This week’s news and gossip

Quiet news week this week while Rod is on vacation in Palm Beach so here is a good chance ro show another brilliant photo from Rod’s US tour last year from SMILER photographer Jim Pietryga

Haircut Sir?

On Monday Rod called in Barny’s Barbershop in Fife for a haircut

Barney’s Barbershop

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Definitely our biggest surprise at our Barbershop to date. Sir Rod Stewart passing through Methil in a VW camper van isn’t something you see every day. Lovely guy #ChooseBarneys

Hang on a minute what date was it on Monday ..

Barney told SMILER this week The worlds best April fools day post 😂

Brian Auger

To promote his recent release Complete Oblivion, a lavish box set of the Brian Augers band’s essential run of studio albums from 1970-75, Brian gave an interview to Louder and told them how Steampacket came about and how he lent money to Rod..

https://www.loudersound.com/features/brian-auger-prog-interview

Lulu

Lulu revealed this week that she’d love to duet with Rod

Telling the BBC: “I want to sing a duet with Rod Stewart, I’ve never sung with Rod. That’s on my wish list.

“I think it’s weird it’s never happened. So, I’ve decided I may have to approach Rod at some point.”

Many years ago the ASCAP database listed a track called ‘Tell it like it is’ as a duet by Rod and Lulu but as both artists seem to have no recolection of it we guess it was never recorded

So we are struggling for a photo for this one …So we will show the 1974 album ‘Scotland Scotland’ featuring ‘Angel’ a duet by Rod Stewart and Denis Law and ‘Shout’ by Lulu

This week’s Rod and Wolfie’s art

This week we go back to Japan and the fantastic art work of Mayumi Wakabayashi an artist who supports a happy life of painting.

Mayumi’s latest work is inspired by Rod’s recent concert and even features Wolfie’s whisky

Explaining the inspiration Mayumi Said “Rod Stewart ‘s first concert in 13 years🎵He produced #Whisky last year . It’s called #Wolfies , but I’d like to take a lick of it.#RodStewart ‘s concert was really good. 13 years ago in Osaka, I was thinking, is this the last time? So I was really happy.I started listening to Rod Stewart because I heard a voice from heaven, I woke up one morning and out of nowhere a voice said, listen to Rod Stewart, That day I immediately went to a CD shop (!) and bought the latest album at the time. Then, I steadily collected almost all of them, including those from the #Faces era. It’s too long to talk about Rod, so I’ll leave it at that”.

To see more fantastic art from Mayumi go to bluebelta

Swing Fever

The Official Chart company released The Official best-selling vinyl albums and singles of 2024 so far and Swing Fever is at number 37

Swing Fever with Don

Rod Shared a clip of himself and Jools Holland discussing the inspirations behind Swing Fever on his Instagram page, Rod asked “When did you first hear the tracks of Swing Fever?! Jools and I discussing when we first heard ‘Walkin’ My Baby Back Home’ and all of the other legendary songs from the album.”

Talking about the track, Jools asked Rod “So, when did you first hear that? Who was doing it?”

“Well, I used to hear my brother singing it,” He replied. “He’s just passed, so he won’t be singing it anymore, he was 94 when he died.

“And when I was a little kid all my family used to sing all these songs.”

Note: Don was actually 92

Sing it again Rod

Anyone who missed out on our limited edition of 50 Sing It Again Rod statues who still wants one, here is a rare chance to get your hands on one ..One of our members is selling her statue that is still wrapped and in it’s box if you would like to buy it for face value or want any details please contact one of the SMILER team.

The figure is around 8 inches in height and was a strictly limited edition of 50 and each figure was numbered.. They were £95 plus postage that is £7 UK, Int’l tracked Postage- USA =£25, Canada=£24, Norway =£15, EU =£12.

Still Forever Number One!!

Daniel Grindstaff’s cover of Forever Young” featuring Paul Brewster & Dolly Parton is now in the #1 spot on the Bluegrass Unlimited national chart for April 2024.

Stream “Forever Young” here https://sc.lnk.to/jJnih0

“Be courageous and be brave, and in my heart you’ll always remain Forever Young”

And Finally..

SMILER 103 was printed today with all the news on Swing Fever, The official Faces project and much more…Coming soon!

See you next week