Panther's picks - Rod Stewart: Smiler - 1974
This album still featured members of The Faces on many tracks and most of the other musicians from the previous four albums. It would be the last of those collaborations, though, which was a shame, but you could tell that something was going to give. The Faces had already virtually split, of course, with inter-band tensions all over the place.
After releasing no solo album apart from the compilation Sing It Again, Rod for over two years, it was a watershed album for many reasons other than those already stated. It was simply not quite as good as the previous four and it had a feeling of "treading water" about it, with Stewart restless to have his shot at the big time, and his old mates, possibly, getting a bit cheesed off with his "Charlie big potatoes" posturings. It was also the first of his solo albums to take a critical battering, which is slightly unfair, because, as I said, it is not that bad. It has a certain loose, edgy charm to it. Despite that, the album, for me, has something of the half-baked feel of Elton John's Caribou from the summer of the same year about it.
Let's bring it on home, then....
From the very first gloriously Stonesy opening riff (after the dog barking, that is) Sweet Little Rock 'n' Roller is a rocking, lively start to the album. Rod subsequently began many of his albums with chugging, riffy rockers like this. It's just bloody great.
Lochinvar is a short piano interlude from keyboardsman Pete Sears, which morphs into Farewell, a greatly underrated song, last of the great early Rod Stewart Maggie May era singles. It was one of my absolute favourite ever Rod 45s, with its great fade out line. "You don't get no mail, you'll know I'm in jail..". Just a simply wonderful song. On Sailor, Rod and old Faces mate Ronnie Wood tear it up on the glorious riffs and brass relation to The Faces' Pool Hall Richard. It's a great rocker. As I said before about the album's loose, edgy charm, well this has it in spades.
Bring It On Home To Me/You Send Me was a convincing pair of covers by Stewart of two of his beloved Sam Cooke's best songs, segued together. Stewart and Sam Cooke is always a good mix, guaranteed to succeed. It does just that here. I like the cymbal work on here too but it is probably a little over-orchestrated, string-wise. Stewart gives the recording a "live" feel to it, together with a few cackles, as if it was done in one take.
Let Me Be Your Car was a great riff-laden, pounding cover of a little-known Elton John/Bernie Taupin reject from the period that ended up on Elton's Rare Masters compilation. Again, the horns are impressive and cookin'.
A low point on this otherwise surprisingly good album was Rod's clumsy gender switching in Gerry Goffin and Carole King's (You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Man was probably not a great idea. It just sounds a bit silly, I have to admit. The vocal is great, mind. It's Rod after all.
Dixie Toot is a fine rocking mixture of typical Stewart guitar riffage and New Orleans good time jazz. It is a bit of an underrated number on the album, pretty much completely overlooked. The same can be said of this Faces-esque Hard Road, another upbeat rocker that was a cover of a little-known Australian Stevie Wright's song from the same year, and written by members of the Aussie sixties group The Easybeats. Both of these last two tracks are really good ones and shouldn't be underestimated. If Rod was "going through the motions" on this album, he was going through them in a committed rocking fashion.
A short, acoustic instrumental, I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face harks back to Every Picture Tells A Story and Never a Dull Moment in its folky ambience. As for Girl From The North Country - this Bob Dylan cover is another acceptable throwback to the folky rock sound of the first three albums. As with Sam Cooke, Rod always does Dylan justice, doesn't he? This song sounds as if it were made for him. Another cover finishes proceedings, this time Paul and Linda McCartney's Gordon Lightfoot-ish country ballad, Mine For Me, and thoroughly enjoyable it is too.
In fact, despite that critical leathering at the time, I still have to reiterate that, in retrospect, it is all pretty much ok. Rod is on good vocal form. The songs are good. Just not maybe as enigmatically special as the previous two albums.
