Rod Stewart – Rarities – CD review

ROD STEWART
Rarities
UMC 2013

By the time you read this, Sir Roderick will have been doing his Dad dance at enormodomes across the UK, commemorating not only his first number 1 album in decades, but also his telegramme from the Queen. And to mark this historic event, the record company have punted out a double album of tunes not good enough to release 40 years ago. Which is nice of them.

It’s called “Rarities” for a reason, as a lot of the songs have been released before, mainly as B-sides, and I’m not convinced that the BBC version of ‘Maggie May’ isn’t the same as the one on The Faces box set a decade ago, but quibbles aside, this is actually Roderick at his peak, with all the music coming from between 1969 and 1974. As someone who has always been mildly disappointed at his apparent lack of interest in his own music, this is a welcome reminder of just how good he was at his peak.

Considering how bad his “American Songbook” albums were, it’s delightful to hear him wrap his pipes around a cover of Cole Porter’s ‘Every Time We Say Goodbye’. I’ve always loved his version of Jerry Lee Lewis’ ‘What Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me)’, which was the non-LP B-side of the ‘Angel’ single. Although that was on the “Storyteller” boxset.

Across the twenty four tracks, there are alternate versions, non-LP singles, B-sides, studio outtakes and BBC Radio One performances and covers of songs by The Who, Bob Dylan, Goffin and King, Brewer & Shipley as well as the aforementioned Cole Porter, Jimi Hendrix and Jerry Lee Lewis. You get a couple of attempts at ‘Maggie May’, and a live session version of Elton John / Bernie Taupin’s ‘Country Comfort’, recorded with Ronnie Wood, Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones aka The Faces.

It doesn’t all work (hello ‘Pinball Wizard’ and ‘(You Make Me Feel) Like A Natural Man!), but his voice is fabulous from start to finish. Quite who this is aimed at I’m unsure, as there won’t be many die hard fans who don’t have most of these songs already, and the “Storyteller” box set is selling for less than this. Fun, but not essential.

Buy “Rarities” 

Buy “Storyteller”