![]() ![]() Sir Rod has had a fairytale career, essentially going from a Tube busker to being appointed Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II in 2016 (he already had a CBE). The album we’re examining today, Never A Dull Moment, was made right at the end of that era. But what really sucks is the fact that the 50-year mountain of hot garbage which makes up the bulk of Stewart’s 1973-2023 career almost obliterates the five years of strutting masterpieces found in the 1968-1972 era. One way I could illustrate this is by saying You Wear It Well represents the former and Do Ya Think I’m Sexy represents the latter. There are subtle differences between swagger and narcissism, between confidence and ego. It also marks the end of his partnership with Woodsie, who by then was becoming a full-time member of The Rolling Stones - and perhaps the only member of that band whose best material was made outside the Stones. I’m not a fan of Smiler, but certainly everything from 1975’s Atlantic Crossing onwards is crap. ![]() after 1974’s Smiler in a bid to dodge the savage tax rates on earners like himself. Something awful happened when Stewart relocated to the United States from the U.K. And just like cigarettes, much of Hot Rod’s success can be directly traced to Ronnie Wood. Me and the song have grown old together.Trying to be a fan of Rod Stewart is a lot like trying to be a fan of cigarettes - you’re about 40 years too late. In Rage, James wrote about “I’d Rather Go Blind”: “Funny, but that’s a tune that’s deepened along with my life, it’s meaning growing more mysterious. Over the years, “I’d Rather Go Blind” has been covered by Rod Stewart (on his 1972 solo album Never A Dull Moment), Christine Perfect (later Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac) with the ‘60s British blues group Chicken Shack, and Beyonce in the fictional Cadillac Records film and soundtrack. In Rage, James wrote that she renamed the song “Blind Girl,” to make it “more specific to the confusion I was feeling.” This version, with a slower tempo, saxophone-laden intro, and acoustic guitar, finds considerable new life in the song. In 1978, James teamed up with Jerry Wexler and recorded “I’d Rather Go Blind” as “Blind Girl” for the Warner Brothers album, Deep In The Night. I’d rather be a blind man, than to see you walk away from me… I do believe that a blind man would have an easier way to goĪnd his heart, his heart will never ever know The singer changes the song title to “I’d Rather Be A Blind Man,” while the chorus becomes: Though a single “Mary, Don’t You Take Me On No Bad Trip” was released at the time on Chess sub-label Cadet, an album by the same name remained in the Chess vaults until 2005, when it was released by a New York reissues label called Funky Delicacies (owned by the early hip-hop concern, Tuff City Records).įugi’s version also features trebly guitars as well as his own powerful voice, reminiscent of Marvin Gaye. In 1968, Fugi recorded his own version of the song for Chess Records, backed by a Detroit-based psychedelic-funk group called Black Merda. I sat in a piano room and began to write”-for James, the song was about being blind in her “love life” and her “personal ways,” she wrote.įor many listeners, the two and half minutes of “I’d Rather Go Blind”–James’ heartfelt performance, the subtle tremolo-picked electric guitar, hovering organ, and swaying horn lines-conveyed so much of the emotion the singer must have been feeling. When Leonard Chess heard the song for the first time, he had to leave the room, crying. ![]() I was in prison and didn’t know when I was going to get out. While Fugi poured his grief from being incarcerated into the song-he told an interviewer in 2006, “I got tired of losing and being down. (“It bugs me to this day that he still receives royalties,” James wrote.) According to the book, James gave her co-writing portion to her partner at the time, Billy Foster, a member of the ‘50s Los Angeles doo-wop group The Medallions, for tax purposes. The song was actually a co-write between James and a Detroit-based singer and songwriter named Ellington Jordan, who usually went by the nickname Fugi (sometimes alternately spelled Fuji), who was in prison. James told the story behind the song in her autobiography, Rage To Survive, a candid drug chronicle populated by junkies, dealers, and tales of trying to score (reminiscent of Keith Richard’s Life). The album, Tell Mama, produced one of her best songs, “I’d Rather Go Blind.” After a number of albums produced by one or both of the Chess brothers, in the late summer of 1967, James went to Muscle Shoals, Alabama’s FAME Studios for an album produced by the studio’s owner Rick Hall. ![]()
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