Rod Stewart Ultimate Hits is released on June 27th to celebrate the release over the next few weeks we will be bringing you the low down on all the classic tracks that have been brought together in the compilation to include songs ranging from his 1971 hit, “Maggie May” to selections from 2024’s “Swing Fever,”
First up is Rod’s 1969 recording “Handbags and Gladrags” a song written in 1967 by Mike d’Abo, who was then the lead singer of Manfred Mann. D’Abo describes the song as “saying to a teenage girl that the way to happiness is not through being trendy. There are deeper values.”
The first recording was released as a single by British blues singer Chris Farlowe, who had a modest success with it in the UK. Its biggest chart success came when Stereophonics turned it into a Top 10 UK hit after releasing it as a single in 2001. Earlier that same year, the song gained perhaps its biggest exposure when it was recorded by Big George with a version based on the arrangement of Rod’s version and used as the music for the opening and closing credits for the Ricky Gervais series The Office, which would become one of the most critically-acclaimed television comedies ever to come out of Great Britain.
All of those recordings are good, but the definitive version of the song was recorded by Rod, who included it on his 1969 debut album An Old Raincoat Will Never Let You Down or The Rod Stewart album as it was titled in the US, This version of the song was arranged by Mike d’Abo himself, who also played piano on the recording.
Rod asked songwriter Mike D’Abo, many times over two years for a chance to record the track, and D’Abo relented once Rod got his album deal granted. The song failed to get much airplay in the US, but when it was re-released as a single in 1972, it charted on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaked at 42. In the UK the song never carted
Record World said Rod’s version “sounds fabulous.”
n 1989, Rod’s version of the song was used in the Season One episode of the TV series Midnight Caller entitled “No Exit”.
Released May 1970 (US)
Recorded 1969
Length 4:24
Label Mercury
Songwriter Mike d’Abo
Producer Lou Reizner
Read the full story of “Handbags and Gladrags” in a 9 page special with Mike d’Abo in Issue 97 of SMILER From the so far unpublished autobiography by Mike d’Abo – Mike tells the story of Rod and the build up to his first solo album.