On his new album “Swing Fever” Rod Stewart sings great classics from bygone times. He celebrates the big band era with bandleader Jools Holland. The 79-year-old remains loyal to rock’n’roll.
You can’t really tell that Rod Stewart is approaching 80. Wearing a jersey and a training jacket from his beloved football club Celtic Glasgow, the British singer with the blonde tousled mane sits on the couch while the sun shines through his window.
“I’m out here in the country, in Essex, and it’s a wonderful day,” enthuses Stewart in a midday video conversation with the German Press Agency in London. “I drink my morning coffee and eat a slice of toast.”
A big football fan
Before we talk about his new album, the 79-year-old wants to talk about football. “Are you watching the Germany games this year?” he asks, referring to the European Championships in the summer. “At the start against Scotland!” The London native is English, but his father was Scottish and football fan Rod keeps his fingers crossed for the Scottish national team. He grins when he says that the Scots have a good chance against the struggling DFB team. “Your word in God’s ear!”
When the European Championships start, he will be traveling in Europe. His tour runs under the motto “Live In Concert – One Last Time”. Sir Rod made it clear long ago that this was not a farewell to the stage, but only to rock’n’roll. In the near future, the old rocker wants to devote himself to swing.
In the fall of his career he made the “Great American Songbook”, Motown and soul classics as well as well-known Christmas songs his own. On “Swing Fever” he has now tackled the classics of the big band era together with Jools Holland and his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra.
It’s Stewart’s second attempt. “I started recording a swing album in Los Angeles, but it didn’t go the way I wanted at all,” says the charismatic singer. “It sounded a little too clean, a little too much like Frank Sinatra.” Frank was the “greatest singer of all time,” emphasizes Stewart, but the sound was a bit too polished for his own recordings.
Big fan of model trains
So he called Holland (66), who has worked with countless stars and is known to most Brits from his music TV show “Later… with Jools Holland”. “His band is rough and unpolished, it sounds exactly how I wanted it to sound,” says Stewart, who previously only knew his new musical partner casually. In addition to their love of music, the two veterans are united by their passion for model trains. “That’s what brought us together.”
“Swing Fever” contains classics from other times that are still timeless, such as the jazzy Broadway musical number “Ain’t Misbehavin'” from 1929. “Lullaby Of Broadway” from 1935 was written by Doris Day, among others , sung by Tony Bennett and Ella Fitzgerald, “Pennies From Heaven” was a hit for Bing Crosby in 1936. Patti Page had a huge hit in 1950 with Pee Wee King’s “Tennessee Waltz”.
What all the songs on “Swing Fever” have in common: They are extremely swinging. “There are no slow songs on it,” Stewart clarifies with a grin. “So get up and dance!”
“Good Rockin’ Tonight” is best known in Elvis Presley’s version. However, the duo recorded the song in the boogie-woogie style of Roy Brown’s original. He also wrote the song in 1947. “Swing led us to rock’n’roll,” explains Stewart, who celebrated success with robust rock’n’roll at the beginning of his career as the singer of the Jeff Beck Group and then as the frontman of the Faces. This becomes clear in the gripping interpretation of Louis Prima’s “Oh Marie” with driving boogie piano and saxophone solo.
Intoxicating pleasure
Stewart’s grater voice doesn’t sound quite as strong as it used to, but it’s still unmistakable and fits perfectly with the lively big band hits. You can hear Sir Rod having fun singing. In addition, the dynamic arrangements by Jools Holland’s Rhythm & Blues Orchestra make “Swing Fever” an entertaining and rousing pleasure. Stewart would like to sing the songs with an orchestra on tour. “I’ve already spoken to Jools. If he doesn’t want to, I’ll arrange it myself.”
The British veteran, who was treated for prostate cancer a few years ago and beat the cancer, has no plans to slow down in the near future. On the contrary. The word retirement doesn’t even exist for him. “Scratch that word,” says the young-at-heart 79-year-old, who says he does a lot of sports and takes his model train with him on tour in huge special suitcases to pass the time in the hotel.
What about the faces?
His announced departure from rock’n’roll is also probably only temporary, because he also has plans for his two Faces colleagues Ronnie Wood and Kenney Jones. “We have a few songs, we just have to find the time,” says Stewart, whose Asian tour begins in March while Wood tours the US with the Rolling Stones. Nevertheless, Stewart hopes that they will be on stage together again soon. “We have to do this before we go underground.”
At heart he will always be a rocker, says Rod Stewart. “Of course, boy! Look at my face. What else could I have been? Can you imagine that face at a bank teller?”