The answer to the title is thankfully, no! Rod Stewart has had a long, successful run as a recording artist. After all, he well into the fifth decade of his musical career. He started out in the early Sixties. He helped found the Ray Davies Quartet, which went on to become a band you may have heard of – The Kinks! From there, Stewart moved on to other bands in the Sixties, including the Shotgun Express (which included future Fleetwood Mac leader Mick Fleetwood) and the Jeff Beck Group (where he played with future Rolling Stone Ron Wood).
After leaving the Jeff Beck Group, both Stewart and Woods joined The Faces. While still the lead singer for The Faces, Rod went solo. His 1971 album “Every Picture Tells a Story” made him an overnight sensation with hits like “Maggie May” and “Reason to Believe.” Stewart continued doing double duty until the tension of his growing solo career caused him to split from The Faces in 1975. In 1976, Stewart hit the charts again, with “Tonight’s the Night” and in 1977, “The First Cut is the Deepest” went #1 in the U.K.
If you remember 1978’s Foot Loose & Fancy Free, you remember that Rod was quite the sex symbol in the late Seventies. He had more hits with “You’re In My Heart” and “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?”
Stewart continued to have hits in the Eighties with “Young Turks”reaching the Top 5 in 1981, “Some Guys Have All the Luck” in 1985 and “Forever Young” in 1988. The Nineties saw a few hits such as “Downtown Train” and “All for Love,” recorded with Sting and Bryan Adams for the Three Musketeers soundtrack.
In 2002, Rod Stewart reinvented himself by recording by re-recording pop classics. His It Had to Be You … The Great American Songbook album reached #4 on the U.S charts. Realizing he was on to a good thing, he released a second “Songbook” album (As Time Goes By: the Great American Songbook 2) then a third one (Stardust: the Great American Songbook 3), and a fourth one (Thanks for the Memory: The Great American Songbook 4). In 2006, he released Still the Same… Great Rock Classics of Our Time. He went from a wild haired rocker to a class act.
So, where am I going with all this – oh yeah, country music. It seems that taking on the classics wasn’t enough for Rod. He wanted to add country music to his catalog, but his recording company said no. Stewart said J Records were “against that, which makes me want to do it even more” and “apparently, the idea didn’t test well, whatever that means.”
Rather than go country, J Records CEO Clive Davis plans for Rod to release a “Songbook” series of Christmas songs. Sounds much better to me than country!