Rod Stewart – The Rod Stewart Album

My copy of this pressing is in excellent condition and sounds wonderful. Perhaps cut a little hot, but certainly doesn’t sound like trash as another reviewer here commented. Perhaps they had a heavily played copy, or a copy previously played on poor equipment ☮️

vinyl never arrived. sent without search record, tracking. I bought with 5 stars confidence.

Not that it matters but I have the original pressing ( black Phillips) label but with the matrix numbers for the rerelease with the green cover so an early rerelease

I think this is a better album than Gasoline Alley. This is a reissue which is not indicated on discogs

https://www.discogs.com/release/2107370-Rod-Stewart-The-Rod-Stewart-Album

I've been revisiting my yout and this and Every Picture both saw play recently, Are the early pressings marked by consistent sibilance or did my old RCA portable TT damage them for life? Any thoughts appreciated. TIA

Trash sounding copy, would avoid compared to the first pressings.

Does anyone know if this US - ' Made in Czech Republic ' , Mercury reissue is the same pressing as the European
''Back to Black ' , 'Made in Europe ' one ?

I highly doubt this was released in 1972. The yellow Fontana label was used for the earliest vertigo releases (see the 1st Oz pressings of Colosseum’s Valentyne Suite and Black Sabbath’s debut. Since this came out in the UK during 1969, this is most likely from 1970.

Short, but one of Rod's best album IMHO. A natural progression from his work with Jeff Beck Group, and with some stronger songs and interpretations. The musicianship is excellent and serves to enhance the song rather than itself. A decent pressing too, but what is it with Rod Steward and rubbish album covers?!!

I remember December of 1969, I was wrapping up my training and in a few short days would be headed for beautiful sunny southeast Asia ... land of rubber plantations, palm trees, exotic food, and more men then I could shake a stick at. Trouble is, while it was sunny, they didn’t tell me that the temperatures hovered around 90 degrees with one hundred percent humidity, or that the gentle rains lasted nearly six months, or that the exotic foods may include that dog I no longer heard barking at night ... and the men [?], well they must have been part of some sort of club, because they all dressed alike in green, and they all had these silly short hair cuts, not like the exotic shaggy locks that Rod sported.

I remember transcribing this record to cassette before I left, it’s all I did for nearly two days ... forty minutes per tape, times fifty tapes [well you do the math]. Like Johnny Winter visiting Dylan’s “Highway 61,” Rod opens by jumpstarting “Street Fighting Man,” certainly a major risk whenever someone covers a song by The Rolling Stones, and Rod did it without a hint of self-consciousness ... I mean the man didn’t even concern himself with thinking abut the right way of conducting the venture. And what he did knocked my socks off, starting in the middle, filtering in a crashing break, then hitting and splintering the song with another Stones riff on the piano from “We Love You,” before carrying the whole thing back around, making the number his, without even nodding to The Stones. Though I’m sure Rod will be the first to tell you that he, like so many others were heavily influenced by what The Stones were doing.

“No Expectations” shadows “Handbags & Gladrags,” full of despair and heartbreak, restraining the listener with a timing that made me wish the song would go on forever. But more, it proves that Rod was no one-trick-pony, the song is chocked full of emotion, yet never gives over to silly sentimentalities; marking him as one of the great musical story tellers. “Man Of Constant Sorrow” has to be hands down one of the greatest songs ever written, and Rod places his own guitar right out front, leaving Mr. Wood to edge his way in with a haunting bottleneck, that adds both definition and depth to the vocals, yet was sparse enough to keep that bootneck sound echoing my head for hours ... wishing for more.

The whole album was understated, and therein lies it’s strength ... with Beggar’s Banquet, along with Let It Bleed doing the same thing. One odd aspect is, and I can’t believe that it wasn’t intentionally done, was that The Rod Steward Album, aside from being yellow, looks just like the American version of The Stones album Beggar’s Banquet. This wasn’t an album I played a few times and put aside, this is an album that I play to this very day ... I never get tired of it, and I doubt that I ever will.

Review by Jenell Kesler