Rod Stewart – Gasoline Alley

This Rod-the-Mod rock n roll platter was pressed in the UK AND appears in a UK sleeve. South African distributor just slapped on South African Vertigo swirl labels (watch that 1 touch the line!) and stuck it in the shops as a local pressing.

An incredible album - rockin’ and beautiful. Early Rod Stewart has an interesting production that can, at times, sound thin and boxy if the laquer cut or mastering is not done properly. I can’t say this pressing is the best I’ve heard these songs sound, but it’s very crankable and sounds very good. My original Canadian pressing sounds cleaner, but this one has a bit better soundstage. The slower acoustic tracks shine here! I found my copy for $14CAD. I’d probably if I had to pay current prices for a NM-/EX copy.

Outstanding. Big improvement from the OG. Words words words more words

Not an audiophile record. But MoFi did great on this. I love it. Better than my UK original. Maybe they had a problem getting the original master tapes. You won’t regret getting this edition if you can find it. Very good MoFi release. Buy it if you are a fan of this record, and who isn’t!

Everything on this release looks like my copy: EXCEPT there is no "PR" on either side's runout. Any thoughts?

How Much for this record Rod / Gasoline Alley/Test pressing thanks .

My copy of Gasoline Alley is not only a gatefold, but the jacket is textured, you can actually feel the cobblestones. I’ve never seen another like it, I’ve been asked to sell, but I’d rather have my textured memories, then have a few dollars that will no doubt find their way into the gasoline tank of my car.

The aging rockstar you see today is not the Rod Stewart I came to know and love. Rod was an original, as original as Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, or just about anyone else you could name. The thing that set Rod apart from the others, besides that great, truly mop-top shaggy haircut was what he brought to the music ... and that was a believability, which is what made his fall from grace so tragic. These were odd times on the music scene, you could almost taste it in the air, The Beatles were all but gone, Led Zeppelin was becoming bigger and dumber then they realized, and progressive-rock was the wave that was washing over the land. But there stood Rod Stewart, like The Band, dishing out these rare songs and ballads filled with honesty, rock folk tales presented in a mild country manner through Stewart’s gravely beautiful voice, along with a unique blend of acoustic and electric instrumentation that sounded more like stories to be told on the front porch while ing ‘round a t, and a bottle of Blue Nun wine.

Where Stewart and his mates conjured these sounds and verse, at this time, is beyond me ... mixing guitars, a wishful piano, and that haunting unexpected emotionally filled mandolin, making the song “Gasoline Alley” nearly a perfect number ... a simple lament for times and places long since gone; though as memories go, they probably never existed with the beauty Rod drapes them with.

“Going home, running home
Down to Gasoline Alley where I stated from
Going home, and I’m running home
Down to Gasoline Alley where I was born ...

Rod blends the album as he always did, and always will, with some of his own material exquisitely interwoven with brilliantly chosen and executed covers. Many of the covers gave fading genres, like Soul and R&B new life, often being the first time I’d heard a white man sing these songs like he owned them. But it’s his version of the Elton John/Bernie Taupin song “Country Comforts” that seals the deal ... the song is just so kind, and filled with an atmosphere that if we could all just help each other, and lay aside our own needs, that we could make this world a better place ... and with the War in Vietnam still raging, this notion sounded very good to me. I will say that “Jo’s Lament,” a song about relationships, cut a little too close to the bone, as I was one of many loosing myself in that useless war, with haunting lines like:

“I don’t expect you to forgive
But now I’m not so young, and I’m so afraid
To sleep alone for the rest of my days ...”

And I was only 20 at the time.

Even his uptempo numbers are bathed with this same communal feel, tracks like “Cut Across Shorty” inspire textures of sensitivity for things that may have happened in our lives, but happened so fast that while the results are ed, the beauty of watching it happen have all but slipped away. Rod’s muses were working in overdrive, actually telling us that “I get scared when I too much,” but he keeps on ing, and he keeps on laying it at our feet, and I kept holding his songs in my hands like they were rare jewels, taking me back to places that were nothing more then distant memories. Sometimes I began to think that the memories were memories, but Rod’s voice and verse brought me home ... and the really strange thing is, now when I listen to Gasoline Alley, I’m filled with a longing for those who stood at my side in Vietnam, for those I’ve loved and lost, for those voices that still echo in my head, and for those who never came home. Rod Stewart put a lot of honest heartfelt happy creases on our faces, just when we needed them the most.

Review by Jenell Kesler

Early pressings have a very hard deep textured card cover; later issues are softer card and a smoother texture.

This appears to be the one I own but the Matrix/runout is: Side 1 - SR 61264-A-M2 & Side 2 - SR 61264-B-M4. I don't see these numbers listed on any of the releases. Does anyone have any insight on this?

Comment> On my copy the cover is rather badly done and distinctly darker and merkier than the original.