Rod Stewart

Starting from the mid-1960s, Rod Stewart, the Anglo-Scottish singer born and raised in Swinging London, recorded a series of rhythm'n'blues singles under his own name and took part in the activity of several significant, if short-lived, groups. This period represented an artistic initiation for him, scarce in commercial results but instrumental in leading to the first truly important step of his career as a musician: joining the Jeff Beck Group in 1967. Within this context, he put his innate vocal qualities to the service of a raw and compelling rock-blues sound, expressed across two above-average albums ("Truth" from 1968 and "Beck Ola" from '69). In the band formed around guitarist Jeff Beck (former Yardbirds member), Stewart forged an aesthetic and personal bond that would deeply mark the following years of his career: the one with Ronnie Wood.

During 1969, in fact, the two moved on to the Small Faces, recently left without their leader Steve Marriott, taking up the roles of lead vocals and electric guitar respectively. At the same time, the group's name changed too, shortened to Faces.

Two members of this new lineup (Ronnie Wood and Ian McLagan) backed Stewart on the first album released under his own name, pressed to vinyl in the summer of '69 ("An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down"). Here we find a convincing brand of rock whose sound, though almost ignored by the charts, threw itself with enthusiasm and conviction into the heady musical landscape of the late '60s.

A few months later came the first, successful Faces LP ("First Step"), on which Stewart consolidated his image as a frontman. At the same time (winter-spring 1970), the singer entered the studio to record his second work: "Gasoline Alley" (released in June '70).

Here he is ably backed by the other members of the Faces, as would be the case on all his solo records through 1973 (Ronnie Wood on electric and acoustic guitar and electric bass; Ronnie Lane on electric bass and backing vocals; Ian McLagan on piano and Hammond organ; Kenny Jones on drums). They form the backbone of a composite ensemble, filled out by session musicians (Mick Waller, drums, formerly of the Jeff Beck Group; Martin Quittenton, acoustic guitar; Pete Sears, piano; Dick Powell, violin; Stanley Matthews, mandolin). The contributions of this group of friends and colleagues come together to showcase Stewart's dynamic, abrasive singing, while still carving out enough space to demonstrate their own considerable talents.

Between turbulent excursions and more emotionally charged moments, the band assembled for these sessions perfectly brings out the singer's inimitable blend of gentle aggression and rough fragility at the upper end of his vocal range. His timbre holds within it a fractured texture and a charismatic cadence: tattooed onto his voice are the scars and emotions born of a turbulent, adventurous life.

The album's structure immediately reveals two main traits, which shape its course toward a compelling immediacy and an attitude that is at once energetic and imbued with genuine authenticity.

The first is the decision to pack the record with numerous covers: no fewer than six of the nine total tracks (“It’s All Over Now”, “Only A Hobo”, “My Way Of Giving”, “Country Comfort”, “Cut Across Shorty” and “You’re My Girl”). Their function is to showcase Stewart's pronounced gift for interpretation, since even at this early stage of his career he stands out more as a compelling vocal performer of other people's material than as a songwriter and composer in his own right. Even so, each of the covers is strongly stamped both by the sonic atmospheres Ronnie Wood arranges with easy inventiveness, and by Stewart's high-pitched, jagged-edged voice. This gives coherence to the six borrowed songs and allows them to overcome the potential pitfall of drawing on such wildly different sources (from the early Rolling Stones to late-'63 Bob Dylan, from the Small Faces to Elton John, from Eddie Cochran to Little Richard).

The album's second defining trait, one that decisively shapes its overall arc, is its predominant reliance on linear song structures. The smooth verse-chorus flow, with short, simple solos to stave off repetitiveness, dominates the record's forty-two minutes. Little room is left for unexpected detours or particularly original solutions, steering the long player toward a brilliant, never tedious solidity. The flip side is that, while it comes close, the album forgoes any ambition to reach the heights reserved for the abundant masterpieces of those same magical years.

The genre Stewart tackles most often on “Gasoline Alley” is a direct, incisive rock, where the infectious spontaneity of the overall sonic approach boldly outstrips technical tricks, distortion and studio polish. This is evident on “It’s All Over Now”, originally a Valentinos rhythm and blues number (1964) later made famous by the Rolling Stones that same summer (taking it to number one in England as a single), and on “Cut Across Shorty”, a cover of Eddie Cochran's 1960 rock'n'roll tune. These two surefire crowd-pleasers are launched with force by Stewart's ironically cutting, exuberant voice, before crashing loudly into the choppy waters of restless percussive lines. Here too we get the first definition of that rock sound at once forceful and festive, bent on entertaining the listener's mind, body and heart, which would unmistakably define the singer's dominant style through 1977 and would remain a trademark of his recordings even afterward.

Also among the rock-leaning songs is “You’re My Girl”, drawn from the late Little Richard's soul repertoire (released in 1967, though not written by him). Here we get a tumultuous group performance, perhaps the album's finest from an instrumental standpoint, in which Kenny Jones's daring, thrilling drum work boldly borrows funk's broken, syncopated rhythm. Reinventing the original with striking flair, the track proves electrifying in its rock-funk crossover, in Ronnie Lane's cocky, buoyant electric bassline, and in Stewart's raspy, brazen vocal performance. All of this, combined with the riff's combative, resolute swagger, foreshadows by a couple of years what Led Zeppelin would bring to the masses on “The Crunge” and “The Ocean” (tracks from their album “Houses Of The Holy”, recorded in 1972 and released in 1973).

Diversifying and enriching this album's rock-oriented framework are four folk-rock tracks (“Gasoline Alley”, “Only A Hobo”, “Lady Day” and “Joe’s Lament”), which add shades of absorbed intensity and flashes of burning melancholy to the LP.

Two of these tracks share more than one point in common. “Lady Day” and “Joe’s Lament” are both written by Stewart and share the same structure: a single verse restated over an instrumental bed woven with enveloping, evocative acoustic textures. On both tracks, the rasp threading through the singer's vocal cords turns tender and wistful, showcasing the remarkable versatility and touching expressiveness the then-25-year-old musician displays with such ease.

The title track, the album's qualitative peak as well as its promising opener, best represents the folk-rock fusion that runs through a substantial portion of this LP. Here, the British artist brings out the most assertive side of a theme rooted in the austere, poetic tradition of English folklore (though actually written by Stewart and Ronnie Wood). He does so with a voice of effectively contrasting colors, capable of holding together, in one extraordinary instrument, both jagged rawness and evocative sensitivity. The track is built on an urgent yet light riff that climbs to high, repeated notes before winding sinuously around the vocal line in both verse and chorus. Three distinct guitars overlap skillfully to build a layered electric-acoustic backdrop: a soft rhythm acoustic guitar as a spacious foundation, a clean electric guitar played with slide technique by Ronnie Wood, and a second clean electric guitar marked by abundant use of undulating bends. Their interplay is further enriched, from the midpoint of the song onward, by the fluttering strings of a mandolin: a singular, vivid folk touch that feels fresh within the 1970 rock landscape.

The acoustic and electric dimensions run side by side throughout the record, blending into a sonic relationship where consonance outweighs friction. This result also owes much to the presence in the studio of Martin Quittenton: former Steamhammer member, a shrewd acoustic guitarist and a key collaborator of Stewart's on his celebrated early '70s work.

On “Gasoline Alley” and “Joe’s Lament” electric bass and drums are absent entirely, while on “Lady Day” it's only the thin, steady, metallic pulse of the hi-hat that keeps the moderate tempo. “Only A Hobo” features a percussion section limited to the lively tap of sticks on the hi-hat, confined however to the final chorus and the song's coda, where it's bolstered by cautious yet sparkling hits on the crash cymbal. These atmospheres, lacking pronounced rhythmic depth, counterbalance the pulsing bass-and-drums cooperation driving the lively rhythm of “My Way Of Giving” and the pronounced beat of “Country Comfort” (the latter previewed here and only released months later on Elton John's third LP).

Keyboards are used sparingly throughout the record, serving as mere rhythmic filler on three songs: “It’s All Over Now” (piano), “My Way Of Giving” (Ian McLagan's Hammond organ) and “Country Comfort” (piano).

By contrast, Wood's slide technique defines the album, without ever becoming overly pervasive, appearing alternately on both acoustic and electric guitar strings. The most striking example of this is “Joe’s Lament”. On this track, Wood displays acoustic slide guitar in extended passages brimming with heartfelt bitterness, and electric slide in the solo that, from 1:59 to 2:18, echoes the vocal line with mournful feeling. On “Lady Day” too we find the smooth, melancholy musings of a slide technique delicately applied to the electric guitar, pairing with Stewart's voice, lightly blurred by reverb, to convey the disillusionment of the lyrics.

Finally, it's worth noting the addition of violin among the sonic elements that decorate three tracks on the record. “Cut Across Shorty” and “Lady Day” each carve out dedicated solo space for it, letting its supple, warm, penetrating vibrations run through some seductive passages of their respective arrangements. The third song, “Only A Hobo”, uses the violin to lend a sad, sumptuous quality to the folk-inspired dance that carries the instrumental post-choruses and the coda (for instance, at 2:16 and from 3:25 to the end of the track).

The subjects addressed in the lyrics of the nine songs can be split between the covers and the original compositions. Romantic conflicts and tender understandings, a social drama tied to urban poverty, and bucolic country scenes are the underlying themes told in the tracks by other artists that Stewart revisits here. As for the self-penned “Gasoline Alley”, “Lady Day” and “Joe’s Lament”, it's the relationship with familiar people and places that shapes their conceptual landscape, expressed through painful memories, sorrowful regrets and a fierce, yet powerless, desire to change the past.

The album will reach number sixty-two on the British chart and number twenty-seven on the American one, marking the start of a long commercial rise that, beginning the very next year and throughout the '70s, will see the British singer emerge as one of the best-known rock stars on both sides of the Atlantic.

The sleeve credits make no mention of the session musicians hired for the record, though this is hardly a grave omission: in substance, what “Gasoline Alley” offers is a variant, with its electric edges smoothed out, of the compelling work the Faces were doing during those same months. That's not a shortcoming — quite the opposite, in fact. Still, Stewart the solo artist makes more eccentric choices when it comes to the songs he records, and he also favors a higher number of arrangements built on acoustic foundations than was the case with the Faces. Both of these differences can be traced back to Stewart's particular artistic instincts and personal tastes.

"Gasoline Alley" ranks second in Rod Stewart's discography, right behind "Every Picture Tells A Story" (the following LP, released in May 1971), and stands as a thoroughly rewarding listen, free of weak moments, at times exhilarating and irreverent, at times steeped in pensive introspection. A record that holds its own within the star-studded landscape of 1970, standing alongside it with a musical dignity only slightly short of the era's true masterpieces.

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03/04/2026