Artist: Stewart, Rod
Label: Vertigo Records
Released: 1969
Length: 32:47
Rating: 4/5
Rod Stewart’s solo journey kicked off in 1969, pretty much in parallel with the birth of Faces, after the Scottish songbird made a quick getaway from the Jeff Beck Group camp following just two studio albums. So it’s no surprise that a good chunk of the Faces “machine” handles the heavy musical lifting on Stewart’s debut, and does a stellar job as the backing band on the first outing of one of the best vocalists in the history of rock.
Few musicians have managed to stamp so much of their own DNA onto the hereditary blueprint of blues or soul as Rod Stewart. Over the course of his career, old Uncle Rod has dived with a special appetite into the elements of black music, which eventually became an indispensable ingredient of his musical game. On his debut he retreats into the arms of those genres again and again, starting right at the top with a bold borrowing of the Rolling Stones standard “Street Fighting Man”, which he nonchalantly gave a few radical rhythmic touch-ups. We get a moving, lonesome-wanderer cry on the excellent “Man Of Constant Sorrow”, which in a simple yet wonderfully inventive way champions the directness of raw vocals and the intuitively restrained slide playing of an inspired Ron Wood. A hefty share of the album’s bluesy atmosphere is then added by the feisty “Blind Prayer” and “Cindy’s Lament”, which, in a noticeably naive but far from annoying manner, dig boldly into the sharp twists of explosive blues rock.
“An Old Coat Won’t Ever Let You Down” brings in a whole bunch of familiar musical faces: besides pieces of the future Faces lineup, Stewart’s debut also employs the services of Keith Emerson and a former Manrfed Mann vocalist by the name of Mike d’Abo. The latter contributed piano arrangements to his own composition “Handbags and Gladrags”, which, in Stewart’s first-class vocal interpretation, breathes easy while cruising through soul waters. And the fun is far from over. With the title track “An Old Coat Won’t Ever Let You Down ” the full, familiar organic feel of basic rock & roll takes the big stage, while “I Wouldn’t Ever Change A Thing”, mostly thanks to the aforementioned Emerson, curiously peeks for a few sparkling moments toward more complex song structures with a strong progressive whiff. In the album’s finale Stewart puts his interpretive chops to the test one last time by kneading an original folk tune, and the echo of musical tradition rings out in grand style with a moving take on the evergreen “Dirty Old Town”.
“An Old Coat Won’t Ever Let You Down” is a tantalizing blend of rock, blues and, at times, even folk, and with it Rod Stewart created a recognizable musical signature and stylistically staked out the path of his own creative meandering on albums to come. With its rough production packaging, which gives the album’s content the necessary sense of liveliness and tangible organic feel, Rod’s debut is surely one of his most exciting musical documents, and at the same time a lovely showcase of Stewart’s energy and charisma.
Lineup
Rod Stewart: vocals
Ronnie Wood: guitar, bass
Martin Pugh: guitar
Ian “Mac” McLagan: piano, organ
Mick Waller: drums
Keith Emerson: organ
Mike D’Abo: piano
Production
Rod Stewart & Lou Reizner
Tracklist
1. Street Fighting Man
2. Man of Constant Sorrow
3. Blind Prayer
4. Handbags and Gladrags #
5. An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down
6. I Wouldn’t Ever Change A Thing *
7. Cindy’s Lament
8. Dirty Old Town
