Rod Stewart

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Rod Stewart in Paris , 1986

Sir Rod Stewart , CBE (* 10. January 1945 in Highgate , London , England ; full name Roderick David Stewart ) is a British rock and pop - singer . With more than 150 million records sold, he is one of the most successful British singers. In Rolling Stone , he was voted 59th of the 100 best singers of all time . In the US, he ranks 14th in the ranking of male performers with the most album sales.

Life and career

Roderick Stewart was born the son of Scottish immigrants in London's working-class Highgate district. Like his father, he was enthusiastic about football. Originally, he wanted to become a professional football player and signed a corresponding preliminary contract at the age of 16. However, after it did not lead to a football career, he went to the London Art Academy after finishing school. He printed silk fabrics and worked as a grave digger for a while. Stewart is a passionate supporter of the Scottish national team and of Celtic Glasgow .

Stewart sang with Jimmy Powell and the Five Dimensions, Long John Baldry's Hoochie Coochie Men , The Soul Agents, Shotgun Express , Steampacket and (from 1967) the Jeff Beck Group during the 1960s . He recorded his first single ( Good Morning Little Schoolgirl ) in London in 1964, which was followed by other singles. In 1967 he sang a demo version of In a Broken Dream by Python Lee Jackson. After Rod Stewart's first solo successes, the Australian group released the song in 1972 with Stewart's vocal parts, without naming him as a singer.

In 1969, he became the lead singer of him to the Faces reformed group Small Faces - with his friend Ron Wood was replaced by Stewart quarrels with Jeff Beck together with the Faces. These early recordings of Stewart are influenced by the blues . The blues influence faded into the background in the course of his career in favor of softer and more pleasing singing. Rod Stewart's trademark remained, however, his "smoky-soft voice". The shaggy hairstyle was also part of his image; Stewart said, “Music is a product, it has to be sold. So the image counts and not what you sing. "

Rod Stewart, 1972

In 1969 Stewart recorded An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down , his first solo album. In North America it was released as The Rod Stewart Album . In 1970 the album Gasoline Alley was released . It was only with his third album Every Picture Tells a Story in 1971 that he established himself as a solo artist. The album was voted 171 of the 500 best albums of all time in a poll by the music magazine Rolling Stone . Both the single Maggie May and the album were number one in the UK and the US at the same time . Ron Wood assisted Stewart in composing the songs for the first solo albums. For some of the songs, according to Wieland Harms, “increasingly degraded to the accompaniment troupe” Faces took over the musical accompaniment.

Rod Stewart performing live in Oslo , November 5, 1976

The title Sailing, composed by Gavin Sutherland in 1972 , which stayed in the West German charts for 17 weeks in 1975, also helped Stewart achieve a breakthrough in the Federal Republic of Germany and Switzerland.

In 1983 the title Baby Jane became number one in Germany and received a gold record . Stewart's version of Downtown Train, produced by Trevor Horn , brought the author of the play, Tom Waits , royalties in 1990, which he nowhere near achieved with the original. Stewart from Tom Waits also used Tom Traubert's Blues ( Waltzing Matilda ) and made it a world hit.

In 1993 an MTV unplugged recording by Stewart was released. In 1994 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame .

In 2002 Stewart published a collection of jazz standards called It Had to Be You… The Great American Songbook . After the success of the album and multiple platinum awards, he released four follow-up albums with this material; In total, the "Great American Songbook" albums were sold more than 17 million times worldwide.

In 2007 he was named Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to music . He can add the suffix CBE to his name .

In 2010, Rod Stewart participated in the charity project Helping Haiti by Simon Cowell .

In June 2016 he was ennobled by Elizabeth II as a Knight Bachelor for his many years of success in the music industry and his commitment to various charitable purposes and has since been allowed to put the addition Sir in front of his name. The accolade he received on October 11, 2016 Prince William .

Private life

family

He has Stewart's first daughter Sarah (* 1964) with the painter Susannah Boffey . With his first wife Alana Hamilton , Stewart got Kimberly (* 1979) and Sean (* 1980). With the model Kelly Emberg Stewart has the daughter Ruby (* 1987). His second wife Rachel Hunter gave birth to daughter Renee in 1992 and son Liam in 1994 . With his current wife Penny Lancaster, whom he married in June 2007, Stewart had the son Alastair in late 2005 . On February 16, 2011, their second son, Aiden, was born.

illness

In 1999, Stewart contracted thyroid cancer , which he had an operation in July 2000. The operation threatened to destroy his characteristic "grating voice". Stewart had to learn to sing again after cancer therapy. Since suffering from cancer, Stewart has been involved in the City of Hope Foundation , which supports cancer research. In September 2019, he announced that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2016 .

Discography

Selection of well-known and particularly successful albums and songs

Albums

  • An Old Raincoat won't ever let you down (1969)
  • Gasoline Alley (1970)
  • Every Picture Tells a Story (1971)
  • Never a Dull Moment (1972)
  • Smiler (1974)
  • Atlantic Crossing (1975)
  • A Night on the Town (1976)
  • Foot Loose and Fancy Free (1977)
  • Blondes Have More Fun (1978)
  • Foolish Behavior (1980)
  • Tonight I'm Yours (1981)
  • Body Wishes (1983)
  • Camouflage (1984)
  • Every Beat Of My Heart (1986)
  • Out Of Order (1988)
  • The Best of Rod Stewart (Greatest Hits Album, 1989)
  • Vagabond Heart (1991)
  • Unplugged… and Seated (live album, 1993)
  • Lead Vocalist (1993)
  • A Spanner in the Works (1995)
  • If We Fall in Love Tonight (Compilation, 1996)
  • When We Where the New Boys (1998)
  • Human (2001)
  • It Had to Be You… The Great American Songbook (2002)
  • As Time Goes By… The Great American Songbook Vol. II (2003)
  • Stardust… The Great American Songbook Vol. III (2004)
  • Thanks for the Memory… The Great American Songbook Vol. IV (2005)
  • Still the Same… Great Rock Classics of Our Time (2006)
  • Soulbook (2009)
  • Fly Me to the Moon… The Great American Songbook Vol. V (2010)
  • The Great American Songbook Live (2011)
  • Merry Christmas, Baby (Christmas album, 2012)
  • Time (2013)
  • Another Country (2015)
  • Blood Red Roses (2018)

Singles

  • Maggie May / Reason to Believe (1971)
  • You Wear It Well (1972)
  • Sailing (1975)
  • Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright) (1976)
  • The Killing of Georgie (Part I and II) (1976)
  • I Don't Want to Talk About It (1977)
  • The First Cut Is the Deepest (1977)
  • You're in My Heart (The Final Acclaim) (1977)
  • Hot Legs (1977)
  • Ole Ola (1978)
  • Do Ya Think I'm Sexy? (1978)
  • Passion (1980)
  • Young Turks (1981)
  • Tonight I'm Yours (1981)
  • Baby Jane (1983)
  • What Am I Gonna Do (I'm so in Love with You) (1983)
  • Sweet Surrender (1983)
  • Infatuation (1984)
  • Some Guys Have All the Luck (1984)
  • Every Beat of My Heart (1986)
  • Love Touch (1986)
  • Forever Young (1988)
  • Lost in You (1988)
  • Downtown Train (1989)
  • Rhythm of My Heart (1991)
  • The Motown Song (with The Temptations , 1991)
  • Tom Traubert's Blues (Waltzing Matilda) (1992)
  • Have I Told You Lately (1993)
  • All for Love (with Bryan Adams and Sting , 1993)
  • Everyday (with A $ AP Rocky , Miguel , Mark Ronson , 2015)

Trivia

In November 2019, numerous media reports revealed that Stewart had been a model railroader for decades. Most of the media reports were based on a cover story in the UK trade magazine Railway Modeller in the December 2019 issue.

Stewart stated that he built most of his models and his unusually large model railway layout alone and only occasionally with the support of third parties.

literature

Web links

Commons : Rod Stewart  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Lauren Kreisler: Rod Stewart enjoys first Number 1 album in nearly 40 years! In: Official Charts Company. May 19, 2013. Retrieved February 18, 2017 .
  2. 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. Rolling Stone , December 2, 2010, accessed August 9, 2017 .
  3. ^ "Gold and Platinum - Top Selling Artists" . Recording Industry Association of America
  4. www.stern.de
  5. ^ Wieland Harms: The Unplugged Guitar Book. 20 of the most beautiful songs for acoustic guitar. Gerig Music, 1994, ISBN 3-87252-249-3 , pp. 8-12 ( Sailing ), here (cited), p. 8.
  6. Joe Levy (Ed.): Rolling Stone. The 500 best albums of all time. (Original edition: Rolling Stone. The 500 Greatest Albums of all Time . Wenner Media 2005). Translation: Karin Hofmann. White Star Verlag, Wiesbaden 2011, p. 141.
  7. More information about the song in: Fred Bronson: The Billboard Book of Number One Hits. 3rd, revised and expanded edition. Billboard Publications, New York City, New York 1992, p. 300.
  8. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Rod Stewart in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
  9. Esther Addley: Arise, Sir Rod: rock star knighted in Queen's birthday honors. In: The Guardian . June 10, 2016, accessed June 11, 2016.
  10. Prince William ennobles Rocker Rod | from stewart to knight. In: Bild Online October 11, 2016, accessed October 11, 2016.
  11. ^ Benefit concert: Singer Rod Stewart talks about the fight against cancer. Retrieved July 11, 2020 .
  12. AVAILABLE TODAY FROM ALL GOOD NEWSAGENTS, MODEL SHOPS AND MAJOR SUPERMARKETS. Retrieved November 15, 2019 .
  13. WORLD: Rod Stewart's model railroad makes lovers green with envy . November 14, 2019 ( welt.de [accessed November 15, 2019]).
  14. ^ Rod Stewart reveals his epic model railway city . November 13, 2019 ( bbc.com [accessed November 15, 2019]).