{"id":1503,"date":"2008-06-22T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-22T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-02-07T10:49:46","modified_gmt":"2009-02-07T10:49:46","slug":"battle-royale-round-2-rod-stewart-vs-the-1970","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/battle-royale-round-2-rod-stewart-vs-the-1970\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle Royale, Round 2: Rod Stewart vs The Stones, 1970"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/g9z-lorngfA?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nIn 1970, the Stones released <em>Get Your Ya-Yas Out!<\/em> Whether it&#8217;s still, as <strong>Lester Bangs<\/strong> declared upon its release, the greatest live album ever is open to debate, but most of us would agree it&#8217;s by far the best Stones live album &#8211; definitely better than the band&#8217;s 1970 appearance in Milan, Italy. Check out the live clip that kicks off this round: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2007\/03\/05\/the_charlie_watts_hoax\">did they leave <strong>Bernard Purdie<\/strong> home for this show?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In terms of this Battle Royale, however, perhaps the <strong>most significant development<\/strong> was the <em>actual<\/em> release date of Rod Stewart&#8217;s first album with Faces, <em>First Step<\/em>, which was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2008\/06\/21\/battle-royale-rod-stewart-vs-the-stones-1969\">mistakenly identified and entered as a 1969 release in Round 1 of our Rod vs Stones, 1969-1976 showdown!<\/a> This changes the landscape of this contest, relieving the Stones of some body blows in Round 1 while beginning to stack the deck in Rod&#8217;s favor in Round 2. Go back and listen to the Faces tracks posted in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2008\/06\/21\/battle-royale-rod-stewart-vs-the-stones-1969\">Round 1<\/a> if you don&#8217;t think the Stones&#8217; best live album is already suffering in comparison.<\/p>\n<div class=\"image_block\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/gasolinea.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/><\/div>\n<p><strong>Rod Stewart, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/media\/blogs\/rth\/YoureMyGirl.mp3\" title=\"\">&#8220;You&#8217;re My Girl (I Don&#8217;t Want to Discuss It)&#8221;<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Building momentum for Rod&#8217;s 1971 campaign, 1970 also saw the release of <em>Gasoline Alley<\/em>, the first Stewart-associated release in which the man&#8217;s musical personality coalesced, without the residual effects of having recently sung for Jeff Beck&#8217;s proto-blooz rock outfit as well as the responsibility of helping Faces fit into the post-Marriott &#8217;70s landscape. The title track, in particular, with its earnest, simple boy&#8217;s look back and folky arrangement, marks the beginning of Stewart&#8217;s most effective musical personality. Seemingly cognizant of this future analysis, Rod continues to build other pieces in his persona, with covers both the <strong>Small Faces<\/strong>&#8216; &#8220;My Way of Giving&#8221; (backed by his mates in Faces rather his slightly different backing musicians on the bulk of his early solo albums) and the Stones&#8217; well-known cover of &#8220;It&#8217;s All Over Now&#8221;.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zAun0WoPNDU?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Watching the above clip of Rod and the Faces performing songs from one of each of these albums shows positive effect that the newly empowered Rod would bring to the rebuilding group. Check out the unabashed admiration <strong>Ronnie Lane<\/strong> expresses for Rod beginning 52 seconds into the seemingly impromptu performance of &#8220;Gasoline Alley&#8221;. Then the band <em>cooks<\/em>, with no regrets about leaving Pretty Purdie back home. Under the confident leadership of Stewart, future Faces albums would have their own, distinctive, down-to-earth sound, breaking with the band members&#8217; collective <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cloudsandclocks.net\/interviews\/PFrame_interview.html\" target=\"_blank\">Pete Frame Family Tree<\/a><\/strong> of influences. But that&#8217;s getting ahead of ourselves.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the cover of an obscure &#8217;60s song by <strong>Rhinoceros<\/strong> that I posted above, &#8220;You&#8217;re My Girl (I Don&#8217;t Want to Discuss It)&#8221; that I think requires special consideration. This is the only other song on which Stewart is backed by most of Faces (Ian McLagan is listed as &#8220;not available due to bus strike&#8221;). An easy way to dismiss Stewart and Faces, especially when compared to the conventionally accepted musical seekers known as Mick Taylor-era Stones, is to call them a &#8220;great party band.&#8221; Check out the original version, which follows in a sound-only YouTube clip, and tell me that a mere party band would have what it takes to make something out of such a formless turd of a song. Rod and his mates may not have been able to <em>synthesize<\/em> broad musical traditions the way the Stones could, but damn if they couldn&#8217;t dig in and <em>elevate<\/em> the material they covered and otherwise plundered. This ain&#8217;t no party.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FV-siRUvzo4?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Without having to resort to use of Rod&#8217;s guest vocals for the Australian group <strong>Python Lee Jackson<\/strong>&#8216;s &#8220;In a Broken Dream&#8221;, the judges hereby declare their winner for 1970&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>ROUND 2:<\/strong> Rod Stewart<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2008\/06\/21\/battle-royale-rod-stewart-vs-the-stones-1969\">Previously&#8230;<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1970, the Stones released Get Your Ya-Yas Out! Whether it&#8217;s still, as Lester Bangs declared upon its release, the greatest live album ever is open to debate, but most of us would agree it&#8217;s by far the best Stones live album &#8211; definitely better than the band&#8217;s 1970 appearance in Milan, Italy. Check out <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/battle-royale-round-2-rod-stewart-vs-the-1970\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[42,149,45],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1503"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}