Rod Stewart Foot Loose & Fancy Free CD

Personnel: Rod Stewart (vocals); Jim Cregan (guitar, background vocals); Gary Grainger, Steve Cropper, Billy Peck, Fred Tackett (guitar); John Mayall (harp); Richard Greene (violin); Phil Kenzie (horns); John Jarvis, David Foster, Nicky Hopkins (keyboards); Phil Chen (bass); Carmine Appice (drums, background vocals); Paulinho da Costa (percussion); Mark Stein (background vocals).
Engineers include: Andy Johns, John Naslen, Sy Potoma.

Recorded at Manta Sound Studios, Toronto, Canada and Cherokee & Wally Heider Studios, Los Angeles, California.
All tracks have been digitally remastered.
Following the same formula as Atlantic Crossing and A Night on the Town, but not explicitly breaking the record into fast and slow sides, Foot Loose & Fancy Free was a limp effort from an increasingly complacent Rod Stewart. With the exception of the dumb, sleazy "Hot Legs," none of the rockers are discernible from each other, and this time he doesn't have a strong set of ballads to save him. The affectionately sappy acoustic ballad "You're in My Heart" was the big hit, but Stewart sounds completely convincing only on "I Was Only Joking." Coming at the end of the album, the song seems like a justification for the uninspired, by-the-book record that preceded it. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Kicking off with the swagger and machismo of one of the quintessential 70's anthems, "Hot Legs," FOOT LOOSE AND FANCY FREE is a blistering joyride, a swaggering period piece that, like all of Rod's best work, immerses itself in the prevalent style of the time-- by 1977, funk-tinged rock was all the rage, and FOOT LOOSE is a carnival of wah-wah guitars ("You're Insane"), epic arrangements ("You Just Keep Me Hanging On"), and unabashed earnestness (the nostalgic and confessional "I Was Only Joking.") FOOT LOOSE's greatest contribution to the Stewart canon has to be "You're In My Heart," a timely, sensitive classic that stirs in just enough breathy whimsy to its strangely down-home feel (bluegrass violins and U.K. football references not being one of your more common pairings in pop music) to create yet another milestone in Stewart's varied and timeless career.

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