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denies it. I probably like both versionsequally now, but if it hadn’t been for Stewart, I’d never have been able to spot that there was anything there.
    These are the records I own because of Rod Stewart: Bobby Bland’s His California Album , from which Stewart borrowed ‘It’s Not The Spotlight’ (and, though the cover is flatter and less piquant, Rod judiciously elected to leave out Bland’s really rather unpleasant phlegm-clearing gargles); my entire Bobby Womack collection (Stewart never, as far as I know, attempted a Womack song, but he ripped a couple of them off, and always talked about Womack in interviews); Chuck Berry’s Golden Decade , the Temptations’ Greatest Hits , Sam Cooke’s Golden Greats . I was introduced to The Isley Brothers (‘This Old Heart Of Mine’), Aretha Franklin (‘(You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman/Man’) and Crazy Horse (‘I Don’t Want To Talk About It’). And once I knew about Aretha and Bobby Bland and the Temptations, I was led on to B.B. King and the Four Tops and Atlantic, and Chess, and . . . This is all pretty good stuff; I would hate not to have discovered it when I did. If I’d been similarly smitten by Elton John or Jethro Tull or Mike Oldfield, all of whom were competing for my attention at around the same time, it’s possible that I might not be listening to music now.
    Because the people who stick with pop music thelongest, it seems to me, are those who entrust themselves at a tender age to somebody like Stewart, somebody who was clearly a fan himself. Those who fell for The Stones got to hear, if they could be bothered, Arthur Alexander and Solomon Burke and Don Covay (and anyone who likes Jagger and has yet to hear Covay should check him out – you’d be amused, unless you have too much invested in Jagger being a true original). Zeppelin fans might have been moved to seek out Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. The antecedents of Yes and Genesis were Pink Floyd, and before that nobody much, really, and that was, in retrospect, part of the reason I didn’t like them very much. The music felt airless and synthetic, and it seemed even then as if all the prog rockers would rather have been classical musicians, as if pop were beneath them, somehow. They led you up a blind alley; there was nowhere to go.
    Recently Elvis Costello, another old Rod Stewart fan, offered to produce him, and thus offer him a route to redemption. I have the same fantasy. I’d like to choose the songs (I’ve got a couple of ideas, but they’re trade secrets, obviously) and a sympathetic band, a group of musicians who could approximate that ramshackle folky stomp on ‘Every Picture Tells A Story’ . . . I reckon I’d get some pretty good work out of him. Maybe Elvis and I could worktogether, although he’d have to do most of the knob-twiddling. I’m not very good at that. On the other hand, why should Rod bother? He’s done OK without us.

8 ‘Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?’
– Bob Dylan 9 ‘Rain’
– The Beatles
    By expressing no preference between a Rod Stewart version of a Bob Dylan song and the Dylan original, I have, I know, exposed myself: I’m not a big Dylan fan. I’ve got Blonde On Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited , obviously.And Bringing It All Back Home and Blood On the Tracks . Anyone who likes music owns those four. And I’m interested enough to have bought The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 , and that live album we now know wasn’t recorded at the Royal Albert Hall. The reviews of Time Out Of Mind and Love And Theft convinced me to shell out for these two, as well, although I can’t say I listen to them very often. I once asked for Biograph as a birthday present, so with that and The Bootleg Series I’ve got two Dylan boxed sets. I also, now I look, seem to own copies of World Gone Wrong , The