My search for more Rod

Accidental discoveries on the turntable

The unfolding saga of our world is full of unintentional discoveries that proved fruitful and historic. A shepherd looking for a lost goat uncovered the Dead Sea Scrolls. French soldiers building a fort instead of surrendering came upon the Rosetta Stone, which later helped decipher hieroglyphics in the Pyramids. Sometimes, accidents lead to what later are seen as great discoveries.

I don’t know that historically speaking, my accidental discoveries would rank quite so high on a worldwide scale. But it did make me laugh when I thought about the both of them this morning - once again, out of the blue - the kind of thing that seems to be happening with regularity, thanks, I reckon, to regular Substacking. If this is regular, that is.

Hearing these songs again after all this time and laughing, I immediately thought of my faithful Substack readers. Hey, they might get a kick out of these two, well, three really, most unusual tunes.

You see, your correspondent had embarked on a Rod Stewart obsession many years ago. I had all the Mercury solo albums, sure. I also had his two albums with the Jeff Beck Group and the first few Faces albums. I needed more Rod.

With no Internet to guide me, no Record Guides or Discographies available, I began desperately searching record store racks for anything Rod-related. Even accidental, non-album cuts like “In A Broken Dream” by Python Lee Jackson. Or “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl” or “Little Miss Understood,” both by Rod himself. Or even “Oh, No, Not My Baby,” that Goffin-King track he whipped through.

I was looking for more Rod but instead found two quirky songs I loved!

Having done my requisite Rod Research, I already knew all about Long John Baldry happening upon Rod at a railway station, inviting him to join his band and so on. The same sort of happenstance that had Mick Jagger running into Keith Richards at Platform Two of the Dartford railway station in Kent in 1961, carrying a bunch of albums that the two of them couldn’t help but start talking about. Eventually they started a little cover band called The Rolling Stones. Want a career in music back then? Take the train.

With Rod, there was a band called Steampacket and some leaked recordings of festival shows that weren’t much. I kept scouring the Import bins. Maybe Mercury Records wasn’t going to come through for me. Knowing Rod and his ambition and how badly he wanted to make it - he put up with Jeff Beck for nearly two years (amazing guitarist, rotten band leader) - there just had to be more material out there.

Sure enough, in a record store in Harvard Square, I came upon a British blues anthology with a Rod Stewart song on it. Once I listened to the record, the song I kept coming back to was the B-Side of a single released by the original Fleetwood Mac, mischievously called “Earl Vince And The Valiants.”

The cut was a near-Elvis parody called “Somebody’s Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight,” a funny, hard-rockin’ song. Of course, hearing this from what was then-radio friendly Fleetwood Mac (almost a whole different band) made it even funnier. Recorded in 1969, you’d have to say it was also pre-punk. This was long before Johnny Rotten bared his green teeth and started sneering.

Some time later, again prowling the Import bins, I came upon a Long John Baldry album called “It Ain’t Easy.” The album was produced by, why whattya know, Rod Stewart with help from Elton John, who’d originally played with Baldry in Bluesology, though known as Elton Dean in those days.

And the album, well, the opening track is a hilarious Baldry recounting of a run-in with a London cop and the subsequent court appearance. Classic stuff. With Rod and Elton running things in the studio, you can be sure the liquid refreshments were flowing.

At the song/narration’s end, Baldry roars right into a piano-pounding screamer called “Don’t Try To Lay No Boogie Woogie On The King Of Rock And Roll.” (The song is better than the title.) And Baldry is about as far from being the king of rock and roll as Rod Stewart’s liver is from testing non-alcoholic.

A two-fer from Rod’s mentor, Long John Baldry starting with “Conditional Discharge”

Listening to these two songs this morning was easy enough. I went to YouTube, typed in the titles and bang, both came up right away. It was nice enough that I got immediate service, each song loaded instantly. The songs made me laugh once again, like they did all those years ago when I hurriedly brought them home from the record store and couldn’t wait to put them on my turntable to give them a spin.

The thrill of the chase, the quest, poking through the Import bins in record store after record store, trying to find that arcane Rod Stewart cut I didn’t have, that was long in the past. Why it meant so much to me back then, I’m not sure. There were plenty of Rod Stewart fans who only knew the basic stuff, the Mercury albums, the stuff with Faces and the Jeff Beck Group; it wasn’t like they’d be disqualified or anything, they were stone Rod Stewart fans, true. You had to give them that.

I wanted more, though. Still do, I guess.

Author John Nogowski has written two books on music, “Bob Dylan: A Descriptive, Critical Discography 1961-2022” and the forthcoming “Neil Young: A Descriptive, Critical Discography 1968-2025,” two books on baseball - his son is a former major-leaguer - “Diamond Duels,” a deep dive into the game’s historic matchups and “Last Time Out,” a collection of stories about the MLB finales of baseball’s greatest players. He’s also at work on a book on Bruce Springsteen, regularly contributes to the Hartford Courant Op-Ed page and has written a Substack, now heading into Year Three. It’s free! Stop by and take a peek.