Trivia / Rod Stewart

• Breakthrough Hit: Stewart was a familiar face to rock fans from his work with The Jeff Beck Group and Faces, and his second album Gasoline Alley had gotten enough FM radio attention in the States to make the Billboard Top 30 (it was only mildly successful in the UK). But "Maggie May" proved to be a monster hit, hitting #1 in the US and the UK (for 5 weeks in both countries), as well as Canada and Australia, and it also boosted its parent album Every Picture Tells a Story to #1 in many countries, making Stewart an overnight superstar.
• Channel Hop: After recording his first five albums for Mercury Records (the first two of which were on Vertigo Records in Europe), he began recording for Warner (Bros.) Records (which had been the Faces' label) as a solo artist in 1975, a jump that coincided with his move to America and his adoption of a slicker music style. He stayed there for the rest of the century. 2001's Human came out on sister label Atlantic Records, then he moved to Clive Davis' new label J Records in 2002, where he released his Great American Songbook series. When J got dissolved into RCA Records in 2011, he jumped to Universal Music Group and his next few albums were on various Universal sub-labels. Stewart returned to Warner for his 2021 album The Tears of Hercules.
• Contractual Obligation Project: In the first part of his career, he was in the odd situation of recording for two different labels. He signed with Mercury Records in 1968 as a solo artist (which made sense for him since he was essentially considered a hired hand when he was working with Jeff Beck and needed a side gig), but shortly after he finished his debut album he was drafted as the Faces frontman, and they quickly got a deal with Warner (Bros.) Records. His Mercury contract expired in 1973 after he recorded four albums for them, but they had an option to extend it for one more album. At the same time, Warner asserted that they now had the rights to Stewart as a solo artist, and Mercury sued. Stewart was forced to record Smiler somewhat against his will to appease Mercury while the litigation was happening. It's usually regarded as a notch or two below his first four albums in quality. Mercury ultimately lost, and he formally signed with Warner afterwards.
• Descended Creator: Lou Reizner, who produced Stewart's first two albums, sings some lines in "I Wouldn't Ever Change a Thing".
• Creator's Oddball: He's nearly always been rooted in pop-rock, but he tried many different sounds over the years. A greatest hits album of his is a slight Genre Roulette.
  • In particular, 1978's "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" was singled out for criticism in the music press for being "too disco". Though it pales in comparison to 1986's "Love Touch", which Stewart himself describes as "one of the silliest songs I've ever recorded".
• Limey Goes to Hollywood: Stewart emigrated to Los Angeles in the mid-1970s as a tax exile.
• The Pete Best: In late 1961 he was hired as the lead singer of The Ray Davies Quartet, one of the earliest incarnations of what would become The Kinks, but let go after a few gigs, reportedly either because he had Creative Differences with Davies, or because the mother of the drummer (at whose house they rehearsed) hated his voice.
• Production Posse: His core musical collaborators on his early albums were his Jeff Beck/Faces pal Ronnie Wood on electric guitar and bass, Martin Quittenton on acoustic guitar, Micky Waller on drums, and Pete Sears on piano, with his other Faces bandmates contributing in various degrees.
• Real-Life Relative: Defied in the "Forever Young" video. The director wanted for him to have his real-life son, Sean, in the video, but he refused, citing how he didn't want his daughters to be jealous.
• The Red Stapler: Rod Stewart's hairstyle in the early '80s became popular through repeated airings of his music videos.
• Technology Marches On: "Give me a dime so I can phone my mother," in 'Da Ya Think I'm Sexy'
  • In a more recent example, the song 'Live the Life' from his 2013 Album 'Time' starts with the line "You wrote it in your email that you're sad and lonely, cause a girl at college has stolen your heart."
• Throw It In!: His version of "Street Fighting Man" was originally going to be a Hard Rock take on Little Richard's "The Girl Can't Help It", but during a rehearsal, Stewart just randomly decided to start singing the lyrics of "Street Fighting Man" instead, so it shifted into a cover of that song (which explains why it starts out deviating so much from the original).
• What Could Have Been:
  • In the early planning stages of the 1972 London Symphony Orchestra presentation of Tommy, Stewart was going to play the title character. After The Who became more involved in the production, the obvious decision to have Roger Daltrey as Tommy was made, and Stewart ended up singing "Pinball Wizard" instead.
  • Queen wrote "Let Me Live" as a duet between Freddie Mercury and Stewart, and the two attempted to record it in 1983 during the sessions for The Works (whether or not it was intended to appear on that album is unknown). However, this version of the song fell through, and when the band finished it for Made in Heaven in 1995, Stewart was replaced with Brian May and Roger Taylor.
• Write What You Know: Some of his best-loved songs are fictional narratives inspired by actual events in his life. "Maggie May" was inspired by the time he lost his virginity as a teen at a music festival to a slightly older young woman. "Every Picture Tells a Story" had roots in an extended escapade around the time he turned 18 where he left home and traveled around Europe as a busker.

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