IT is more than a little ironic that one of this country’s finest rock singers, Mr Rod Stewart, has enjoyed the greatest commercial success of his long career courtesy of a series of the most un-rock n’ roll of albums.

His four records of unique personal interpretations of the gentle-paced classic tunes, largely from the 1930’s and 1940’s that form, what is termed, ‘The Great American Songbook’, have sold over 19 million albums and they are the biggest selling ongoing series of new music recordings in history.

Having more or less exhausted that project, Stewart has now turned his attention to a different ‘songbook’ and, one which will inevitably prove to be another money-spinner for him in the guise of ‘Soulbook’, a collection of classic Sixties/Seventies-era soul favourites on which he has put his distinctive vocal stamp.

Stewart has long been regarded as the best white soul singer of his generation so this new project is much more closely suited to his natural style and finds him very much in his comfort zone, a place from which many longtime fans felt the singer strayed too far from when tackling the songs of ‘The Great American Songbook’.

Those who have followed Stewart’s career closely will know that, when growing up as a teenager in North London, it was the soul greats such as Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, Otis Redding and James Brown that first inspired the young Rod to sing and his earliest albums featured a fair sprinkling of classic soul covers.

Now, at this stage of his career, when he more or less gets to call all the shots himself, he can, and does, indulge himself completely in an album of personal soul favourites by those singers/groups who he says were, “My Gods and my heroes.”

‘Soulbook’ features a fine selection of songs such as The Four Tops’ ‘It’s The Same Old Song’, Jackie Wilson’s ‘(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher And Higher’, Stevie Wonder’s ‘My Cherie Amour’, Jimmy Ruffin’s ‘What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted’, Sam Cooke’s ‘Wonderful World’, The Temptations’ ‘Just My Imagination’ and Harold Melvin’s ‘If You Don’t Know Me By Now’ to name a few.

The album is impeccably recorded and produced and for the most part, Stewart makes a fine fist of his renditions of songs, which in truth, no one(and many have tried) makes sound any better than the original versions themselves but the collection does serve as a fine tribute to these classic compositions and it is easy to detect the genuine love and passion Stewart has for these songs through his singing.

One or two of Rod’s covers do suffer slightly from syrupy productions and from vocals that are a little too smooth for the songs when his rougher, gravel-like tones would have worked much better and, Stewart’s larynx is now showing some noticeable signs of wear and tear with his voice sounding reed thin at several points on the album.

But overall, it’s a record the singer can be justifiably proud of and there’s little doubt that it will please his many legions of fans who can probably expect ‘Soulbook’ Vols 2, 3 and maybe even 4 to follow-on at some point in the near future.

Still on the subject of Mr. Stewart, also out right now is a 4CD box set from Rhino Records entitled ‘The Rod Stewart Sessions 1971-1998’ that serves up many rare and previously unreleased sessions including stripped down and intimate performances of his best-known tracks.

Some fans would argue that Rod’s best years were already behind him by the early 70’s and that he has only offered up snatches of brilliance since then but this set does put forward a fairly convincing argument for ‘the defence’, especially on the first three discs which show that despite being heavily distracted by beautiful blonde girlfriends, much booze and endless partying during his mid-70’s and 80’s period, he was still capable of pulling more than a few ‘rabbits out of the hat’ with respect to stirring vocal performances and quality compositions(like ‘Scarred & Scared, ‘You’re in My Heart’, ‘I Was Only Joking’, ‘Innocent(The killing Of Georgie Part III) and even ‘Hot Legs’ that sadly get overlooked by the memory of such shockers as ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy’(mercifully not included on this set).

Things do take a turn for the worse and go down the chute by the time you get around to CD4 which concentrates on rarities from Rod’s 1990’s output but the material we are unfortunately already familiar with from those years is turgid enough so no one, save for the most committed of fans (who perhaps should be committed), really needs or, wants to hear scraps from this fallow period.

‘Sessions 1971 – 1998’ is still however a more than worthy release based on three of its four discs with the final disc simply being a great warning to any artist/group as to what can happen through poor career direction and when quality control checks go awol.