Album: Gasoline Alley
Year: 1970
. . .
And so Rod Stewart spent the first half of the 1970s alternating between releasing solo albums and being the front man for the Faces. And so the debut album by the Faces, First Step, came out in March of 1970, followed three months later by Rod’s second solo album, Gasoline Alley.
And while the folk, blues and soul orientations of the solo albums were sonically different from the bash-em-out rock n roll songs that Faces specialized in, he started giving them at least one song on solo album, because why not? I mean, they’re the fucking Faces.
And in fact, the first of these was originally a Small Faces song, a co-write between Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane that was only a couple of years old. Recording “My Way of Giving” with Faces was a bit of a flex on Stewart’s part, especially since he’d reportedly criticized the original recording, which was barely two minutes long and kind of dirgelike.
Stewart’s version was anything but. Led by Ian MacLaglan’s omnipresent organ, and driven by the Ronnie Lane/Kenney Jones rhythm section, Rod Stewart’s version of “My Way of Giving” was twice as long as the original, and four times as powerful, especially on the chorus.
It’s all part of my way of giving
And I’m giving it all to you
More than love it’s a way of living
So what more would you have me do
There’s a lot of great stuff on this chorus — the Ronnie Lane harmonies, the Stewart overdubs at the end, the organ — but I gotta give it up for Kenney Jones’s drumrolls, which are just about perfect throughout, both punctuating each line and setting up the next one.
I know that Jones’ stock went down when he couldn’t replace Keith Moon in The Who — literally one of the most unfair things ever — but his drumming on “My Way of Giving” is why Pete Townshend thought maybe he could.
“My Way of Giving”
Did you miss a Certain Song? Follow me on Twitter: @barefootjim
The Certain Songs Database
A filterable, searchable & sortable somewhat up to date database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.
Certain Songs Spotify playlist
(It’s recommended that you listen to this on Spotify as their embed only has 200 songs.)
Support “Certain Songs” with a donation on Patreon
Go to my Patreon page
Leave a Reply