Gasoline Alley: An Appreciation

Since I haven't reviewed anything for a while, I went to pick up a Faces album to review and came up short. Yes, the Faces are on the album, three of them on two tracks each and the others on every track. But it's definitely the work of just one of them, their lead vocalist, the superstar in waiting, the one-time gravedigger, the product of Scottish blood based out of dirty London town. You know, the one who would betray everything for a fast buck far too soon.

After a great deal of experimenting on his debut album, Rod Stewart struck upon the formula that would lead to his superstardom. Gasoline Alley showed the world the Rod Stewart to come. With his partner in crime Ron Wood in tow, Stewart sang soulfully on the nine tracks that made up his second album with Wood ably assisting on ripping guitars and mighty bass. With nary an ounce of pretentiousness, Gasoline Alley satisfies the listener's ears throughout. To think that this man would later produce four greatest American songbook albums is mind-boggling.

The title track, the first of three originals, opens with Wood on guitars for half a minute before Stewart's rough-hewn voice enters. You can hear the weariness in Stewart's voice as he sings of the tragic aged character realizing his place was at the home he had left with a reckless abandon as a younger man and how he is determined to return there. After Stanley Matthews' mandolin enters, the whole portrait becomes all that much more tragic, with the man realizing he may not be able to make it back to his beloved alley but insistent on being carried back there to rest for eternity where he had come into the world. As it all slows down, you can almost hear the man regretting his whole life as Wood's guitars close the track as mournfully as they'd opened it.

"It's All Over Now" is a fun cover of a cover, with Stewart and Company obviously performing a loose version of the Rolling Stones' first big hit. Almost the Faces, with Wood in place of Ronnie Lane and Mick Waller in place of Kenney Jones. Driven by the whorehouse piano of Ian McLagan, it's pure rock and roll, performed in the grand tradition of the Faces, drunk as hell. At six and a half minutes, perhaps it goes on a bit too long, but it's all good-humored and full of pith.

"Only A Hobo" is the obligatory Dylan cover that was present on all of Stewart's Mercury/Vertigo releases. A lesser-known track that wouldn't be released by its composer for another two decades, it is the second of the album's tragic numbers, an acoustic track with Dick Powell's melancholic violin driving it along and Dennis O'Flynn's bass viol keeping good time. Bob Dylan has the great ability to take songs from the everyday and make them special. In the big city, the downtrodden are always present even when ignored by a great number of the masses. They may not be much to the average person but it's certainly a tragedy for them to die nameless and alone in a doorway.

"My Way of Giving" was a Small Faces song, and the three members of the regular-sized Faces who were refugees of that earlier group had released it on their third album, Small Faces (the one released by Immediate). However, the addition of Messrs. Stewart and Wood bring the previously nascent composition to life. There's not much to the lyrics, indeed for the track to stretch out to four minutes, the chorus is sung by Lane five times (with Stewart ad-libbing as only he can the third, fourth and fifth times) and the second verse is repeated once. This is the Faces at their best, raw, real, direct and more than a little soused.

Pete Sears was a lesser participant on the album. Though only present on two tracks from Gasoline Alley, he dominates on them. As the LP is flipped, a gorgeous piano from Sears begins Stewart's cover of Reg and Bernie's "Country Comforts". Elton John and Bernie Taupin may have written the track, but to me, John's version (released the next year on Tumbleweed Connection) will never match the emotion wrought in Stewart's. Without the pedal steel of John's version, it's up to bassist Wood, drummer Waller and pianist Sears to provide the necessary drive to propel the song. And "Harry", whoever that is, sings alongside Stewart at the end to great effect. The end result is simply breathtaking.

"Cut Across Shorty" is driven by the eastern-tinged violin of Powell and the pulsing bass of Sears. Mick Waller's simple heavy drumming can make you forget that you're listening to an acoustic track with only Sears' bass and a slide guitar part of Wood's at the end being the only electric instruments. Rock and roll doesn't need to have the amps turned up to eleven, in the right hands, acoustic music can indeed rock. And this cover of the Eddie Cochran rockabilly staple shows this well.

"Lady Day" and "Jo's Lament" are the second and third original tracks on the album, one after the other, both serving as cushions between the harder-edged sixth and ninth tracks. In two years, Stewart would have never been able to get away with singing it, but on Gasoline Alley, "Lady Day" is one of several highlights. You can easily picture the shabbily dressed narrator calling out the nouveau riche woman who had used his kindness when she had nothing. Lady Day almost certainly continued to use the kindness of many others after leaving him). The three guitars of Stewart, Wood and Martin Quittenton go around one another, tied together by Powell's violin. It wasn't the hit song to a one-time lover missing a chorus that made Stewart a superstar, but it's certainly as good a song (if not better) than "Maggie May".

"Jo's Lament" is, to a degree, autobiographical. Told from the perspective of a man who had it all only to lose it, it is an apology in song to one of the ones he wronged when he had it all, namely a woman he impregnated and abandoned. A much lesser man than the one who had departed, you get the impression that he could easily be singing songs to any number of those he had wronged. The figure's cut from the same cloth as the one who sang the title track. Stewart himself had a daughter with a teenage fling, it certainly helped him out in writing this song. Of course, his life is 180 degrees from the figure he gave a voice to- Rod had nothing when his first child was born and ended up with everything.

"You're My Girl (I Don't Want To Discuss It)" showcases the Faces (minus McLagan, who was allegedly missing due to a bus strike) at their funkiest. Driven by a chugging bass courtesy of Lane and Jones' pounding drums, it features Stewart singing as if his life depended on it and Wood adding some of the rockingest guitar parts he would ever lay down on tape. Presumably learned by Stewart and Wood from the group Rhinoceros (one of the bands who opened for the Jeff Beck Group), a BBC version is a highlight of the Faces' box set, Five Guys Walk Into A Bar...

It was the third album, Every Picture Tells A Story, that made Stewart a superstar and doomed the Faces to become Stewart's backing group, which led to their premature disbanding. The Gasoline Alley Rod Stewart is the Rod Stewart the world at-large has generally forgotten, and that's regrettable. Rod Stewart and Ron Wood work best together, it's a shame that fame and fortune had to get in the way of their full-time collaborating.