Rod Stewart is Still Making his Music

 

by Pa Rock

Music Fan

Alexa and I are listening to Rod Stewart and Jools Holland's new album, Swing Fever, this morning, and it has the house a-rockin'!

Rod Stewart first pounced on the music scene with Maggie May, more than half a century ago (1971), and he has gone on to sell more that 120 million records including ten number one albums and six top singles.  In his spare time Stewart has shared his life with five long-term female partners and three wives - and accumulated eight children and a knighthood along the way.  Today, at seventy-nine, Sir Roderick David Stewart is still performing fifty or sixty live shows a year - and continuing to share his full-throated, raspy voice with the world.

Stewart's latest, the swing-jazz collection, Swing Fever, is a collaboration with British pianist an band leader, Jools Holland, and it is a clear change of pace for the old rocker - very smooth, rhythmic, and jazzy - and a pleasing break from the Rod Stewart we have known and enjoyed over the many years that he has been performing.  In some ways the new album reminds me of when Willie Nelson changed his pace with the Stardust album or when Linda Ronstadt's What's New with Nelson Riddle and his Orchestra took her and us to another time.

The cuts on Swing Fever, which just came out three days ago, are:   Lullaby of Broadway (with tap dancing!), Oh Marie, Sentimental Journey, Pennies from Heaven, Night Train, Love is the Sweetest Thing, Them There Eyes, Good Rockin' Tonight, Ain't Misbehaving', Frankie and Johnnie, Walkin' My Baby Back Home, Almost Like Being in Love, and Tennessee Waltz.

(Yes, Stewart and Holland even jazzed up Patti Page's old hit, Tennessee Waltz, and gave it new life!)

Young Rod probably could have stolen his daddy's cue back in the 1960's and make a living out of shooting pool, but this tired old typist, for one, is mighty glad that he didn't!

Rock on, Sir Rod!