By Elliott West
“We need joy, we live in very dark times”.
Rod Stewart
Introduction
Some types of music are timeless and what better way to tap into a type of music that just makes you want to tap your foot and get up and dance? The collaborative album between Rod Stewart, Jools Holland and his rhythm and blues band, does just this. Entitled ‘Swing Fever’, the tracks on this beautifully crafted album, transport the listener back to a bygone age. An age when television was in its infancy and listening to the radio and vinyl records was all the rage. This was the Big Band era when lovers danced the night away and singletons caught the eye of one another across the dancefloor. The era of bright, glamorous dresses and swish suits.
This is an album that is getting rave reviews with a frenzy of audience attention on the BBC’s Hootenanny and a preview at King’s Cross St Pancras station. The album brings together two giants of the music industry, Rod Stewart and Jools Holland, two music icons who until this point knew of each other but hadn’t spent time together. Yet it is strange how life deals its hand. The creation of this musical masterpiece took a while to get off the ground after Jools received a call from Rod asking for a collaborative work but the music maestro just thought it was a prank call at the time. However after a time-lapse met and hit it off from the start, keen to capture this captivating music from the 1930s.
Sweet Music
The background to the creation of this album is very refreshing. Unlike so many music creations, there were no arguments, fights, splits or bad words uttered. Rod felt that some of his music had gone stale so this was a great opportunity to create a reboot. When Jools and Rod first met, Holland was anxious about how Stewart would react to his scores for the music. He didn’t need to worry because Rod greeted him with a beaming smile. This was the start of a blossoming friendship where the recording studio sessions became an absolute joy with plenty of dancing and laughter.
Unlike most recording sessions that require multiple takes for the songs, Swing Fever was produced relatively quickly as the majority of the tracks were recorded in one take. Tracks like Pennies from Heaven, Sentimental Journey and Walking My Baby Back Home. Jules whose real name is Julian Miles Holland has created catchy versions of these old numbers and sprinkled a touch of his magic onto them. A beautiful mix of piano, vocals and maximum backing from the band of 18 pieces.
Rod Stewart is no stranger to this type of music, having already brought out five volumes of his Great American Songbook. With a combined age of 145, Rod being 79 and Jools 66, there is a wealth of experience in this album and it is a must for any fan of this type of music. If you don’t believe me, just ask Rod’s wife Penny Lancaster who couldn’t stop dancing to the music in the videos.
