Artists don’t really have time to look at their legacies when they’re in their golden age. They’re more concerned with writing the next great song, but by the time they come up for air at the tail end of their career, they tend to realise that there’s a treasure trove of hits left in their wake without even realising it. Rod Stewart may have had more than a few amazing tunes in his arsenal, but he still considered ‘Mandolin Wind’ to be one of the best examples of him playing to his strengths.
For Stewart, the definition of the word “strengths” has meant many different things over the years. While he started working with Jeff Beck as a traditional blues singer, that throaty rasp wouldn’t be singing the same traditional bluesy covers for the rest of his life.
When working on Every Picture Tells a Story, many of the best songs on the record have a more folksy twist. Stewart still makes sure to put that same level of grit into every track, but it’s hard to listen to a song like ‘Maggie May’ and not hear it being played by what could have been bluegrass instruments if they were in any other tune.
While ‘Maggie May’ would eventually become the big hit for the record, ‘Mandolin Wind’ is a far more introspective tale than anything Stewart had worked on. It’s not exactly Bob Dylan material, but equating someone’s love to the changing of the weather is something that the best folk singers like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie could have at least appreciated.
Despite not having the most intense guitar lick or anything, Stewart still ranked the ballad among the best songs he had ever made, telling Storyteller, “I love this song to death. I believe it to be one of my finest efforts, written in Muswell Hill, North London, in 1969 – a long, long way away from the buffalo and Great Plains of America that the song depicts. It just shows you what a little imagination can do when writing songs.”
That kind of American style of acoustic guitar playing calls to mind a few other folk artists from around that time. As much as Peter, Paul, and Mary were turning in amazing folk tunes in the late 1960s, this feels closer to the kind of openhearted tracks that James Taylor would have made in his prime as well if he had decided to put a little more grit to his voice.
Stewart could have sculpted an entirely separate career out of his folksy sound, but hearing him going into the realm of disco in the late 1970s ended up breaking a lot of fans’ hearts the minute ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy’ came out. While he did get back to writing ballads like ‘Young Turks’, the electronic warble of synthesisers did sound strange coming from a voice normally known for being rough around the edges.
No matter how many times Stewart changed up his style, ‘Mandolin Wind’ might be the closest fans will ever come to seeing the true version of who he is. It wasn’t always flattering, but what it lacks in technical flash, it makes up for in a heavy amount of heart.
