April 7 – Monday – Rod Stewart – Smiler

This is another one of those gifts – I was already done with Rod when someone gave me this record for my birthday or Christmas. They’re less than a month apart.

This was Rod’s final transition to his solo career. While all my other Rod Stewart and Faces albums crackle with wear, I don’t think that I’ve even listened to this one. Actually, although I didn’t recognize a single song, at least not Rod’s renditions, side one turned out to be not bad to work out to, and included songs that his voice melded nicely with like “Bring It On Home To Me.” However, turning over the record to the second side which started with Carole King’s “Natural Woman,” made famous by Aretha Franklin and sung by Rod as Natural Ma-an. Kind of ruined it for me.

The ever-present mandolin still played a big part of his music on Smiler, but seemed to get lost after his next incarnation. I didn’t mind so much when Rod took advantage of the disco craze, as I had said, he seems to need to reinvent himself, and his disco efforts were not too shabby. Some of his later songs, like “Some Guys Have All the Luck,” which allowed him to take advantage of MTV, I like a lot. But this is the end of my Rod Stewart collection.