Review of “Some Guys Have All The Luck” CD by Rod Stewart

Review of "Some Guys Have All The Luck" CD by Rod Stewart

I don’t know about you but I’ve always liked Rod Stewart’s voice. His early stuff was really passionate and "hungry" sounding, and he really helped to popularise the blue-eyed soul sound that has been central in the pop and rock music field for 4 decades. He’s clearly influenced by Sam Cooke as well as the soul masters of the 60’s such as Otis Redding as well as of course the artists on the Tamla Motown record label. His version of This Old Heart of Mine, which was a hit for the Isley Brothers in 1966, revisits the vintage classic song and modernises the sound for a new generation. Ronald Isley even guests as the other lead singer on the recording.

Another Rod Stewart hit of 1969 was the song Handbags and Gladrags which was later rerecorded by Stereophonics For passion and conviction I think Rod Stewart’s version is better and it’s got some great piano backing. (Having said that, the Stereophonics version is great too : nice strings and Hammond-style organ)

One of Stewart’s most popular songs, certainly in the 70′s, was Maggie May. The song was recorded for the "Every Picture Tells A Story" album in 1971 and was a Number 1 hit in the U.K. as well as the U.S.A. in that year. The lyrics tell of a relationship between a younger man with an older woman and is apparently autobiographical. It features some tasteful mandolin-playing by Ray Jackson of 70′s folk-rock band Lindisfarne.

Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? was Stewart’s little excursion into Disco and it earned him a massive hit. It’s a lot of fun and a great song to do the hairbrush karaoke to just before going out on the town for some serious fun. A lot of the 70’s disco songs had that "rolling" bassline (it’s actually alternating octaves) and of course the obligatory sax solo.

This album is a good retrospective of Stewart’s work with selected tracks from the "Every Picture Tells a Story" album right through to his Unplugged version of Tim Hardin’s Reason to Believe. The album also shows his great versatility as he is equally at home with singer-songwriter style offerings like Maggie May and You Wear It Well, rock songs like Hot Legs, soul like This Ole Heart and The First Cut Is The Deepest as well as doing a fine job with ballads too like I Don’t Want To Talk About It.

He is still going strong of course with his renderings of the classic American jazz standards but "Some Guys Have All The Luck" shows him at his energetic best when he just didn’t seem to care about anything but having a good time and in the process he gave a lot of people some great times too.

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