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![]() Gasoline Alley established Rod as a songwriter ("Lady Day," "Gasoline Alley") and demonstrated his uncanny ear for picking out tunes and giving them his own stamp (Elton John's "Country Comforts," Dylan's "Only A Hobo"). Through two more successful albums Stewart kept adding to this nucleus, building a relaxed studio outfit with like-minded comrade musicians, bassist-pianist Pete Sears, fiddler Dick Powell and others, with Faces Lane, Jones and McLagen drifting in and out of the sessions as they were needed (that Rod has managed to keep two separate bands working for several years is its own tribute to his prodigious energies). Until now my favorite Stewart album had been his first, The Rod Stewart Album, with its nervy version of "Street Fighting Man," the heartbreaking "Handbags and Gladrags" and the bitter, lonely "Dirty Old Town," all set off by Wood's stunning bottleneck guitar, Waller's drumming and beautiful acoustic guitar by Martin Quittenton. Rod Stewart and these qualities, tempered by a mammoth sense of humor, are at the core of everything he appears to be - band leader, band member, writer, composer, interpreter, gentleman and least and finally, superstar. We don't expect compassion, humility and self-doubt from our rock & roll heroes, not in this age of musical assault and battery, not in a time when we have seen the raunch and innuendo of primal blues and R&B slide into what some angry folk choose to call "cock rock." But I look at the amazing career of Mr. "As I listened to Gasoline Alley the first time, I found myself saying again and again, "He can't understand that." - Langdon Winner, in Rolling Stone, 9/3/70
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