“All up-tempo”: Rod Stewart on the best orchestral band he’s ever heard
Rod Stewart always seemed caught up in the swarm of 1960s musical brilliance until the dawn of the 1970s, when he suddenly catapulted to solo stardom. The hit that did it—’Maggie May’—might have stemmed from a strange source of inspiration, but it set him on a distinctive path, one where humility wasn’t always important if a song had a good groove.
Many facets of contemporary audiences might not as widely understand Stewart’s appeal, but his palpable energy and charisma in the ’60s and ’70s within the Jeff Beck Group and later alongside Ronnie Wood in Faces made him one of the more revered figures, capturing the importance of rawness during an era that was becoming increasingly tempted by technological advancements.
However, Stewart’s flavour of rock ‘n’ roll wasn’t just about confidence and charisma: he enjoyed injecting subtle vulnerabilities into his music, making the energy feel even more authentic and rarely for commercial impact. Granted, many of his hits play into conventional tropes, but they came adorned with the drive and spirit of someone who was genuinely impassioned by the abilities of his own craft.
This also meant that he could appear versatile, no matter what, seduced by the possibility of genre-blending more than the nostalgic appeal of times gone by. Of course, much of his music brought together both worlds, layering traditional sensibilities with forward-thinking ingenuity, but Stewart both embraced and poked fun at the pretence that plagued the industry with music that simultaneously diverged from and pandered to it.
Like many of his contemporaries, Stewart’s artistic journey began with studying the stalwarts of soul and blues-inspired rock ‘n’ roll, like Muddy Waters, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Little Richard, and others, but the ones that truly inspire his creativity beyond just the sound of his music itself are bands that know how to perform with feeling, especially when it seems they aren’t even trying at all.
In his mind, the defining example of this is Jools Holland’s Rhythm and Blues Orchestra, which he worked with on his record Swing Fever. Holland’s band created songs that leaned into more “up-tempo stuff,” as opposed to the ballad-inspired sounds of The Great American Songbook. In his view, the contribution of Holland’s band proved that they are the best when it comes to upbeat, energetic sounds compounded by open chemistry.
“We’ve worked together for a long time,” Stewart told Louder, discussing Kevin Savigar and their work on Tears Of Hercules. “You know Jools Holland?” he continued, “We’ve nearly completed a swing album. The Great American Songbook was all ballads, but this is all up-tempo stuff with his band, which is probably one of the best I’ve ever heard.”
The band delivered an impressive, lively sound that shifted the appeal of Stewart’s Great American Songbook series from big ballads to energetic, swing-influenced songs. This also pushed the sonic journey forward into ambitious realms, maintaining a constant, forward-thinking flow, in contrast to the often stagnant overwhelm of the previous ballads in the other records in the series.
