On the greatness of Rod Stewart, or in which I forfeit my last shred of credibility
(Ed. Note: Wolfgang’s Vault is the result of an awesome act of patronage. Instead of spending money on charity or something, the proprietors bought in its entirety the collection of accumulated concerts and memorabilia owned by the late, great promoter Bill Graham. They have since devoted themselves to making a vast amount of live music from the likes of Jimi Hendrix, the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers Band, Springsteen, et al. freely available. Do check it out post haste — did I mention it’s free?)
“Rarely has a singer had as full and unique a talent as Rod Stewart; rarely has anyone betrayed his talent so completely.”
-Greil Marcus
So today in my inbox I received a fantastic show from Wolfgang’s Vault, performed by The Faces c. 1973. Listening to it led me to ruminate on the curious greatness of the young Rod Stewart, as well as his precipitous fall from grace.
Neil Young famously (and fatuously) sang “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.” There is, however, an unmentioned third option: suddenly and aggressively sucking.
After all, Rod Stewart didn’t enter a steady, dignified decline into mediocrity a la the Stones, McCartney, Stevie Wonder and pretty much every other halfway decent musician of their generation. On the contrary, he did the aesthetic equivalent of a nosedive into an empty pool.
The worst part is that it seems so inexplicable. I’ve actually caught myself studying his eyes during the video for “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” just to see if he’s trying to blink in Morse code, the way hostages do in videos filmed by their captors.
One would hardly guess that the man who wrote “Gasoline Alley” or “Mandolin Wind” — songs of remarkable compassion, free of any trace of smarmy condescension — could have turned into such an asshole.
Take this performance of Robert Johnson’s classic blues, “Love in Vain”:
It is extremely difficult for a rock star –especially a white one – to summon this kind of pathos and soul, for the simple reason that chances are he really has no idea what the hell he’s singing about. Oh you can go on about the universality of experience and the human condition and blah blah blah but it’s really all bullshit.
The fact is, at the end of that performance, he’s going to walk offstage and blow several lines of cocaine and fuck a groupie or two. And all the ennui and existential funk in the world cannot make up for the fact that he’s a million miles away from the train station he’s singing about.
There’s a sincerity there that, say, Mick Jagger at his most sober couldn’t touch. Which may partly account for how openly Stewart sold out: there’s a kind of sincerity in not even pretending otherwise.
So, for those who only know Rod Stewart as the guy who desecrated “Downtown Train,” this is the other side of the story: those first few solo albums, and pretty much the whole of The Faces’ output. And, while you’re at it, this scorching take on McCartney’s “Maybe I’m Amazed”: