by Mark Silva
How old is Rod Stewart?
Not quite as old as Mick Jagger.
Should it come as any surprise, after all these years, that Stewart is 64 going on 65? And, even if he did look a little like Barbara Walters last night in his slow-walking appearance on stage in a wild and crazy sport jacket on American Idol, he's still got some wind in those pipes.
It was the Beatles - half of them dead now - who famously asked: "Will you still love me, will you still need me, when I'm 64?''
And the fact that so many apparently still need, or at least love, the music of the shaggy old lions of the Sixties - whose number, after all, were all those finalists on Idol performing last night, if not Stewart's stomping "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?'' - suggests a certain vacuum in the lineup of musical talent today. Indeed, those 100 million who cast their votes for the next Idol went with mediocrity over metrosexual.
Roderick David "Rod'' Stewart was born in 1945.
(Photo of Rod Stewart on American Ido by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
If you've never heard him sing with guitarist Jeff Beck - "Truth'' - then you've missed something.
If you missed The Rod Stewart Album, well, that came out 40 years ago. We'll go with "Man of Constant Sorrow'' and "Dirty Old Town'' on that one. But we're still a lot more fond of Gasoline Alley - 1970 - The title cut, for one, and "Only a Hobo','' for sure. This is how old we are: We own the original vinyl.
Compare, if you will, the career of Rod Stewart to the promise that Kris Allen, winner of American Idol 2009, holds.
The voting public, in siding with the 23-year-old from Arkansas, cast a solid vote for mainstream musical taste - make that elevator music - in casting aside the singer with far greater range and verve, 27-year-old Adam Lambert.
They picked the guy they'd rather see show up at the door for a date with their daughter, as opposed to a guy that might come courting their son.
"This is crazy,'' Allen said of his selection.
He was right.
We'd love to be around, 40 years from now, to see where "idol'' Kris Allen stands in the pantheon of popular music.
The old stars were not cast with telephone polls.
They scrapped their way to the top.
Old Rod Stewart surely will be gone in another 40 years. And Mick, too. But find us anyone who has enjoyed their sort of run. Tony Bennett comes to mind. You gotta love these old guys, still singing after all these years.
Comments
Makes you want to role one and drop the stylus on "Maggie May". "we" had great music, Mark! Ah, the good ole' days; peace, love, and tunes!
Posted by: bubba Porter | May 21, 2009 9:21 AM
Thanks so much for this post, Mark.
Brings me back to seeing the Jeff Beck Group, fronted by Stewart way back when with some great friends in my small town in a converted bowling alley (I couldn't believe it either!). Their second album, Beck-Ola, had just come out. Jeff Beck was terrific, of course. Who knew the bassist (Ron Wood) would become the guitarist for the Stones? Just a great night.
Good call on Only a Hobo from Gasoline Alley, Mark. It's got a haunting lyric from American's poet laureate, Bob Dylan:
Only A Hobo
As I was out walking on a corner one day,
I spied an old hobo, in a doorway he lay.
His face was all grounded in the cold sidewalk floor
And I guess he'd been there for the whole night or more.
Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Leavin' nobody to sing his sad song
Leavin' nobody to carry him home
Only a hobo, but one more is gone
A blanket of newspaper covered his head,
As the curb was his pillow, the street was his bed.
One look at his face showed the hard road he'd come
And a fistful of coins showed the money he bummed.
Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Leavin' nobody to sing his sad song
Leavin' nobody to carry him home
Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Does it take much of a man to see his whole life go down,
To look up on the world from a hole in the ground,
To wait for your future like a horse that's gone lame,
To lie in the gutter and die with no name?
Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Leavin' nobody to sing his sad song
Leavin' nobody to carry him home
Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Posted by: Kenny Bunkport | May 21, 2009 6:44 PM