Rod Stewart with Jools Holland - Swing Fever

Styles: Swing
Year: 2024
Time: 38:25
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Size: 87,9 MB
Art: Front

(5:02) 1. Lullaby Of Broadway
(3:02) 2. Frankie And Johnny
(2:18) 3. Walkin' My Baby Back Home
(2:39) 4. Almost Like Being In Love
(3:20) 5. Tennessee Waltz
(2:33) 6. Oh Marie
(2:54) 7. Sentimental Journey
(2:58) 8. Pennies From Heaven
(2:56) 9. Night Train
(2:55) 10. Love Is The Sweetest Thing
(2:24) 11. Them There Eyes
(2:50) 12. Good Rocki'n Tonight
(2:26) 13. Ain't Misbehavin'

Through his five volumes of the Great American Songbook, the rascally Rod Stewart has been down this way before, but the addition of Jools Holland adds an extra dimension to his latest outing. Stewart’s age-worn and smoky voice can still deliver, as these 13 covers of classic big band numbers prove.

The album opens with the snappy, rousing ‘Lullaby Of Broadway’, which sets a high bar for an orchestra who come on as full-blooded as you might expect. Although Stewart says he wants to leave the rock ‘n’ roll stuff behind for a while, the versions of ‘Good Rockin’ Tonight’ and ‘Night Train’ suggest a reluctance to go all the way with that aim.

He even manages to smuggle a languid touch of mischief into the relatively sedate ‘Tennessee Waltz’. Elsewhere, the singer can still surprise with comfortable and convincing run-throughs of such harmless classics as ‘Pennies From Heaven’ and ‘Love Is The Sweetest Thing’ , while he even dusts off ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’ from volume five of his “songbook” series for a worthy re-run.
https://www.hotpress.com/music/album-review-rod-stewart-with-jools-holland-swing-fever-23010196

Swing Fever

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Rod Stewart - Still the Same... Great Rock Classics of Our Time

Styles: Vocal, Soul
Year: 2006
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 46:40
Size: 113,1 MB
Art: Front

(3:12)  1. Have You Ever Seen the Rain
(3:48)  2. Fooled Around and Fell in Love
(4:29)  3. I'll Stand by You
(3:38)  4. Still the Same
(3:33)  5. It's a Heartache
(3:07)  6. Day After Day
(4:18)  7. Missing You
(3:36)  8. Father and Son
(3:44)  9. The Best of My Love
(3:36) 10. If Not for You
(3:47) 11. Love Hurts
(3:06) 12. Everything I Own
(2:42) 13. Crazy Love

Early on in his career Rod Stewart established himself as one of rock's great interpretive vocalists, which made the flatness of his Great American Songbook series a bit puzzling. If any classic rock veteran of the '60s should have been able to offer new spins on old standards, it should have been Rod the Mod, who was turning Elvis' "All Shook Up" inside out on Jeff Beck's Truth and turned the Rolling Stones' defiant "Street Fighting Man" into a folk-rock lament, all before "Maggie May" turned Rod into a star. But none of the Great American Songbook volumes strayed from the tried and true, which may have been part of the reason they were big hits after all, familiar songs are always warmly received when they're performed in a familiar fashion but they were filled with undistinguished performances that bordered on laziness. It was possible to make excuses for his performances, chief among them that Stewart was simply not rooted in this material, so he simply chose the easiest route out of the song, but it didn't change the fact that all three records were deadly dull, even if they were enormous successes one and all. It's hard to give up that success, particularly for a veteran who was so desperate for a hit a few years back, he foolishly attempted the clunky modern R&B album Human, so it's not surprising that when he moved on from the Great American Songbook, he chose a related project: Great Rock Classics of Our Time, which is the subtitle of 2006's Still the Same, his first new record since GAS, and one that shares the aesthetic of that respectful and commercial trawl through the past. Still the Same finds Rod singing 13 songs that more or less could be called rock standards, every one of them hits since Stewart himself was a hitmaker, most of them dating from the '70s, when he was a superstar (roughly ten, if you count "Love Hurts" as a hit for Nazareth, which in this context you should). 

Not a bad idea at all, at least on paper, since this would seem to return Rod to his strengths: singing rock & roll and pop, influenced by soul and a little bit of country and folk. This theory has a bit of a problem, however. It's made under the assumption that it would be the Rod of the '70s singing songs from the '70s instead of the Rod of the new millennium singing songs of the '70s and the latter, of course, is what is featured on Still the Same. That means instead of Rod the Interpreter you get Rod the Karaoke Star, singing over arrangements that aren't merely familiar, but nearly exact replicas of the original hits. This isn't far removed from The Great American Songbook, which never offered a surprise, but those at least had the excellent work of Richard Perry, who was faithful without being slavish. Here, almost without exception, the arrangements deliberately recall the original hits, right down to grace notes and throwaway fills. This doesn't necessarily make for a lousy record, since Rod does indeed sound more comfortable fronting a rock band than he did singing with a big band, but Stewart makes no attempt to stamp these tunes with his own personality. Nowhere is that truer than on "It's a Heartache." Bonnie Tyler's delivery on the original was a downright homage to Rod, so close to his raspy phrasing that it was (and is) often mistaken for Rod himself. So what does he do on his version? He copies it, right down to the inflections. It's not bad; it's just pointless, because Tyler's original sounds more like classic Rod than Rod's does here. And while that sentiment may hold true for only "It's a Heartache," the rest of the album follows suit. The title Still the Same is all too true: these are the same versions of the same old songs you know and love, only they're now sleepily sung by Stewart. It's not the worst album he's done, and it's an improvement over The Great American Songbook if only because it plays to his strengths, but it aspires to be nothing more than pleasant and it achieves nothing so much as being just that. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine https://www.allmusic.com/album/still-the-same-great-rock-classics-of-our-time-mw0000557398

Still the Same... Great Rock Classics of Our Time

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Rod Stewart - Soulbook

Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 46:49
Size: 107.2 MB
Styles: Soul, Adult contemporary
Year: 2009
Art: Front

[4:12] 1. It's The Same Old Song
[3:07] 2. My Cherie Amour
[4:33] 3. You Make Me Feel Brand New
[3:18] 4. (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher
[3:34] 5. Tracks Of My Tears
[3:15] 6. Let It Be Me
[4:11] 7. Rainy Night In Georgia
[3:17] 8. What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted
[3:01] 9. Love Train
[3:15] 10. You've Really Got A Hold On Me
[3:31] 11. Wonderful World
[3:57] 12. If You Don't Know Me By Now
[3:31] 13. Just My Imagination

2009 album from the Grammy Award winning Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Famer. SoulBook is a collection of classic '60s and '70s era Soul favorites sung by one of the most interpretive voices in music. Stewart is personally passionate about this project, which is a return to his beginnings when he fronted The Jeff Beck Band and the critically-revered band The Faces, iconic in the history books for fusing American roots music - Rock, Soul and Blues. Soulbook reunites Stewart with his longtime collaborators, producers Steve Tyrell and Steve Jordan, of Rolling Stones/Xpensive Winos fame, who also brought in top musicians Ray Parker Jr., Waddy Watchel, Darrell Jones, Dean Parks and David Paich to join Rod in the studio for the album.

Soulbook

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