“Rod Stewart Ultimate Hits” is released on June 27th and to celebrate the release we are bringing you the low down on all the classic tracks that have been brought together in the compilation to include songs ranging from his 1971 hit, “Maggie May” to selections from 2024’s “Swing Fever,”
Today we focus on “Sailing”
The song was originally recorded by the Sutherland Brothers for their Lifeboat album in 1972. And was written by their bassist Gavin
Rod related to the song’s theme of homesickness (the high rate of tax in the UK had forced him to move to America) and he recorded his version for his first album recorded in North America rather than Great Britain: “Atlantic Crossing”, which was recorded April – June 1975 at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama adding a choir assembled by Bob Crewe, the Four Seasons producer and with Tom Dowd producing.
Guitar legend Steve Cropper told SMILER in 2011“Bob Crewe was not in Muscle Shoals when we cut the track for “Sailing” I’m sure Tom Dowd booked Crewe to do the backgrounds in New York. I remember over dubbing the electric piano sounds on it with Steve Melton and Berry Becket at the helm in the day”
“Sailing” was chosen as the first single from the album, and became an international hit, notably in the UK where It became Rod’s third UK chart-topper where it stayed for four weeks in September 1975 and the following year, it was used as the theme music for a BBC TV documentary series about the HMS Ark Royal ‘Sailor‘ ,which BBC1 aired for ten weeks from 5 August 1976 “Sailing” returned to the charts this time peaking at number 3 with the track remaining in the UK Top 50 into January 1977, it was released again with less success, in 1987. “Sailing” remains Rod’s biggest single hit in the UK and in November 2012 it was reported that the song had sold 1.12 million units in the UK with a placing at number 112 of the 123 UK million-selling singles., but strangely it was not a top 40 hit in his newly adopted US homeland.
Rod was first alerted to the Sutherland Brothers after his then girlfriend Dee Harrington saw their performance on BBC Two’s Old Grey Whistle Test in June 1972. The Sutherland Brothers later co-wrote two original songs with Rod which were hoped to be record for “Atlantic Crossing” however the only Sutherland Brothers tune Rod would finally record for the album would be “Sailing” whose seemingly nautical theme complemented the album’s title.
Rod confessed in a 2010 interview with Mail on Sunday‘s Live Magazine that he suffers from nerves when he has to perform live or in the studio, and always has a drink before hitting the stage or laying down vocal tracks. However, he had to record “Sailing” completely sober because there was no alcohol available at the studio in Alabama. “It’s the only song I ever recorded without a drink inside me. My thing was always to have a little tipple before I sang; even now I’ll have a Bacardi and Coke before I go on stage. It just helps.
But “Sailing” was recorded in Muscle Shoals, which was a dry area. The producer Tommy Dowd woke me up at ten in the morning saying, ‘Get down here in half an hour; we’ve mixed the track and need the vocal.’ I was like, ‘You’re joking, recording at 10.30 in the morning. I need a drink to calm the old nerves.’ I was stuffed, because there was nothing to be had anywhere and I was terrified to sing without one. But I did and it turned out to be one of the biggest ones I ever made.”
Despite now being a fan of the Sutherland Brothers, Rod said that he “argued vehemently” against the release of “Sailing” as the lead single from Atlantic Crossing, instead advocating his own composition “Three Time Loser”.
The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section backed Aretha Franklin on many of her early hits. They also recorded with The Staple Singers, Wilson Pickett and many other Soul music luminaries, so when Rod traveled to Alabama to record this song, he was surprised at what he saw. Muscle Shoals bass player David Hood, who owned the studio with three other members of the rhythm section, told Songfacts: “Rod, I think, was a little intimidated by our track record at the time. When he first came in and saw us, he asked Tom Dowd, well, where’s the band? And Tom said, ‘That’s the band.’ He thought that they were trying to pull something on him, because he’d seen these white guys sitting out there at the instruments. He thought the band that he was coming to record with was Aretha Franklin’s band and was gonna be a bunch of black guys. So he was suspicious of us from the start. But he was also, I think, intimidated; once he found out who we were and what we had done, he was intimidated by that. He didn’t really want to sing in front of us at first”.
In the US, where “Atlantic Crossing” had been issued in August 1975 without a single release, “Sailing” was issued as the album’s lead single in October 1975 but failed to reach the Top 40 of Billboard, peaking on the Hot 100 at number 58.
The first music video for “Sailing” was filmed in the Port of Dublin and also featured footage shot on the major Dublin thoroughfare Moore Street featuring Rod and his then Bond girl girlfriend Britt Ekland, the video aired on the Top of the Pops broadcast of 28 August 1975. Another music video for “Sailing” was shot in New York Harbor in 1978, and would become one of the first to be aired on MTV when it launched on 1 August 1981.
As the British task-force sailed out of Portsmouth Harbour on 5 April 1982 – the third day of the Falklands War – the recording of Rod Stewart‘s “Sailing” was broadcast from the quay’s public address system.
In 1987 “Sailing” was reissued as a charity single after the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster off the Flemish port of Zeebrugge, becoming a number 24 hit in Belgium’s Flemish Region a number 41 chart re-entry in the UK and a number 30 hit in Ireland.
The 1982 “Absolutely Live” concert album by Rod features a performance of “Sailing”. Rod also made another notable performance of “Sailing” at the 20 June 1986 Prince’s Trust All-Star Rock Concert – with Elton John on piano and Eric Clapton on guitar – and at the 1 July 2007 Concert for Diana memorial gala, for both events were held at Wembley Stadium.
Sailing On The Chartst (1975–1976)
Australia (Kent Music Report) 2
Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders) 2
Belgium (VRT Top 30 Flanders) 1
Canada (RPM 100 Singles) 58
France (SNEP) 47
Ireland (IRMA) 1
Netherlands (Dutch Top 40) 1
Netherlands (Single Top 100) 1
New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ) 3
Norway (VG-lista) 1
South Africa (Springbok Radio) 2
Sweden (Sverigetopplistan) 20
Switzerland (Schweizer Hitparade) 2
UK (Official Charts Company) 1
US Billboard Hot 100 58
West Germany (GfK) 4
Zimbabwe (ZIMA) 1
Chart (1976)
Austria (Ö3 Austria Top 40) 7
New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ) 9
Sweden (Sverigetopplistan) 13
UK (Official Charts Company) 3
Chart (1978)
New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ) 16
Chart (1987)
Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders) 24
Ireland (IRMA) 30
UK (Official Charts Company) 41
Year-end charts 1975
Australia (Kent Music Report) 24
Chart (1976)
Australia (Kent Music Report) 57
A special edition limited to 3000 copies, presented to the crew of H.M.S. Ark Royal to commemorate the visit of Rod and Alana Stewart. October 1978.
Atlantic Crossing Personnel
Rod Stewart – vocals
Pete Carr – acoustic guitar and electric guitar
Jesse Ed Davis, Steve Cropper, Fred Tackett, Jimmy Johnson – guitar
Barry Beckett, Albhy Galuten – keyboards
Booker T. Jones – Hammond organ
Donald “Duck” Dunn, Lee Sklar, Bob Glaub, David Hood – bass guitar
David Lindley – violin
Al Jackson Jr., Roger Hawkins, Nigel Olsson, Willie Correa – drums, percussion
The Memphis Horns – trumpet, trombone, saxophone
Cindy & Bob Singers, The Pets & The Clappers – backing vocals
String arrangements by Arif Mardin and James Mitchell
“Sailing” has been covered many times, so here we go…
“Sailing” has also been recorded by Joan Baez (album Blowin’ Away 1977), Brotherhood of Man (album 20 Number One Hits 1980), The Nolan Sisters (album 20 Giant Hits 1978), Smokie, (album Uncovered Too 2002) and Dame Vera Lynn. Robin Trower (with bassist James Dewar on vocals) covered the song on the 1976 album Long Misty Days and Roger Whittaker on the 1978 album Roger Whittaker Sings the Hits., and Aled Jones.
Instrumental versions of “Sailing” have been recorded by The London Symphony Orchestra (album Classic Rock 1977) and Richard Clayderman (album A Little Night Music – 12 Classic Love Songs 1988).. and by Rock Against Repatriation various Artists 1990.
A French version (“Ma musique”) has been recorded by Joe Dassin in 1975.
A re-worded rave version by Slipstreem was a top 20 hit single in the UK in 1993.
The song’s melody is used for the football chant “No one likes us, we don’t care”, sung by Millwall FC supporters. The melody is also used by German football club Hertha BSC Berlin for their chant Nur Nach Hause (Just homewards), written by Berlin-based Entertainer and Hertha-Fan Frank Zander and Vitória S.C. also play their version of the song, “Sou Vitória”, at the start of every home game.
At the time of the Voyage of Greta Thunberg in 2019, climate strikers in Steyning performed the song with the lyrics “Greta’s Sailing”.
“Rod Stewart Ultimate Hits” is released on June 27th.