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Rod Stewart: "Every Picture Tells a Story"
Try to remember or imagine a time when Rod Stewart was cool. It may be tricky, considering the path his career took, but I assure you, there was a time when he was considered by many to be the best vocalist in rock.
From 1970 to 1973, Rod was lead singer of The Faces, with Ronnie Wood, Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan, and Kenney Jones — one of the all-time great good-time rock bands. As if his singing on their incredible string of four albums wasn’t enough, consider also that Rod released four equally great solo albums from 1969 to 1972 (with The Faces as his band for three of those). So in a 4-year span, he sang the majority of songs on eight rock albums that ranged in quality from great to iconic. (“No wonder he always sounds hoarse!” you might also say, and that would be funny.)
Perhaps the greatest of his solo albums was Every Picture Tells a Story, released in 1971. Its blend of folk-ish acoustic instrumentation, rock oomph, and Stewart’s innate genius at rock vocal phrasing added up to one of the best albums of the ‘70s. Although the breakout hit from the album was “Maggie May,” a listen to the title track readily explains why the album was named after it.
An impactful acoustic intro gives way as the drums and vocals kick in, telling an at-least-partly autobiographical tale of traveling the world and getting the kind of education that schools can’t really teach. Aside from regrettable descriptions of “Shanghai Lil” and other women he’d “known” that even Stewart himself left out of live performances later in his career, the song has to be considered a strong contender for one of the great all-time vocal performances.
Original post date: August 17, 2026