after Stewart left the Jeff Beck Group and following the release of the first Faces record, Rod is in the prime of his vocal form. Raspy, impassioned and backed by a band (featuring Ron Wood on guitar) that deftly blends folk-blues and rowdy rock 'n' roll, Stewart rips into covers of "Street Fighting Man," "Dirty Old Town" and "Man Of Constant Sorrow."

Rod Stewart, lead singer with the off-again on-again Jeff Beck group, has come up with a
superb album of his own. Imagination pervades the music, in the choice of material, in the
frequent use of beautiful bottleneck guitar work to draw out the subtler aspects of many
cuts (Ron Wood is responsible here), and in the range Stewart himself displays on virtually
every vocal. British albums are often over-done, with good ideas transformed int... More >

My prejudice against Stewart (who used to be Jeff Beck's singer) was so strong that I would never have really listened to this without the rave notices in Fusion and Rolling Stone. I'm still not quite convinced. But the music is excellent instrumentally, and Stewart's singing and composing mostly superb. Maybe it was all Jeff's fault. (Grade - A-)