(Find a) reason to believe

Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells A Story (1971) *****

Nominated by: GK

Music club: Wander to Wozza's

Playlist addition:  Mandolin Wind

Rod is an interesting character. I have albums featuring him from Steampacket, The Jeff Beck Group, Faces and of course - solo.

From maybe the greatest year in music came his third solo album (although all the Faces appear on it - cheeky). Every Picture Tells A Story is a classic from a classic year. It's a masterpiece and easily his best album. 

It's not a long one - only 8 songs in total.

Why do I love it?

• It's folk rock innit
• There's brilliant use of the mandolin (by Lindisfarne's Ray Jackson)
• The whole thing is fresh, immediate and suitably unpolished - almost sloppy (That's All Right)
• Rod's singing is at its peak - soulful on Seems Like A Long Time, raucous on the title track, introspective on Mandolin Wind, folky on his peerless version of Reason To Believe, eerily sensitive on Dylan's Tomorrow Is A Long Time, Faces' style rock (I Know) I'm Losing You
• His writing definitely peaked - Mandolin Wind (his best ever song), and co-writes on Every Picture and Maggie May

Ah, Maggie May.

That's the one that did it for me in 1971. 

The single was huge obviously, for him and for us. At the time I wasn't aware of Steampacket, Jeff Beck or The Faces (Small Faces yes but I didn't realise the connection to The Faces in 1971). Nor did I know he'd already had two solo albums released. 

Maggie May came out of nowhere!!

And it hit with a wallop and a half. Debauchery! Randy scouse git fersure! Right there on our radios. Oooo er.

I was buying singles in 1971 but I couldn't buy everything. Instead, there was a compilation that solved my problem.

Solid Gold Hits Vols 1, 2 and 3 have assumed iconic status in my collection. 

That's 60 songs on 3 albums! Value for hard earned cash right there, even if they truncated some of the songs and the high fidelity suffers a tad because of all those closely packed grooves.

As a music obsessed teenager, I couldn't have cared less.

I do dig them out for a listen from time to time and get that nostalgic glow all over again. Simple times.

Maggie May is there, kicking off side 2 without the nifty intro - I remember getting a shock when I eventually bought the album and Maggie May was different. Famously the song has no chorus. Rod forgot to write one! Doesn't matter a jot.

So, five stars all the way for this one GK.