Mandolin Wind

Retro Music Review: Rod Stewart’s Every Picture Tells a Story

Rod Stewart recently turned 72 and he’ll embark on an 18-date summer tour with Cyndi Lauper beginning in July.  Here’s a look back at Every Picture Tells a Story, which was originally released in May of 1971 on Mercury Records.

The title cut opens the festivities.  Mickey Waller’s drum work is a highlight.  The first of only three original Stewart songs on the album, “Every Picture Tells a Story” is one of two major coming-of-age stories that would become rock and roll classics.  In this song the closing mantra, “Every picture tells a story…” pulls together each of the earlier individual vignettes.

Stewart slows it down with “Seems Like a Long Time.”  His signature gravelly vocals steal the show here.  He picks it right back up with a rocking honky-tonk version of “That’s All Right Mama,” an Arthur Crudup song popularized by Elvis Presley.

Stewart elects to include his take on Bob Dylan’s “Tomorrow is a Long Time” (originally released on 1963’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan).  “Amazing Grace” serves as a lead in, and a unique arrangement and Stewart’s vocal styling make this song worthy of inclusion.

The instant classic, “Maggie May,” opens side two.  Another original, “Maggie,” also a coming-of-age story, was originally released as the B-side of “(Find A) Reason to Believe.”  “Maggie” steals the show and went to number one on both sides of the Atlantic.  The guitar work is better than I recalled it.  The song is “Pure Rod” with vocals, emotion, and musicianship melding together perfectly to become an inarguable all-time classic.

The third Stewart original, “Mandolin Wind,” is another all-timer and one of the finest love songs ever written.  The pedal steel against the mandolin makes for a beautiful sound.  Many critics at the time considered this the best song on the long player.  The poignant lyrics are perfectly delivered.  “Mandolin Wind” is Stewart at  his finest.

The penultimate track is “(I Know) I’m Losing You.”  For those familiar with The Temptations’ 1967 version of this song from their album The Temptations with a Lot o’ Soul, hold on to your hat.  The Temptations classic version is funky and rocks in its own way, but Rod and the boys kick it into a higher gear, thanks in large part to the drumming of Kenney Jones.  For some reason this is the only track that long-time Faces drummer Jones plays on, and he morphs from master timekeeper to soloist during the interlude/bridge.  Jones’s work here is worthy of the great Who drummer Keith Moon, whom Jones would replace when Moon died in 1978.

The final song,  Tim Hardin’s “(Find A) Reason to Believe” – which is similar in style to “Seems Like a Long Time,” “Tomorrow is a Long Time,” and “Mandolin Wind,” reinforces the themes of love, loss, youth, angst and disappointment that permeate the album.

Every Picture Tells a Story was Stewart’s third studio album.  The Faces play on virtually every track, with Ronnie Wood on bass and guitar.  A variety of musicians and backup singers, which are used extensively, contribute to the eight songs on the album.  Eclectic in style, Every Picture went on to become number one in both the U.S. and the United Kingdom and is ranked #173 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 greatest albums.  While lists of this nature are arbitrary, Every Picture is that good.

Rod Stewart has never met a cover he didn’t like and has on occasion compromised his reputation with overt pop sentimentality, succumbing and/or pandering to the latest trends to make a buck.  But, at his finest, he is clearly among the best ever.  This album is every bit worthy of its place in rock history.

Highly recommended.  92 points out of a possible 100.

Dave Moyer

Dave Moyer is a public school district superintendent and is the author of Life and Life Only: A Novel about Bob Dylan, baseball, love and life.

 

 

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Mystery Train Wreck

Time of Departure: A Novel by Douglas Schofield (Minotaur Books, $16.99, 323 pages)

This debut novel began as an excellent criminal investigation story. It’s about a Florida state prosecutor, Clair Talbot, who is promoted to head the Felony Division Unit. But just as soon as she starts her new job a retired police investigator drops a cold case on her lap. Several women were killed decades earlier and he wants her to solve the crime.

On the front cover blurb, author James Renner (True Crime Addict) calls this, “A hard-boiled detective story with a dash of fantasy… a clever read. Daring, even.” Unfortunately, it’s more than a dash of fantasy. A huge load of fantasy and science fiction is unceremoniously dumped on the reader about 75% of the way through the tale. Not to reveal any spoilers, but it involves time travel. Oh, yes.

The story moves from 2011 back to 1978. Why? I have no idea but it turns an “A”-level read into something that might have been written by a middle school student. In fact, the excellent writing style of Schofield turns into nearly unintelligible mush once he detours onto the time travel lane:

“Maybe the whole point of my life is to change the future! But if that’s true, and if we decide today to change history, logic says I will no longer exist. At least I will no longer exist here and now with you. Maybe another version of me will be born next year and live a life entirely different from the one I remember. Maybe I’ll disappear into some parallel existence. I don’t know. But your memories of me will surely disappear. How could they not! You’d have no reason to have them.”

Yes, it’s that painful to read. Schofield’s strange venture into Back to the Future territory – and, naturally, our protagonist meets her mother back in the past, made me wish I could disappear into a parallel existence. I have no concept of why this author threw his story away, except that there’s a train wreck that sets off the time travel; which results in an otherwise promising work devolving into a train wreck.

Joseph Arellano

A review copy was provided by the publisher.

The trade paperback version of Time of Departure was released on November 1, 2016.

Run Through the Jungle

Running After Prefontaine: A Memoir by Scott F. Parker (Inside the Curtain, $15.00, 271 pages)

“I’m like people who meditate for the insights it gives them. They do it for a reason, but the reason is no reason. I run for a reason, and the reason is running – and this is no small joy.”

In this compilation of articles, Scott F. Parker seems to be trying to convince himself of the redemptive power of running. He offers some interesting stories, such as the one about the time he ran a marathon without preparation (been there, done that…). He comes to discover that some run simply because it’s something they like to do; doing something one likes in life is important in itself. The two best chapters of Running After Prefontaine have to do with idolizing the late Oregon runner Steve Prefontaine, and about a woman’s battle to save her son’s life from a rare disease.

“I had recently made a very conscious decision to change the way I thought about myself, with the hope that a change in thinking would be followed by a change in self. I was to be the kind of person who could do things beyond his means by a simple and persistent force of will.”

The other parts of Running After Prefontaine do not work as well because we’ve been there before. The runner as philosopher genre was created by Dr. George Sheehan, and perfected by Haruki Murakami. Parker’s attempt to write about mindfulness and running doesn’t work so well, again, because he still appears to doubt some of his own arguments.

A new runner might enjoy reading what amounts to a personal journal of a life in running, but those with more miles under their soles and/or souls may wish to investigate the real thing. Murakami’s classic, What I Think About When I Think About Running, is a very good place to start. And the late Dr. George Sheehan’s books, Running & Being: The Total Experience, Personal Best, and Running to Win, constitute a great place in which to finish.

Joseph Arellano

A review copy was provided by the publisher.

The complete title of George Sheehan’s second book is Running to Win: How to Achieve the Physical, Mental & Spiritual Victories of Running. “George Sheehan is perhaps the most important philospher of sport.” Sports Illustrated, 1978

For more on Steve Prefontaine, the classic account is PRE: The Story of America’s Greatest Running Legend, Steve Prefontaine by Tom Jordan.

Gin and Juice

The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat: Craig Claiborne and the American Food Renaissance by Thomas McNamee (Free Press, $27.00, 339 pages)

This is the biography of Craig Claiborne, a food writer and premier restaurant reviewer for the New York Times, who was to attack the bland, boring, heavy American diet of the 1960s and substitute, in its place, “a refined, if painstaking, cuisine.”   The food championed by Claiborne was international, primarily French, but with the understanding that each and every culture in the American melting pot offers outstanding dishes.   It may be that Claiborne’s prime mission was to de-anglicize the starchy, meat and potatoes diet that was once the province of the American cafeteria; a diet that – ironically – has returned to rule the roost via fast food outlets (with all the related health problems attached to such a non-diverse menu).

Claiborne might have said that variety  is the spice of diet, and he was nothing if not courageous in popularizing Chilean, Mexican, Greek, Turkish, Indian and other foods during his career.   Thomas McNamee earlier wrote the highly acclaimed bio of California’s Alice Waters,  Alice Waters and Chez Panisse, and while he praises Claiborne, this account is much less laudatory.   It seems that Claiborne had a number of issues as a human being, and they’re all put on the table in this telling.   (Unfortunately, the account is harmed by some odd typos and errors.   For example, on page 97 of the finished book, the year 1961 is referred to as “Ninety-sixty-one”.)

Claiborne grew up rather poor, but he came to identify with what we would now call the “one percenters.”   He was always to fly first class on his frequent trips to Europe, even when he had very little money to his name.   Later, the Times would take care of his expense accounts but Claiborne became controversial for his outlandish spending habits.   In 1978, he wrote a front page story about a $4,000 dinner he arranged in Paris.   The paper received 1,000 letters of complaint – there was a recession on after all.   At least two-thirds of the letters were very negative about Claiborne’s “in your face” ostentatiousness.   As McNamee notes, three years later interviewers were still asking Claiborne – the once poor boy from Sunflower, Missouri – to justify his behavior.

While Claiborne’s mother ran a bed-and-breakfast and taught him much about food preparation, he was to literally disown her and refused to attend the funerals of his mother and his brother.   Claiborne was in the closet during his lifetime, and he attached himself to two different married men, neither of whom went on to leave his spouse.   And while Claiborne lived to the age of 79, his days included no exercise and no less than 14 alcoholic drinks per day.   Claiborne was to openly admit to People magazine that he drank six margaritas before dinner, six glasses of wine during dinner, and as many stingers “as he needed…” until he got the “click in (his) head that makes me feel peaceful.”   In 1979, his blood pressure rate was found to be 186/112 – compared to an upper normal rate of 140/80 for a man in his late 50s.

You might wonder how Claiborne, as a public figure, got away with all of this…?   Well, he had his tricks.   After suffering a brain hemorrhage, he was to enlist his physician in his drinking activities.   Yes, his own doctor, who had ordered Claiborne to significantly reduce his alcohol intake, was charmed enough by the then-celebrity to sit and drink with him in restaurants.   Sometimes the doctor even included his wife in these drinking parties.

McNamee is just as honest – despite the book’s title – about Claiborne’s role in changing American eating habits.   Although Claiborne wrote the national bestseller, The New York Times Cook Book, McNamee admits that, “it is impossible to say whether the book had caught the wave of an entirely new American enthusiasm for food and cooking or had set it in motion.”   But the man is given full credit, as is his due, for popularizing the foods of all cultures and changing the once-dull face of food in The Big Apple:

“The clear result of his critical rigor was a continuous increase in the quality of New York’s restaurants and in others across the country…  By the time Craig left the Times, New York was teeming with restaurants as varied as the city’s clans, cults, allegiances, and heritages.   From the Bronx to the Battery were Chinese restaurants galore – including the fiery (regional dishes) that Craig had done so much to popularize.   Virtually every corner of Italy was represented.   Japanese cuisine of high refinement was easily had.   There were Brazilian, Vietnamese, Cuban-Chinese, Swiss, Swedish, and Syrian restaurants.   No longer were Greek, Indian and Mexican food served only in cheap joints.

Craig Claiborne may have been a man flawed in his personal habits, but he was also a visionary who proved the truth of the words that in diversity there is strength.   This is an engaging read for foodies and non-foodies alike.

Well recommended.

Joseph Arellano

A review copy was provided by the publisher.