Clive Davis has a test. If you want to work for him you've got to come in with tracks that stiffed but are truly HITS! Songs that can be covered tomorrow and jet to the top of the hit parade.
I figured I'd be an EXPERT at this assignment, but now I'm not so sure. You see last Wednesday I heard the original "Cut Across Shorty".
I was sitting on the on-ramp at Centinela and the Deep Tracks deejay said he was going to do a compare and contrast. He was going to play the Eddie Cochran ORIGINAL version of "Cut Across Shorty" and then the well-known Rod Stewart cover.
Fuck, I didn't even KNOW there was an original. I knew that "It's All Over Now" had already been done by the Stones, and that "You're My Girl (I Don't Want To Discuss It)" was performed first by Rhinoceros, but I figured "Cut Across Shorty" was a "Gasoline Alley" ORIGINAL! Like the title track.
Oh, maybe I knew it was a cover back in the day, but that was BEFORE the days of file-trading. Eddie Cochran was not at my fingertips. And, as hip as underground FM radio was, they didn't spin fifties tracks. For the fifties were seen as categorically UNHIP!
I got excited. This was going to be FANTASTIC!
But Eddie Cochran's take on "Cut Across Shorty" was not special. It was just another rockabilly number with a story lyric. I was expecting something on the level of Buddy Holly. A GEM rescued from history. But really, once was enough. I didn't have to rush home and download it.
But as I finally merged into traffic on the Santa Monica Freeway, Eddie's take was over. Hell, it hadn't even lasted TWO MINUTES!
Then came the famous take, my take, ROD STEWART'S take.
"Take me back Carry me back Down to gasoline alley where I started from"
There are two schools of thought on Shaq. Either he's completely done, or Miami's suddenly a CONTENDER! Because Shaq's got something to PROVE!
Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood had something to PROVE!
To say Rod was a journeyman would be charitable, but overnight, playing with Jeff Beck, he was suddenly on the MAP! He was RECOGNIZED! Still, most people thought BECK was the star.
As for Ronnie Wood...he played BASS in the Jeff Beck Group.
Rod and Ron...they were MOTIVATED! They were going to SHOW PEOPLE! That THEY were stars.
Their first collaboration, Rod Stewart's debut solo album entitled "An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down", stiffed. Impact was NEGLIGIBLE!
Today, Rod would have been dropped.
But making records back then was different. It wasn't so much about hits as PROFITS! Because, you see, rock music was seen as ART! Albums were STATEMENTS! And these statements had PATRONS! Just like the visual arts have patrons. But, in this case, instead of just being fat cats, rock music was supported by MILLIONS! The key was just to create something good enough, and then your audience would find you, you'd gain enough sales to continue.
If you stiffed with your first album today, if you GOT to make a second, it would be assumed that YOU, the ACT, fucked up. And the whole team would be shaken up. New songwriters would be brought in. A new producer. MULTIPLE producers. After all, if you had made something GREAT, you would have broken through.
Today the label takes no chance. They're heavily involved in the process. Whereas in the late sixties and early seventies if you got a record deal, you got a budget. You could make more or less what you wanted. Hell, what did the LABEL GUYS know about making music. They trusted you to create GREATNESS! Then, it was their job to find a way to sell it.
Rather than shake up the formula, Rod and Ronnie proceeded to replicate the formula, to use the same team. Except, they got even EARTHIER! Yes, if you fail today, the key is to SLICKEN up the sound. But "Gasoline Alley" has got a sandpapery feel, whereas in comparison "An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let Your Down" was SMOOTH!
It was the opening cut that sold me, the title cut, "Gasoline Alley".
This was what the Band had promised. Oh, they'd delivered a lot on the first two records, but "Gasoline Alley" TRUMPED them. The Band albums were movies, stories. You felt that the players were just storytellers. That these weren't the stories of their LIVES! Whereas with Rod Stewart one somehow felt that THIS was his life. Coming up from nothing, drinking beer in the pub, plowing through the fields shitfaced. Hell, even the COVER made you feel involved. You see it was textured. You could FEEL the manhole cover and the bricks on the front cover, as well as Rod on the back.
And even though not all of the songs were Rod's own, he MADE THEM his own. There was alternately an intimacy and a BRAVADO! He INHABITED the material. And therefore, one listen and you BELIEVED IN HIM!
"Now a country boy named Shorty And a city boy named Dan Had to prove who could run the fastest To win Miss Lucy's hand"
Today it's all about cred with your PEEPS!
Rappers don't rock, and rockers don't go soft. Everybody remembers the hair band days. They don't want to die overnight by appealing to a core not their own.
Believe me, in 1970 electric guitars DOMINATED!
But "Cut Across Shorty" starts off with an ACOUSTIC guitar and a FIDDLE! One in each EAR!
This brought you IMMEDIATELY to the country. Isn't that the image of the fiddle player? Out in the country they don't have amplification, right? And then the drums start to pound. You feel like you're in a BARN somewhere. Or by a campfire. FAR from London, far from AMERICA!
"Cut across Shorty, Shorty, cut across That's what Miss Lucy said Cut across Shorty, Shorty, cut across You know that it's you that I wanna wed"
Listen to the chorus on the Eddie Cochran take, and it's not even MEMORABLE! It doesn't get into your BLOOD! Then again, when the chorus is done in Cochran's take, the band goes right back into the verse, whereas on Stewart's take, the acoustic musicians go on for a while, reestablishing the pattern, taking a break from the story, in order for the listener to get involved, in order for the listener to REFLECT!
"Now Dan had been in trainin' About a week before the race He made up his mind old Shorty Would end in second place You know Dan with his long legs flyin' He left Shorty far behind Shorty heard him holler out Miss Lucy that you'll soon be mine"
It's a veritable MOVIE! You've lost track of the world outside. You're enveloped in the sound, in the PLOT!
And then, after the chorus, there's a LONG instrumental, with a fiddle SOLO! This is when the race is TAKING PLACE!
Now when Rod comes back in, we find that Shorty, the one without the money or the looks, has won. Because Miss Lucy has FIXED THE RACE! She wanted Shorty to win. For, after all, if we don't believe in true love, life isn't worth living.
But we hear the conclusion to the story TWO MINUTES before the track ends. It's like it's the wedding reception. No, more like Shorty and Miss Lucy have left the scene, to consummate the marriage, and the revelers are left alone. Or maybe this is just the minstrel band, telling an old tale. But, in the middle of this long instrumental, Ronnie Wood picks up his electric guitar and starts sliding ALL OVER THE NECK!
Beck was a SHOWMAN! Ron was about SUBTLETY! SERVING THE SONG! It's unexpected, you figure the electric is going to come in the MIDDLE! And when Ronnie's done, there's a slow fade...and when "Lady Day" starts up you tell yourself THIS is an album. One with SECONDARY tracks just as meaningful and important as the EMPHASIS tracks.
Oh, we knew which tracks were supposed to kill. The ones that opened and closed sides. Whereas "Cut Across Shorty" was stuck right there in the middle of SIDE TWO! The LOSER SIDE!
Rod and Ronnie broke through less than a year thereafter with the original "Maggie May". Which is still in regular rotation today.
But having achieved their goal, neither made music as good again.
Their work with the Faces was secondary to Rod's solo career.
And then Ron left to join the Stones, which was good for neither of them. Mick Taylor was a GENIUS! The rewriting of history says it's all Keith, but how come the band hasn't put out a great album since Mick left? Ronnie is a sideman. A part of the picture. He LOOKS like a Stone, and ACTS like a Stone, it's just that suddenly the band was without a lead player. Both Keith and Ronnie are about FEEL, adding flourishes. To WHAT?
But as part of an ensemble on the Rod Stewart albums, Ron shined brightly.
As for Rod himself...he got involved with a movie star, he switched labels, he started down the road to becoming a joke.
I never would have brought "Cut Across Shorty" to Clive. Because Rod Stewart's great take isn't about the song so much as the ARRANGEMENT! The PRODUCTION! Yes, Rod and Ronnie took a germ, a SEED, and grew it into a fully flowering FIELD!
It's takes like "Cut Across Shorty" that make it so Rod Stewart still has a career today. We can't forget the honesty, the creativity, the way we were TOUCHED by those first few albums. They showed that as good as Jeff Beck was, he needed Rod and Ronnie more than they needed HIM! That they weren't sidemen, but STARS!
And believe me, with their rooster haircuts, with their tight cut suits, for a while there Rod and Ron were the coolest guys on the planet. If you doubt me, just find a vinyl copy of "Gasoline Alley", flip over the cover and feel Rod's hair. You'll suddenly remember.
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