Mercury 609
Producer: Rod Stewart
Track listing: Every Picture Tells a Story / Seems Like a Long Time / That’s All Right / Tomorrow Is Such a Long Time / Maggie May / Mandolin Wind / (I Know) I’m Losing You / Reason to Believe
October 2, 1971
4 weeks
With stints with the Jeff Beck Group, as a solo artist, and as the front-man of the Faces, Rod Stewart’s gravel-throated singing made him one of the most distinctive rock voices of the late ’60s. Yet despite that fact, Stewart, a former gravedigger, was still looking for a commercial breakthrough in 1971. His first solo effort, The Rod Stewart Album, stalled at number 139 in 1969. Gasoline Alley, released in 1970, fared significantly better, reaching number 27, but Stewart still wasn’t satisfied. “I was getting desperate,” he says. “I had seen so many of the bands that I used to go see make it — the Stones, the Yardbirds, Manfred Mann, Eric Burdon & the Animals. I would think, ‘I can sing as good or better than most of these guys. When is it going to be my turn?'”
Stewart’s turn came with Every Picture Tells a Story. “We had no preconceived ideas of what we were going to do,” Stewart says. “It was such an innocent time. We would have a few drinks and strum away and play.” The looseness paid off, as Stewart and company — ace guitar player Ron Wood, drummer Mick Waller, pianist Pete Sears, and acoustic guitar player Martin Quittenton — worked extremely fast. “Maggie May,” “Reason to Believe,” and “Every Picture Tells a Story” were cut in a mere two days, even though Stewart and his mates frequently strayed from the studio to visit the local pub.
Waller would turn up for the sessions with just a snare drum and a stick. “He would go around to the rest of the studios and borrow stuff from Simon Kirke of Free or whoever else was around,” says Stewart. Yet Waller’s minimalist approach, combined with a mix of acoustic guitars and mandolin, helped make Every Picture Tells a Story an intimate affair. “If you listen to ‘Maggie May,’ there’s only half a drum kit on there. I don’t think there are any cymbals on there whatsoever,” Stewart says.
For material, Stewart opted for a mix of originals and proven classics, including a cover of “That’s All Right,” a song made famous by Elvis Presley; a take of the traditional “Amazing Grace,” which is tacked onto the end of “That’s All Right,” and not listed on the label or sleeve; the Temptations’ “(I Know) I’m Losing You”; and Tim Hardin’s ballad “Reason to Believe.”
The latter track was released as a single with “Maggie May,” a song almost left off the album, as the B-side “A mate that I was living with at the time didn’t think it had any melody to it and I nearly believed him,” Stewart recalls. “I said, ‘Yeah, you’re right. It does ramble on a bit, doesn’t it?'” Yet Stewart didn’t have a choice. He’d only recorded nine songs (including “Amazing Grace”) and if he pulled “Maggie May,” the album would be too short.
Although “Maggie May” was hardly a traditional single with its classical guitar intro and mandolin break at mid-song, at least one listener found it more immediately appealing than “Reason to Believe.” As Stewart recalls, “It was a disc jockey in Cleveland who took the initiative and turned it over and that was it — all hell broke loose.” With “Maggie May” as the A-side, the single soared up the chart, hitting Number One on Hot 100 and on the British singles chart the same week that Every Picture Tells a Story topped the album chart on both sides of the Atlantic. Says Stewart, “If it wasn’t for that disc jockey, I could still be digging graves.”
THE TOP FIVE
Week of October 7, 1971
1. Every Picture Tells a Story, Rod Stewart
2. Tapestry, Carole King
3. Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Moody Blues
4. Shaft, Isaac Hayes
5. Ram, Paul & Linda McCartney