Main photo thanks to Fantastico Fans
Rod was still cruising around the Balearic Islands aboard a luxury superyacht with Penny and their children this week, earlier on a sun-soaked Ibiza trip he was questioning why Celtic had not signed any new players yet
Interesting fact – Rod has1.7m followers on Instagram so his message reaches far and wide. In contrast Celtic have 1.1m followers…Interesting or what?
When Rod visited Ibiza he met up with DJ Calvin Harris
Calvin famously keeps a framed photo of Rod in his DJ booth at his gigs for “encouragement” and good luck.
Rod also met French nightlife entrepreneur Yann Pissenem the CEO and founder of The Night League and Ushuaïa Entertainment the companies behind the Ushuaïa brand, the world’s number 1 ranked club (2022, 2023, 2024, & 2025) Hï Ibiza, and [UNVRS], a new club that opened in Ibiza in 2025.
And on Sunday the party not only got to watch the World Cup Final on a huge screen from a VIP box at Teatro Pereyra and got serenaded with Baby Jane when it was played on the PA and the crowded potted Rod was in the house
On a shopping trip to Ibiza Rod and Renee were surrounded by hundreds of fans…
But not the usual kind of fans..The kind of fans that Fantastico Fans The Viral Ibiza Fan Shop sells, Rod seemed to be left speechless at one of the shops designs!
Rod and Penny also travelled to Mallorca and stayed in or around Soller, one of the island’s most sought-after destinations on the northwest coast.
Fantastico Fans told SMILER after Rod’s visit “Rod was charming what a gent!”
This Week’s Rod Art
This week we feature the work of Boston UK based Krystian Pajor who is a hyper realistic portrait artist who painted this excellent portrait of Rod for a commission
To see more portraits by Krystian go to https://www.instagram.com/krystian_pajor_art/
Mandolin Wind
Great story this week about Ray Jackson from seventies band Lindisfarne buying a mandolin from the Oxfam shop in Abingdon.
Ray’s partner first spotted the mandolin in Oxfam’s cabinet and photographed it for him. He came in the following Saturday, tried it, and bought it on the spot for £2,800
The instrument – a Northfield, handmade in Missouri and among the most sought-after makes in the world – had been donated to the shop just two weeks earlier. The £2,800 sale will go towards Oxfam’s humanitarian and development work worldwide.
Ray famously provided the iconic mandolin solo on Maggie May and also played on the classic Mandolin Wind but on the liner notes for the 1971 album Every Picture Tells a Story, Rod forgot his name and credited him simply as “the mandolin player in Lindisfarne”.
Talking to SMILER this week shop manager Michila Wearn told us about ray’s visits “I was a little star struck, especially as this was the song I used to sing to my daughter every morning when she was little.
Ray is a lovely gentleman and who gave us a perfect rendition in the shop and came back a few weeks later and played for staff and customers.
The funds will go a long way in helping us in our fight for a kinder, fairer and better world where everyone has the power to thrive not just survive”.
https://www.facebook.com/OxfamAbingdon/?locale=en_GB
In memory of Long John Baldry (died July 21st 2005)
By Martin Heidt
What would have become of us if John William Baldry – whom everyone simply called Long John – hadn’t listened so intently on that cold winter’s evening in 1964 at Twickenham Station in London? Who among us would then be sitting here today, even giving a certain Roderick David Stewart from Highgate, London, a second thought? Fortunately, however, Long John had listened very carefully that evening and heard the melodious sounds of a harmonica.
Baldry, who was on his way home from a concert, was waiting for the train at Twickenham Station. It had been a long evening, but Long John had enjoyed it and heard a number of good songs. Humming the melodies of the past few hours softly to himself, the then 23-year-old sat down on a bench. There was hardly a soul to be seen at the station at this late hour. An almost ghostly silence reigned, broken only now and then by the wind rustling through the station.
Suddenly there was another sound, a sort of hum, quite melodic, but only very faint. Long John lifted his head and tried to work out where the sound was coming from. He looked around, got up from his bench and walked towards the sound, which – the closer Baldry got – turned out to be the sound of a harmonica. And then he saw him, the young man who was also sitting on one of the station benches, holding both hands in front of his face and moving them slightly back and forth from time to time. The sound soon turned out to be the song ‘Smokestack Lightning’ by Howlin’ Wolf.
Baldry pricked up his ears more and more. He liked what the young man was doing with his harmonica. They struck up a conversation and walked a few metres together.
Long John was with the Hoochie Coochie Men at the time and hired the young Roderick as a backing singer for a weekly wage of 35 pounds.
“When you think about how my harmonica playing was back then, Long John must have been drunk,” Rod laughed many years later as he recalled that evening. “Or maybe it was me – but I was playing better than ever before.”
Be that as it may, this event certainly marked the start of that magnificent career, which continues to this day. Every Rod Stewart fan on earth must be eternally grateful to Long John Baldry for listening so closely back then, in the winter of 1964.
And it was that very same John William Baldry who passed away 21 years ago today from complications of pneumonia.
Of course, Rod has never forgotten the man who discovered and nurtured his talent. “I owe Long John so much; he discovered me and turned me into a singer and entertainer. I loved him whilst he was alive, and was devastated when he died. I carry a photo of him in my wallet, and I can tell you, not a day goes by when I don’t think of the bloke,” Rod wrote in his autobiography in 2012.
It’s not just Rod, but all of us, who owe Long John Baldry so much. As I said, without him, we most likely wouldn’t all be sitting here today listening to Rod’s albums and music. Long live Long John!
What’s On
Here is something happening down in the New Forest this autumn…
Beaulieu Village Hall is celebrating its Golden Jubilee — 50 years since it opened back in 1976 — and to mark it, they’re throwing a curry night with a live “Rod Stewart Story Some Guys Have All the Luck” performance by Paul Metcalfe on Saturday 3 October 2026. Doors at 6:30pm with curry, sides and drinks, then two live sets at 7:30pm and 9pm (45 minutes each).
It’s all run by volunteer trustees for a small village hall, so it’s very much a community night rather than a big commercial gig — good food, a great atmosphere, and a set of Rod’s classics to sing along to. If you’re anywhere near Hampshire/the New Forest that weekend, the team would love to see some of you there!
Beaulieu Village Hall, Beaulieu, New Forest, Hampshire
Saturday 3 October 2026 — doors 6:30pm
More info https://beaulieuvillagehall.org.uk/rod-stewart-concert-beaulieu-village/
SMALL FACES
Small Faces and Kenney Jones fans will be pleased to hear that Fontana Records’ Thousand Club series has added the third and fourth entries into its budding roster: Small Faces’ 1966 self-titled debut album, an absolute mod classic and Caravan’s 1973 Canterbury prog opus For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night. These were both cut from analog by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road, and Fontana’s series is among the few reissue lines that has access to original master tapes of British albums and is giving them AAA treatment. Most new remasters of classic British albums seem to receive half-speed mastering from a digital file, so this makes the Thousand Club a particularly auspicious and well-needed line. Small Faces comes with a signed card by drummer Kenney Jones and marks the first time it’s ever been cut from the original un-EQ’ed IBC Studios master tapes. It and the Caravan album both come in limited, numbered editions of 1000 coies.
Book Review: “Blow by Blow: The Jeff Beck Story” – Renaissance Guitar Man
By Ed Symkus
Jeff Beck is a bigger guitar hero than you realized.
Blow by Blow: The Jeff Beck Story by Brad Tolinski & Chris Gill. Da Capo, 388 pages
As a longtime Jeff Beck fan – I saw him perform on five occasions, including gigs at The Boston Tea Party, the Orpheum, and the House of Blues – I turned to the first page of this new biography with a great flush of eagerness. I knew what he could do with a guitar, from memories of those live performances as well as countless listenings to the vinyl and CD recordings on my shelves. But I was hoping to get an idea of how he made all of that music and often otherworldly sounds, and what drove him to flit in and out of – and often back into – the worlds of rock and blues and jazz and techno and soul and funk.
After two days and almost 400 pages of unputdownable reading, thanks to the journalistic prowess and musical knowledge of co-authors Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill (both of whom have extensive backgrounds with Guitar World magazine), it’s safe to say that those hopes were exceeded.
Keeping things detailed and chronological, and making exceptional use of interviews they conducted with Beck over the years, along with quotes from his friends, fellow musicians, and former bandmates, Tolinski and Gill present a character study of a complicated guy. They kick things off with 13-year-old Beck watching an “unnervingly primal and hypnotic performance” of “Be-Bop-A-Lula” by Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps in the 1956 film The Girl Can’t Help It. They refer to that instant as “the spark that lit the fuse,” then touch on his resulting fascination with and early attempts at the mastery of electric guitar in teenage cover bands. They trace his illustrious professional career as he worked his way up from the Yardbirds to the Jeff Beck Group to Beck, Bogert & Appice and ever-changing versions of other lineups. They end with Beck’s death on January 10, 2023 (at age 78) from a bacterial meningitis infection. (Arts Fuse tribute to Jeff Beck.)
Reproduced with thanks to Bill Marx at the Art Fuse to read the full review go to
Check out more great reviews from The Art Fuse at https://artsfuse.org/
And Finally…
Don’t miss our fantastic Blow by Blow: The Jeff Beck Story competition to win one of two books given to SMILER by Brad Tolinski
Winners will be announced next week…See you then.