Two birthdays - Dave and Rod

Last week saw the birthdays of two of my favourite people.  On the 8th, David Bowie turned 65, to a fanfare from pretty much every newspaper and radio station, and two days later Rod Stewart turned 67, to a deafening silence from everyone except (I assume) his family and friends.  I grew up with both of their music forming a memorable background to my life, and it's as great to me now, 40 odd years later, as it ever was.

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Bowie has always been rightly acknowldged as one of the finest musicians of his (or indeed any) generation, constantly innovating both his recorded work and live shows.  When I was at school, in the late 60s, shortly before he really hit the big time, he actually played a gig at my old school, at the end-of-year 6th form dance.  I was unable to go that night, as I lived 20 miles from the school and my parents didn't drive, to my everlasting regret, but I'm told by people who were there that this guy David Jones, just sitting on the edge of the stage with an acoustic guitar and no backing band, playing songs and chatting, was absolutely rivetting.   Within a few months Space Oddity was released, Major Tom entered the public consciousness and Bowie (as he was now billed) started his journey to global superstardom. 

I remember seeing him on Top of the Pops, singing Starman, resplendant in shiny blue jumpsuit, stacked heeled knee length boots, orange hair and full make up.  His band, the excellent Spiders from Mars (this was his Ziggy Stardust persona) were similarly dressed.  My mum and dad were outraged.  I thought he was the coolest thing since sliced bread, and went out and bought the album the next day.  It was the first of many transformations for the man - through the Diamond Dogs era, The Thin White Duke (Station to Station remains an underrated album in my opinion - I loved it) and many others.  The heroin addiction didn't kill him off as it had many contemporaries, and looking at him now as he collects his bus pass he looks twenty years younger than his age.  He's not made a new album for a few years now, but with the back-catalogue he has he doesn't need to!  A few years ago I was working in Jersey for a few days, and one lunchtime, popping into Boots the Chemist in St.Helier for a hangover cure, I found a double CD of his Greatest Hits for five pounds.  I bought two copies, one for me and one for my son Pat, who considers Bowie to be an absolute genius.  It's on my iPod and I play it regularly. 

So happy birthday to the boy from Bromley, and thank you for the music.

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Now Rod (no longer the Mod) is a different kettle of fish. 

From Steampacket, through the Jeff Beck Group (probably Beck's best ever line-up - with Ronnie Wood on bass and the late great Micky Waller on drums) and the Faces to superstardom as a solo artist, Stewartie's music has been among my favourites.   It went very flat during and after his relationship with Britt Ekland who musically immasculated him, but came back strongly through a patchy dalliance with disco to his later efforts on the various Great American Songbook albums where his voice, still rough but mellowed with age, interpreted the wonderful songs of people like Sammy Cahn, Gershwin and Rogers & Hart as well as anything more respected crooners like Sinatra, Davis and Michael Buble have ever done.  And it's an interesting anomoly that during this musically fallow period (at least in quality terms) the bloke was selling more records and making more dosh than at any other time in his career. 

But the thing about Rod, for me, is his songwriting.....it's hugely underrated, and at its best back in the early 70s with partners like Ronnie Wood and Martin Quittenton, painted vivid pictures of life in the lad's lane.  Listen to the title track from the album Every Picture Tells A Story  - without a doubt the best song he's ever written, about a young guy fed up with his boring life and going off to see the world, taking in the student riots in late 60s Paris, living rough in Rome and falling for a Chinese hooker in the Far East before coming home a wiser man.  It's perfect, but has been condemned as sexist due to the wonderful couplet of "Shanghai Lil never used the pill, she claimed that it just ain't natural"......sorry, that's not sexist, it's just brilliant.  It's also a typical Rod Stewart lyric: his songbook is littered with little gems like that - in Maggie May, the song that really made him, there are several, my favourite being "I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school, or steal my daddy's cue and make a living out of playing pool"  - for the twenty year old boozer I was when that came out it summed up my options perfectly.  Or this one, from the Faces track Stay With Me.  from the same year: "Yeah, I'll pay your cab fare home, you can even use my best cologne, just don't be here in the morning when I wake up."  Or this, again the Faces, Pool Hall Richard: "Sweating hard I didn't get a shot, all I did was stand around and get too hot" - any bloke who's been hustled in the local snooker club will know that feeling.

He's a great interpreter too - listen to his version of Tim Hardin's Reason to Believe on Every Picture.... or Elton John's Country Comfort, or Athur Cruddup's blues standard That's All Right - they are all brilliant cuts and arguably better than the originals.  And that's in addition to the Great American Songbook series.  Again, I have a number of compilations on my iPod, that cover his entire career (except the Songbooks) and they remain among my favourites.  Top of the list are The Millenium Edition that I stumbled across in a supermarket in Gdynia about 8 years ago - not a track on it after about 1974, garnered from all the solo albums - and a Faces compilation called Nice Boys (When They're Asleep) from the same era......every track is perfect, good time rock'n'roll, not a duff song there.  Quite brilliant for anyone who Was There and a perfect introduction to anyone interested in a 70s retrosepctive of the bloke's best music.

So Rod - a happy birthday to you too, and thank you for the music.