Garage Sale Vinyl: Rod Stewart
A Night on the Town / Warner Bros. / June 1976
by Christopher Long
For many of us who came of age during those “so-called liberated days,” circa ‘76, this was an important record. While I had already discovered Aerosmith, Foghat, and KISS, those were more straightforward cock rock bands. Rod Stewart, however, was a singular entity, an easily recognizable, fast-living bad boy whose music and stories revealed a mature world outside backstage boundaries.
As a sheltered church kid segueing from “Muskrat Love” and “Junk Food Junkie” and into “Walk This Way” and “Slow Ride,” I still had no knowledge of Rod Stewart in the spring of ‘76 other than his 1971 hit, “Maggie May,” and recent Florida newspaper accounts of his band’s notoriously debaucherous after-show behavior. But, as a result of the seductive chart topper, “Tonight’s the Night,” and the subsequent Top 30 singles, “The First Cut Is the Deepest” and “The Killing of Georgie,” Stewart would be fully on my rock radar by year’s end.
Overseen by legendary producer Tom Dowd (the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Lynyrd Skynyrd), A Night on the Town brought me into a bold, brave, and (as yet) unfamiliar environment. In the process, I learned about love and hate, heartbreak and hope, and lifestyles that I never before knew existed, stuff that I wasn’t likely to learn in my safe, and often sterile, suburban comfort zone.
The blistering Stewart-penned “Balltrap” gave 13-year-old me my first glimpse of a truly toxic tryst — “I’d rather see you dead with a rope ‘round your neck, or see you paralyzed in both your thighs.” JEEPERS! Other personal picks include the slinky, horn-fueled remake of the 1966 Manfred Mann UK hit, “Pretty Flamingo,” the down and dirty rendition of the early ’50s country classic, “The Wild Side of Life,” and the Cajun-flavored cover of Gib Guilbeau’s “Big Bayou.”
When I think back about the magic, the warm and authentic shag-covered vinyl experience, A Night on the Town is one of only two LPs that always come to mind first. And 50 years later, it still holds up, really well. My most recent vinyl copy was acquired a couple of years ago for just $2 at a flea market in Mount Dora, Florida. Despite some cozy crackle, it plays beautifully. In fact, it was such a “find,” I’ve allowed it to live with the gal formerly known as the “GF,” ‘cuz I’m an ultra sweetie pie.
5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
A Night on the Town Track List
SIDE ONE (Slow Side)
1. Tonight’s the Night (R. Stewart) – 3:54
2. The First Cut Is the Deepest (C. Stevens) – 4:31
3. Fool for You (Stewart) – 3:49
4. The Killing of Georgie – Pt. I and II (R. Stewart) – 6:28
SIDE TWO (Fast Side)
1. The Balltrap (R. Stewart) – 4:37
2. Pretty Flamingo (M. Barkan) – 3:27
3. Big Bayou (G. Guilbeau) – 3:54
4. The Wild Side of Life (A. Carter, W. Warren) – 5:09
5. Trade Winds (R. MacDonald, W. Salter) – 5:16
