Songoftheday 3/1/17 - Maybe it's my mistake to show this love I feel inside, 'cause each day that passes by you got me never knowing if I'm coming or going...

"This Old Heart Of Mine" - Rod Stewart featuring Ronald Isley
from the album Storyteller - The Complete Anthology: 1964-1990 (1989)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #10 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 10

Today's song of the day comes from Rod Stewart, who had finished the 80's with a grand retrospective box set of four discs of his music (and let me tell you it remains one of the best of the boxes around). there were three new recordings on the package, and one of them, a cover of Tom Waits' "Downtown Train", became his first top ten pop hit of the new decade in the States in the winter of 1990. He followed it up with another remake, this time of the Isley Brothers' R&B classic "This Old Heart Of Mine". The Isleys, who were at the time on Motown, went to #12 on the pop chart and #6 R&B in 1966. The track was written by Motown writing crew Holland-Dozier-Holland along with Sylvia Moy...

Rod originally recorded "This Old Heart of Mine" for his album Atlantic Crossing in 1975. While that version made it all the way to #4 in his native Britain, in the U.S. the single was a minor hit at #83. He was backed up by the jazz-soul band Booker T & The MGs...

Reprising the song for his box set, Stewart enlisted Ronald Isley himself to guest on the new version in 1989, with Chic/The Power Station's Bernard Edwards and Yes-man Trevor Horn producing...

Rod's 1990 take on "This Old Heart Of Mine" became his twelfth top ten pop hit in America in May of 1990. The single also spend five big weeks atop Billboard's Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart. Internationally, this single was a top-40 hit in Ireland at #25, but in the UK it stalled out at #51.

A third new recording from the box set, an update of his 1980 single "I Don't Want To Talk About It" (which was also recorded originally in 1975), wasn't put out as a proper single, but climbed to #2 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart and spent six months on the list.

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Here's Rod performing the song back in 1976 (which was my preferred version anyway)...