Product Description

The aesthetic Rod Stewart had been honing over his first three solo albums--an aesthetic that combined folk, hard rock,and R&B swagger--was perfected on EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY. The album's combination of strong, original songs and plum cover versions reveal the artist's range and versatility as he simultaneously paid tribute to mentors and declared his own craft. Members of Stewart's regular group, the Faces, provide intuitive support, making nearly every track shine with passion and edge.
Stewart's take-no-prisoners interpretation of the Temptations' "(I Know I'm) Losing You" brought new dimensions to a Tamla/Motown classic. "Maggie May", one of the great pop anthems, is the obvious standout, but theremaining selections, such as "Mandolin Wind" and Tim Hardin's beautiful "Reason To Believe", have a similar sense of purpose. Through it all, of course, is Stewart's soulful, beautifully textured singing, which reaches its pinnacle on these performances, ensuring the artist's standing as one of rock's all-time greatest vocalists. If you buy only one Rod Stewart album, EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY should be it.

Track Listing

1. Every Picture Tells A Story
2. Seems Like A Long Time
3. That's All Right
4. Tomorrow Is A Long Time
5. Maggie May
6. Mandolin Wind
7. (I Know) I'm Losing You
8. Reason To Believe

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2437 in Music
• Released on: 1998-08-17
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Running time: 40 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Once upon a time, Rod Stewart was not vamping indiscriminately about "Hot Legs" and asking "D'ya Think I'm Sexy?" He was a singer with a gravel-voice approximation of Sam Cooke and excellent taste in cover material. Here, he's toned down with folksy covers of Tim Hardin ("Reason to Believe"), Bob Dylan ("Tomorrow is Such a Long Time"), and Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup (via Elvis, "That's All Right Mama"). He tops his interpretive abilities with two originals that have since become standards ("Maggie May", "Every Picture Tells A Story"). Quite a different Rod from the one the world has come to know. --Rob O'Connor

Customer Reviews

Simply Fantastic!
"Every Picture Tells A Story" is one of Rod's truely best albums of all time and a real must have CD for all the fans! The songs are the best and above all it is a real collector's item.
BUY IT!!!

Perfect Stewart
"Raincoat" and "Gasoline Alley" were the build-up albums for this great rock anthem - one of the finest pure rock events of all time. This is where Stewart combined everything that was good about his persona at the time and reached heights that he would never again live up to.

It trod the same mixture of rock, blues, folk and country but in a much more grown-up way and included three Stewart classics and a bunch of others that weren't far behind. The first two albums suggest a singer trying to come to terms with a style that would suit his throaty lyrics. Here he found that style with a vengeance.

The cast list on this album reads like a who's who from 1970s rock and included The Faces, Maggie Bell, Madeleine Bell and the glorious mandolin playing of Ray Jackson from one of my all-time favourite groups Lindisfarne.

Stewart's ability as a songwriter came on leaps and bounds, particularly with the two classics Maggie May (co-written with Martin Quittenton) and the glorious Mandolin Wind (my all time favourite Stewart track), the latter evoking so much atmosphere within its perfectly crafted five and a half minutes.

The title track is another masterful, punchy and raunchy Stewart winner and elsewhere the album overflows with great songs that seem to mesh. He returns to the Dylan catalogue with "Tomorrow is a Long Time" does an excellent job on Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right" hacks into his arrangement of "Amazing Grace" and then finishes off with the stunning Tim Hardin "Reason to Believe." It seems incredible to think that "Maggie May" and "Reason to Believe" were released as a double A side single. Surely this has to be the two greatest songs ever put together on a 45. Without a doubt this was Stewart at his peak.

Essential Rod
Rod Stewart's first two albums, both classics in their own right, served as the build-up to this, his artistic peak. Stewart rocks with soul here more than on any other album he made. Intriguingly, he tends, as on many of his recordings to employ acoustic guitars rather than electric, without losing any of the primal quality of the performance.
There are again only three original songs: the arresting title track, the legendary 'Maggie May' and the beautiful 'Mandolin Wind,' a song that deserves a higher profile. Stewart, more than anyone else, has used the mandolin successfully in a rock context. Both of these last two named tracks appear on the second side of the original LP, which is superior to the first. His reading of Tim Hardin's much-covered 'Reason To Believe' is definitive, complete with another of his favoured instruments, the violin. The Motown cover, 'I'm Losing You' is full of supercharged angst.
The first half is still formidable and includes an impressive workout on Arthur Crudup's 1950s r&b standard, 'That's All Right' as well as a cover of Dylan's 'Tomorrow Is A Long Time' which suffers only from the excellence of everything else that's on show. This is one of the all-time great albums.