Recording artists Stevie Wonder (L) and Rod Stewart attend the 56th annual GRAMMY Awards Pre-GRAMMY Gala and Salute to Industry Icons honoring Lucian Grainge at The Beverly Hilton on January 25, 2014 in Beverly Hills, California.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYB48iEkK2A

No star treatment here! Rod Stewart 'is kicked out of a Starbucks for bringing in his pet pooch'

He may be used to the A-list treatment, but even Rod Stewart's rock star status couldn't save him from getting kicked out of a Starbucks.

The 69-year-old is reported to have been asked to leave a Los Angeles coffee shop on Wednesday after he brought his pet pooch into the establishment.

The star appeared to be surprised by the firm request but quickly complied with the house rules, making a speedy exit through a side door - most certainly seeking to avoid any further embarrassment.

The elder statesman of pop looked slightly chagrined by the public humiliation as he held open the automatic door for his furry pet.

Thankfully his wife Penny Lancaster was there to stay inside the Starbucks and purchase their beverages.

The Maggie May singer wore his blonde hair in an Eighties updo as he looked sharp in an off-white coat and stovepipe jeans.

Pulling her casual getup together was a pair of flats and a button down shirt as she wore her blonde locks in flowing waves over her shoulders.

Rod and Penny, who tied the knot in 2007, revealed that it took two years for them to conceive their second son together, Aiden, and that they had to resort to IVF.

Speaking to Hello Magazine shortly after his birth in 2011, the rocker said: 'Aiden truly is a miracle. In the beginning we took it for granted that our second child would be as easy to conceive as Alistair was, but the long journey was more than worth it.'

Rod has previously said Aiden will be his last child, adding: 'I can't have any more kids, otherwise I'll be touring until I'm 90.'

Happy 69th Birthday tBy David Chaffin

By David Chaffin

January 19th 2014

“And on these green fields we played for pride
No quarter given, no compromise…
When we were the new boys.”

My best friend Brian and I stood in a hospitality room in the bowels of Reunion Area waiting anxiously to meet our idol. We had both won the same contest (creating an “every picture tells a story” montage) on two different radio stations, and the prize was a “meet and greet” with the legendary artist, plus free tickets to his concert.  I assume most people, when preparing to go to meet someone famous, think about what to take with them to have autographed.  The first and only thing we thought of for Rod Stewart’s autograph was a soccer ball. I took my Adidas Tango Barcelona “Official FIFA World Cup design” soccer ball (a classic), which seemed to have been saved since 1982 just for this occasion in 1993.

I started to become one of Rod’s biggest fans around 1989 (my freshman year of college) when my friend played disc 2 of his new Storyteller Anthology for me. I loved it immediately. I had always heard of Rod Stewart (who hasn’t?), but my image of him was wearing skinny leopard print pants belting out “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy.”  These songs were more acoustic, soulful, lyrical, and even humourous—songs like Maggie May, You Wear it Well, Mandolin Wind, Cut Across Shorty, and many others.  Later, when I found out what a huge soccer, or should I say football, fan he was, I found a reason to believe that I had a new all-time favorite singer (see what I did there?).

Rod was born into a football family (like my own kids were) in London near the end of World War II (not like my kids). As he writes in his book  Rod: The Autobiography, “My dad unashamedly put football first, or as close to first as he could get within the terms of a lasting marriage.” Rod’s dad saw to it that his youngest son loved the game. He remembers being taken to his first England v. Scotland international at Wembley in 1959 (England won 1-0).

Since neither of Rod’s older brothers made it professionally in football, he was “Dad’s last shot at football greatness.” That greatness could have gotten off to an early start when he was called in for a trial by Brentford FC at age 15. Rod describes the trial:

“Brentford FC had been a bit of a force in the English First Division in the 1930s, but by 1960, when I turned up, they were well into a long and largely undistinguished phase of toing and froing between the game’s third and fourth professional levels….

“My trial took place at Brentford’s ground on a warm summer evening, and we played a game of five-a-side across the middle of a pitch while a couple of blokes in tracksuits watched from the sidelines. Did I do OK? I can’t recall. But I can’t have set the place alight, because they never called back….

“Brentford’s loss. What have they won since?”

While his career in professional football ended there, it didn’t end his love for the game.  His Scottish heritage fueled his love of Celtic FC, the club mentioned in his song “You’re in My Heart” (along with Manchester United, his favorite English side). The Celtic logo emblazons the drum kit onstage at all his concerts, and he cried tears of joy in the stands when Celtic beat Barcelona 2-1 in the Champions League in 2012. To this day, kicking and heading soccer balls into the audience is a highlight of every one of his concerts.

The coup de grâce of his football fever is a full-sized pitch on his estate in England. Who among us wouldn’t give his right arm for that, or at least appreciate wholeheartedly the man who has it?

(L to R) The author, my friend Brian, and Rod Stewart

Anticipation mounted as Brian and I, along with a dozen or so other contest winners, waited for Rod to enter the room. When he finally appeared in the doorway, he spotted us with our soccer balls, and the first thing he said was, “Oh, footballs!” Of course, the crowd immediately gravitated toward him as he made his way fully into the room. We all posed for group photos with our idol, and tried to say a few words to him that would convey the depths of our admiration without sounding like idiots. I handed him my Tango, which he signed “To Dave, Rod Stewart,” and he tossed it back. Then Brian handed Rod his ball, but before he could sign it, his handlers (Rod’s, not Brian’s—Brian has never had “handlers”) whisked him out of the room—with Brian’s ball. A few minutes later, the ball was returned…signed, “To Brian, Rod Stewart.” We were in awe.

Rod wrote in his autobiography what his dad used to tell him:

“To be properly contented, a man needs 3 things: a job, a sport, and a hobby. So in my case . . .

Job: singer
Sport: football.
Hobby: model railroading*.”

I’ll have to add a fourth thing. So in my case . . .

Job: video producer.
Sport: soccer.
Hobby: promoting soccer talk.
Favorite singer: Rod Stewart.

Happy birthday, Rod!

*This passage is from the end of a short chapter about his passion for model railroading. “Don’t call it a train set!”

 Rod Stewart

Four CD Box set of live performances can be pre ordered NOW - available March 18th 2014.

ORDER HERE

TORONTO — Rod Stewart’s hit song Rhythm of My Heart was written by Canadian songwriter Marc Jordan.

The song, from Stewart’s album Vagabond Heart, was recorded in 1991, but the two singers didn’t meet face-to-face for 22 years. On Dec.15, they finally met at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, where Stewart was performing.

“Rod Stewart changed my life. Meeting Rod was a wonderful closing of a circle for me,” Jordan said.

Jordan has penned songs for some of music’s biggest stars, including, besides Stewart, Diana Ross, Cher, Joe Cocker, Chicago, Bonnie Raitt, Bette Midler, Olivia Newton-John, Natalie Cole, The Manhattan Transfer and several more.

But it was the success of Rhythm of my Heart that really set the stage for Jordan to be able to continue with his love of songwriting. “Everybody has to have the big hit to stay in the game. He gave me that big hit, so I could be who I wanted to be,” Jordan said.

“I got a call from [the president of [Stewart’s label], and he told me in his British accent, ‘Rod loves your tune,’ and that Rod had said, ‘I’ll sing the song – I will do a great job. I love the song!’”

Jordan spoke on the phone with Stewart over the years but never actually met him in person.

“He was lovely, warm and inclusive. He had his whole band with him backstage and he introduced me. He was very funny – just lovely. When musicians get together we have our own language. We joked around – all sorts of inside stuff,” Jordan said.

They also wanted to talk about Rhythm of my Heart. “I wanted to say thank you to Rod, and… he wanted to know what my inspiration was behind the song… and I told him.

“I wrote the song as a sort of folk song. It was an anti-war song about a soldier who goes to war and wonders. He is wondering whether all humanity is gone from the world. He wonders back home if people still fall in love and if love is alive somewhere back where he no longer is. He longs to be home to find some love again because, while he remembers love, where he is there is just carnage.”

Jordan’s songs have appeared on some 35 million records. His songs include Marina del Rey, Survival and Waiting for a Miracle. He has recorded 14 cds of his own songs and has won ASCAP, Juno, SOCAN and jazz and pop awards. He spends his time touring solo and as a member of Lunch At Allen’s (with band members Murray McLauchlan, Ian Thomas and Cindy Church), and is working on a musical with his wife, singer-songwriter Amy Sky.

Earlier this fall, Jordan released his newest album, On a Perfect Day, co-written with producer Chris Bilton and recorded in both Nashville and Toronto.

The album’s cover art is an original painting by Jordan, another of his many passions.

Rock legend Rod Stewart meets John Woodhouse ahead of Britannia Stadium gig

It’s 40 years since Rod Stewart last played North Staffordshire. But, as one of rock’s most legendary hellraisers returns with a gig at the Britannia Stadium, it’s an area, he tells John Woodhouse, with an A-side full of memories...

IT’S 10.45am and Rod Stewart’s in the studio in Los Angeles. “I’ve got a terrible cold,” his voice crackles (maybe that’s it – he’s had a cold these past 50 years).

“There’s been a heatwave here,” he continues, “and now it’s gone down to 50 degrees. What’s it like in Stoke?”

On the world clock, 10.45am Los Angeles is 6.45pm Stoke. “Dark, hailing, freezing cold, general unpleasantness,” I tell him. “I’ll shut up shall I?” he says.

Except of course we don’t want him to shut up.

Rod, a double A-list true rock behemoth, a man who epitomised the excesses of his trade like no other (he’s got a little black book the size of an encyclopaedia), and one of the few people to consider leopard print Spandex trousers an acceptable fashion statement, is coming to North Staffordshire for the first time since 1974.

To say his gig at the Britannia Stadium has created a bit of a buzz – “I’m so pleased about that – let everyone know how pleased I am” – is like saying The Beatles were mildly popular at airports.

June 14 is a big day. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t **** it down,” he says. “A nice warm sunlit evening, that’s what we want. Get everyone in the mood.”

Rod’s small five-date tour, in more offbeat venues, reflects a recent urge to look back. His Time album is filled with an array of reflective songs that reveal the emotional heart of a man whose subtleties have too often been lost to caricature.

At the same time, his autobiography, a rollicking and unapologetically rumbustious tale of fast cars, supermodels, and related high jinks, was one of the finest, and funniest, of the genre.

“I’d read one or two and they were just a bit stale,” he says. “I just wanted to tell it as it was – I had a great time – I enjoyed myself – I wanted that to come across.”

He’s ‘enjoyed’ it so much it’s not always easy to remember the detail. But when it comes to his past encounters with these parts, the memories flicker to life.

The last time he played North Staffordshire was with The Faces on December 1, 1974, at Trentham Gardens, a set which featured at least one song which will travel down the decades to June 2014 – Maggie May. “There are some songs,” he admits, “which if I didn’t play they’d kill me.”

Rod recalls little of the actual ballroom, but he can be fairly certain of the way he and fellow band member Ronnie Wood, now a Rolling Stone, warmed up backstage.

“We didn’t bother with beer,” he says. “There was none of that – what we liked was Liebfraumilch and Mateus Rosé! You remember that? In those funny shaped bottles?”

Mateus Rosé? It’s not very rock ‘n’ roll is it? “No, but it got you drunk quick and that’s all that mattered!”

The Faces also played Trentham Gardens in 1972 and the Victoria Hall in 1971. But Rod’s flirtations with North Staffordshire in fact go back more than half a century.

He first appeared at The Place in Hanley with Birmingham-based blues outfit The Five Dimensions in 1963, and he’d return there not long after with the man who gave him his big break, Long John Baldry.

“I remember The Place well,” says Rod. “It was one of the first places I did a residency” (times have changed – prior to the Brit, he’s doing nine dates at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas).

In typically offbeat style, Rod had travelled to the gig in the band’s transport of choice, a removals van, driven by a former Lancaster bomber rear gunner, who’d kitted the cab out in spares from said aircraft, to make it look like the cockpit of the real thing.

“I remember it was a real good crowd,” says Rod, “the audience went nuts, punching the air, jumping around – fantastic. Just what you want.

“It sticks in the mind because Long John misinterpreted what was going on. He thought they were doing the Nazi salute. He stopped the band and said something like ‘we’ll have none of that German Third Reich stuff!’. Not really what you want, is it? It pretty much killed the night. It was quite hard work for me after that!”

Four decades on and Rod’s itching to get back. His conversation is littered with football references. “Where are they in the table?” he asks of the Potters. “What division are Port Vale? Are they doing well?”

A long-time member of a team of ex-pat Scots in LA (he splits the year between the U.S. and a home in Essex), he tells me he played his final game last weekend.

“It’s an addiction, isn’t it?” he says. “You just can’t let it go. But I’m 69! You can’t have an old bloke like me out there!”

He will, though, be kicking a few balls from the stage of the Britannia, a trademark of his gigs.

And, he says, he’s looking forward to playing a ‘working-class’ town. “Of course, where do you think I come from?”

A builder’s son from North London, he’s always tried to stay true to his roots. “My brothers and sisters always keep me firmly in place,” he says. “And the guys I play football with, they take the **** out of me something rotten. I have my kit in this lovely soft Prada bag. You can imagine how that goes down!”

In the intervening years between that first Hanley gig and today, Rod has sold 100 million records, had six number ones, and stands as the sixth most successful artist in the history of the British charts.

Outside the studio, his extra-curricular activities are equally legendary. Bond girls, supermodels – if you’re female between 45 and 80, it’s worth just checking your memory.

Thrice married, since 2007 to the model Penny Lancaster, he became a granddad in 2011. The little girl’s name? Delilah. “Ah,” he twigs, “that’s what they sing down at Stoke isn’t it?” Could it be that the assembled might get a quick Tom Jones impersonation?

So what can those fortunate thousands expect? “We’ll do a bit from Time,” he says, “and we’ll do all those other ones from down the years – maybe a Jeff Beck song too.”

I remind him that the chap who wrote Sailing, Gavin Sutherland, of Seventies act the Sutherland Brothers, was living in Blythe Bridge at the time.

“Ah, the Sailing boys,” he says. “I remember doing the vocal for that and I Don’t Want To Talk About It at half eight in the morning. That’s no time for doing anything is it? I could hardly talk!

“I always do Sailing,” he adds of his setlist. “They wouldn’t let me not do it, would they? And the great thing about a British crowd is that if I forget a melody, I can just listen – after all this time, they know them better than me!”

As to another, slightly better known ex-Stokie, Rod’s attitude is a little less clear. According to what you read online, the pair, who live near one another in LA, are either bosom buddies or want to inflict lasting and serious harm, the main source of alleged enmity being Williams’s one-time dating of Rod’s ex-wife Rachel Hunter.

“He very nearly bought the house opposite me in LA,” says Rod. “But the truth is I don’t know the guy. The last time I did anything with him was the Royal Variety Performance at the Albert Hall but I haven’t seen him since.”

Compared to 1974, these days the pre-gig activities are a little more restrained. “I’ll get to the venue at six o’clock, do the sound check, go to the dressing-room, sign a few footballs, start warming up, have a Bacardi and coke, just a nip, and then that’s it, get the clothes on and over the top!”

What the Britannia audience will get when he emerges above the parapet is a typically infectiously upbeat, occasionally self deprecating Rod – he describes Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? as “a pink toilet seat hung around my neck for the rest of my life” – with just that tinge of poignancy he does so well.

Looking back down the years hasn’t quelled his joie de vivre, but it has made him treasure what he holds close.

“Time is the most personal album I’ve done,” he says, “but it came out of just sitting around talking with family, my brothers and sisters. It occurred to me I’ve got a lot to write about here. One song’s a tribute to my dad, in another I talk about my divorces, there’s one about my kids. There’s always stuff to write about – I’m already working on my new album.”

But wouldn’t a more obvious time to go down this route have been 10 years ago, and the thyroid cancer scare? “It wasn’t as big a thing as people made out,” he says. “It was built up to be like I was at death’s door – the truth was I was in and out in 24 hours.”

Typical Rod. Get on with it – no messing about. “I’ve had a great life,” he says.

“I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.” And, on June 14, many in North Staffordshire will be enjoying it with him.

Sixty-nine? Rod, you wear it well.

Rod Stewart dresses down as he's spotted walking his dog in downtown Los Angeles while wearing a tracksuitRod Stewart dresses down as he's spotted walking his dog in downtown Los Angeles while wearing a tracksuit

Rod donates signed slippers to Help for Heroes Auction

This auction is on 7th Feb 2014. Find more details on here

http://www.nationalslipperday.com/home.html

Rod Stewart's still got it

Newstalk ZB

Rod Stewart is still "voracious" in bed.

The 'Do Ya Think I'm Sexy' rocker may be 68, but he's still got the right moves in bed to please his wife, Penny Lancaster, 42.

Penny reportedly told a friend: "Rod's voracious! I knew he was a ladies man, but he usually tires me out!"

Rod - who has sons Alastair, eight, and Aiden, two, with Penny - is also a hopeless romantic and knows how to treat Penny properly on date nights.

The source said: "Rod wrote a song about Penny called 'She Makes Me Happy' and two or three times a month he'll have the nanny watch the boys so he can whisk her off for a romantic night out. Sometimes they'll just take a walk on the beach, but other times he'll treat her to a lovely dinner followed by a night of passion in a hotel."

The source added reformed ladies' man Rod - who has eight kids with five women - can't believe his luck and would never even think of cheating on his beautiful wife.

They added to National Enquirer magazine: "Rod never dreamed he'd have such a sexy young wife at his age. So he treats Penny like gold. This is one Hollywood couple that's in it for the long haul. They're incredibly happy and very much in love."

Rod Stewart puts his good health down to a love of football - and his personal trainer

Daily Mirror

12/1/2014

The man charged with making sure Rod stays in shape is Gary O’Connor, his personal trainer for 14 years - who says the star will still be belting them out in his 80s

Rod Stewart was 69 on Friday – and in an echo of one of his biggest hits he wears it well.

Despite nearly 50 years in a ­­business littered with the casualties of drugs and booze, rocker Rod has ­remained healthy and trim .

Today the Do Ya Think I’m Sexy idol puts it down to a ­love of ­football. Keeping fit means he can carry on playing the beautiful game.

The singer also needs to keep fit for the gruelling world tours all ­performers face these days if they want their albums to be mega hits.

The man charged with making sure Rod stays in shape is Gary O’Connor, his personal trainer for 14 years.

Essex boy Gary, 53, told the Sunday People: “Rod’s incredibly competitive.

"He’ll swim lengths under water and put on a harness with a cord fixed to a metal sledge with a 20kg plate on it.”

If dad-of-eight Rod is at home in Los Angeles he sets up a training circuit based on drills used by top Spanish football side Barcelona.

And he always finishes exercise routines the same way – by jumping into a bin filled with iced water.

Gary said: “It’s a trick he learnt from his mate David Beckham. It gets rid of toxins in the bloodstream and speeds up recovery.”

He added: “Rod’s in incredible shape. He’s 69 with the body of someone 20 years younger.”

Gary was working at a gym near Rod’s spread in Essex when he first met the superstar in the late 1990s.

Rod flew in from LA without his regular personal trainer and wanted a stand-in – and the pair hit it off.

Forever Young: Rod Stewart wears comedy nose as he dines out with family on Sunset Boulevard to celebrate 69th birthday

Kimberly Stewart, Ruby Stewart, Sean Stewart, Sarah Streeter, Liam Stewart, Renee Stewart,Rod Stewart certainly knows how to celebrate a birthday in style – the aging rocker wore a glittery red nose during his family birthday meal to celebrate turning 69.

The Forever Young singer’s daughter Ruby took the picture and released it onto her Instagram account.

She said: ‘My dad asked me to capture this moment and to "send it around the world" for his 69th birthday... Hope he is not disappointed with a mere 1823 people...’

The star was celebrating his last year in his 60s with a huge family meal including his wife Penny and children Kimberly, Sean and Ruby.

But growing old gracefully isn’t something that Rod’s going to agree to, clearly, as he sat at the table with a comedy nose on.

The star was seen arriving at the restaurant hand-in-hand with his wife of six years Penny Lancaster.

Wearing a black leather jacket over his plaid waistcoat, the singer was clutching a bottle of wrapped wine for the evening’s event.

Rod’s hair had a luscious amount of volume in it, meaning his lock almost bounced as he stepped along the Californian sidewalk. 

He wore a skinny tie and a shirt with metal tipped collars – well, he is a rock’n’roll star.

The final addition to Rod’s raucous outfit was a pair of leopard print loafers that matched with his wife’s jacket.

Leaving the restaurant on Sunset Boulevard hours later, the star was spotted in a Rolls Royce with his son Sean, who wore an almost identical tie and shirt combination to his father.

Rod Stewart Amex tickets for sale on eBay for £300 - even though official tickets still available

Fans of Rod Stewart are forking out up to £300 for a ticket to his first Brighton gig in almost 18 years – despite official tickets still being available for a fraction of the price.

The tickets for the gig at the American Express Community Stadium are being sold at almost six times the £55 price tag of official sellers.

Promoters are urging music fans to buy tickets from official sources but warned that it was “virtually impossible” to stamp out people selling on their tickets online.

Tickets for the gig, which will see Stewart become only the second act to play a major gig on the Amex pitch on Friday June 13, are being sold on eBay and Gumtree for up to £300.

One Gumtree seller is looking for £600 for two tickets to the gig which will see the veteran Scottish rocker play in Brighton for the first time since November 1996.

Peter Taylor, director of promoters Cuffe & Taylor, said: “Tickets are currently on sale and we would urge fans to buy their tickets from the official sources as soon as possible.

“As with any major concert like this, tickets sometimes appear on secondary sites.

“We do all we can to prevent secondary ticketing, such as random ID checks, but it is virtually impossible to stamp it out completely.

“Tickets have sold very well over the Christmas period and they continue to sell well so we are advising people to buy their tickets now.”

Hove MP Mike Weatherley, who worked in the music business before moving into politics, is campaigning for an honest and transparent ticket purchasing process.

He has joined other MPs in founding the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Ticket Abuse.

He said: “With such high prices, my concern is that the real fans miss out. That’s why I am campaigning in Parliament for musicians’ wishes to be respected when it comes to ticketing, similar to what happened at the Olympics.

“If an artist wants to sell at a certain price so that, for example, their younger fans can afford to come then ticket resale should be capped at that level.”

To buy tickets from the official site visit

www.ticketline.co.uk/Rod2014

Rod Stewart hits the beach - and the painkillers - on family holiday in Miami

Decades as a rock god finally seem to be catching up with Rod Stewart, as he nurses three coffees and a pack of painkillers on a beach holiday with his family.

Forever Young singer Rod, who turns 69 on Friday, appeared to be having trouble keeping pace with wife Penny, 42, who frolicked in the waves with son Aiden, two.

Wearing baggy blue shorts and a chain around his neck, the star sat sedately on his sunbed in Miami, Florida, topping up his famous tan as the others dug holes and built sandcastles.

But although he might be feeling it a bit more these days, the tattooed rocker looked in pretty good shape – we are sure the ladies will still think he’s sexy.