This was the song that made Rod Stewart a star. And it happened by accident, when DJs flipped over a flop and found this on the B-side.
In July 1971 Rod released his third solo album, Every Picture Tells A Story. He was on his uppers and liable to lose his contract if he couldn’t get a hit single.
The previous two albums, Gasoline Alley and An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down, failed to produce one from the two Stones covers he put out, bluesy takes on Street Fighting Man and It’s All Over Now.
The next was another cover version.
A soulful reineterpretation of Reason To Believe, originally recorded in 1965 by Tim Hardin, it was released in July 1971 and did just about enough to keep the wolves from his door.
It crept into the lower reaches of the chart, peaking at No.19. Then some radio DJs, whose influence dictated what was in the charts in those days, flipped it over and began playing the B-side instead.
It seems like a no-brainer now. Built around that distinctive mandolin melody, it went to No.1 in September and stayed there for five weeks.
This was the first time I ever saw Rod: kicking a football around on TOTP with his band, including two of The Faces – Ronnie Wood and Ian McLagan – plus Micky Waller on drums and John Peel on mandolin – a mate of Rod’s, standing in for Lindisfarne’s Ray Jackson, who played it on the record.
It’s depressing, but not altogether surprising in view of Rod’s reputation for parsimony, to learn that Jackson, who composed the mandolin melody as well as playing it, was paid a paltry £15 for his contribution and didn’t even get a songwriting credit.
Adding insult to injury, his name didn’t even appear on the sleeve of the album Every Picture Tells A Story where Stewart’s liner notes read: “The mandolin was played by the mandolin player in Lindisfarne. The name slips my mind.”
Jackson argued afterwards – with some justification, but without recourse to the courts – that he should have been given royalties for his vital contribution. Stewart responded with this fantastically unnecessary retort: “As is always the case in the studio, any musical contributions he may have made were fully paid for at the time as ‘work-for-hire'”.
John Peel later recalled that in all the many times they had been out drinking together, prior to Stewart’s superstardom, he had never once known the legendarily – and literally – tight-arsed Rod to buy a round.
It was, he said, a running joke among their group of mates, who would deliberately sit with empty glasses for as long as they could, waiting for Stewart to stand up and go to the bar.
But he never did. He just waited ’til someone cracked and then asked for one for himself – “and a packet of crisps while you’re up there.”
I’ve seen Stewart twice – and ran into him in very peculiar circumstances late one night on the Marylebone Road – and he didn’t buy me a drink on either occasion.