Rock star Rod Stewart turns 80

Rod Stewart recently made headlines with potholes. There are so many there in the county of Essex, where the rock star lives in a stately 18th century house, that he now wants to part with his sports car collection. There are five Ferraris and Lamborghinis that he considers “true works of art”.

As early as 2022, Stewart had shared a video on social media that showed him filling holes in the road with a shovel and safety vest. Apparently it was of little use.

There may also be other reasons for the announcement that he wants to sell his luxury cars. Stewart is now celebrating his 80th birthday, and getting in and out of the flat-bottomed speedsters is becoming increasingly difficult. For decades, enthusiasm for motorsports has been part of the singer’s lifestyle, just like his still magnificent tousled mane and passion for football and blondes.

Rod Stewartwho was born in London on January 10, 1945 to a Scottish father and an English mother, has sold more than 250 million records. This makes him one of the most commercially successful musicians. He always liked to waste himself, music wasn’t always his highest priority.

He would have liked to become a professional footballer. At 15, Stewart was invited to a trial training session with third division club Brentford FC, but failed. He later found that a life in the pop industry was much easier than one in the sports business: “Musicians are allowed to drink at work, athletes aren’t.”

His nonchalance sometimes bordered on a not giving a damn attitude. That was already the case when he was in 1969 joined the Small Faces, who from then on called themselves Facesand succeeded singer Steve Marriott. His roughened blues voice, which Stewart had already heard with Steampacket, the band, qualified him for this Brian Auger and Julie Driscoll, as well as in the Jeff Beck Group had used.

The Faces released great rumbling blues-rock albums like Long Player (1971) and Ooh La La (1973). But it was often more important to them to end a day in the studio in the pub than to repeat a few recordings again. Their best-of record is aptly titled “Five Guys Walk into A Bar.”

The cover of “Atlantic Crossing,” his solo masterpiece, shows the singer arriving in New York as a glittering glam rock god towering over all the skyscrapers. The album marked his departure from the Faces in 1975, his lucrative move to the Warner Brothers record company and his escape from the British Labor government’s top tax rates to the USA.

It was created with soul greats, including almost all members of Booker T. & the MGs, and contains the now deadpan hit “Sailing”. The successor “A Night on the Town” is also a fantastic record, with the six and a half minute mourning ballad “The Killing of Georgie (Part I and II)” as the highlight. Later they had disco hits with “Hot Legs”, “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” and “Baby Jane”. In the 1990s his releases became musically irrelevant.

Rod Stewart continues to travel as a live musician. In February he wants to continue his “One Last Time” tour in large venuesat some point perhaps presenting his swing interpretations in more intimate venues. “I love what I do and do what I love,” he writes online. “I am fit, have a full head of hair and can run 100 meters in 18 seconds.