Rod Stewart Tribute by Bob Wyper

SMILER is a great album to soak up the flavour of Rod Stewart, with a collection of styles to show the variety of influences on his career at that time.  This is a very enjoyable mix of tracks and the musicians who support him have given Rod the perfect platform to project his voice to the world.  The only let down is some poor production and mixing which misses the chance to let Rod shine properly, but still a great listen all the same.

TRACKS

Any album with Sweet Little Rock and Roller on it is going to be enhanced greatly.  It's a superb groove with the combination of twelve bar and straight rock sitting under a great vocal performance from Rod.  It really moves.

Farewell features the mandolin of Ray Jackson (Lindisfarne) and its great to hear just how effortless the vocals were to Rod.  Tight performances throughout make the overall sound enjoyable.

Sailor is a real rocker but fails to hold the interest musically, mainly due to the monotone melody and simplified rock arrangement.... bet its great live, though.

Sam Cooke's Bring It On Home To Me/You Send Me is a poor production saved by a great vocal from Rod and some nice piano.  Overdone on the strings in an attempt to make it bigger, but less is sometimes more and this is a case in point.  Listen closely and you will hear The Stones' Time Is On My Side fitting right over You Send Me.

Let Me Be Your Car sounds like the Elton John song that it is, with only a token backing vocal by Rod... don't think that was what they intended.  Just an album filler to me, but I would love to hear Rod tackle it head on in his own inimitable style.

You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Man is the male version of the classic Carole King song (Goffin/King/Wexler) and is treated beautifully by all the musicians on this track... one of the best tracks on any early Rod album and one which is normally overlooked.   In  my opinion, great songwriters and great singers don't get together often enough, and this is one of those absolutely magic moments.

Typical of the early Rod and Ronnie compositions, Dixie Toot is a lightweight song trying to be bigger.  I love Chris Barber's Jazz band who appear on this track, but the fusion of folk, rock and jazz just survives this strange mixture.  Again I would have liked Rod's vocal to have been higher in the mix, but that's just me, I think.

The hard rocking Hard Road is another poor mix, but this time the band carry it well due to the feel of the song.  I love Rod's vocal on this, but it is simply not dominant enough... also noticed the strange T.Rex type Mickey Finn conga drums all over it... interesting though, and very enjoyable song.

Following a strange instrumental is Bob Dylan's Girl From The North Country, with a beautiful liquid guitar accompaniment in the style of prog. rockers Family... wait a minute, wasn't Family's guitarist a certain Jim Cregan, famous for writing and appearing with Rod... or did he just play bass guitar with them??  Lovely song anyway with Rod again delivering effortless perfection.

The album ends on the Paul & Linda McCartney track Mine For Me, another fusion of styles which almost works but not quite.   I can hear McCartney making it work, I can even hear Rod rocking it up successfully, but this is a bit of a half-hearted arrangement of tremolo organ and caribbean steel drums with Ronnie messing around in the background possibly.  Ironically, the best production of Rod's voice on this lighter pop song which was maybe a vision of things to come.

Overall, SMILER contains a disappointing production of Rod's excellent vocals which is crying out for a remixed version on some of these fine songs, but still a most enjoyable listen...   and the comments are only based on what my ears heard on the day I listened for review purposes.    

SMILER review by  Bob Wyper.