Platinum revival for rocker Rod

Veteran rocker Rod Stewart says he is as surprised as anyone that his latest CD, a collection of the kind of songs Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald made famous, has gone platinum.

“I was going to be happy if it got in the top 30,” the 58-year-old rock veteran said in a recent telephone interview.

It Had to Be You: The Great American Songbook peaked at No 4 and has revived Stewart’s career. He’s even been nominated for a Grammy, for best traditional pop vocal album; his competition are stalwarts Barbra Streisand, Bernadette Peters, Tony Bennett and Michael Feinstein.

The timing of the CD’s success couldn’t be more personally reassuring for Stewart, whose 1971 chart-topper Maggie May remains a classic rock standard. It Had to Be You is the first music Stewart has recorded since undergoing throat surgery in 2000 to remove a benign growth on his thyroid.

The surgery weakened his throat muscles, and for nine months Stewart couldn’t sing at all. “It’s like if you’re a sportsman, and you have knee surgery, you wouldn’t be able to do any sports for a while because your knees just forget what to do. So does your throat. You have to reteach it all over again,” he said.

It was a scary time for Stewart. “It’s worrying to have your livelihood taken away from you. I’m never short of activities, but I was wondering how I was going to pay the bills – what I was going to do for the rest of my life.”

Fortunately for him, the question is now moot, and he’s back to making music full time. A DVD of a recent concert performance (also called It Had to Be You) was released this week, and in June a stage musical based on his songs, Tonight’s the Night, will open in London’s West End. He’s also planning another album of standards.

On choosing the songs on It Had to Be You, Stewart said: “We didn’t want anything too up-tempo.

Also, we recorded a few extremely sad ones, like Angel Eyes, which would have been downers, I think. We wanted it to have a consistent, romantic feel – it’s a nice album to put on when you’re having your first drink of the day.”

Stewart said the songs had always been a part of his life, because his mother and father used to play them when he was young.

“They got in my subconscious somewhere along the way and stayed there. I wanted to sing these songs before I went to my grave. (Also,) after the surgery, my voice lowered a half-tone, which has given me a lot more warmth in the upper register. So this album came up at the right time.”

When asked how it felt to be up against Streisand, Peters, Feinstein and Bennett for the Grammy, Stewart joked that it was pretty big competition and “some pretty big noses, as well – I don’t know how they’re going to get us all on stage”.

“It feels weird to me. I’ve done a huge body of work as a rock ’n’ roll star. Then to get nominated for this album – I’m grateful, but it does feel a bit weird (Stewart has been nominated twice before in other categories but didn’t win).