Is Rod Stewart giving up on rock ‘n’ roll?
In the new print edition of the magazine Scottish Field, Rod says that his upcoming concerts in Edinburgh, Scotland, on July 6 and 7 will be “the last of the rock n’ roll shows.” He explains, “I want to move on and I’ve always wanted to do The Great American Songbook live. It sold 38 million copies.”
Rod was referring to his bestselling series of albums of standards, which began in 2002 with It Had to Be You: The Great American Songbook. He made five Songbook albums in all, and they all reached the top 10 in both the U.S. and the U.K.
He goes on to say he’s recorded a “fantastic swing album” will Jools Holland, the pianist and TV host who was a founding member of Squeeze. “I just want to make a change,” he tells the magazine.
It’s likely that Rod means the Edinburgh shows are his last rock ‘n’ roll shows in the U.K., since he’s got a whole U.S. tour kicking off on July 29, followed by a string of shows in Las Vegas as part of his residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace.
Elsewhere in the interview, Rod, who lives up the street from Donald Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, says he used to go to the former president’s Christmas parties and balls, until his wife, Penny Lancaster, put the kibosh on that.
“There was stuff he was coming out with, what he was saying about women he had known in the past,” Rod explains. “And Penny said ‘you’re not going – he’s a disgrace.'”
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