A Man of Wealth and Taste

Outside the window of Rod Stewart's London flat, the sun begins its slow descent, casting a romantic glow on the Tower Bridge, which spans the Thames river to the south. It's a chilly November afternoon -- the wind is whipping through the streets below -- but seven floors up there's a dead calm. Stewart paces around the small apartment, his London crash pad, sipping tea brewed by his personal assistant, lamenting the night before, when he and his best mates hopped aboard a private jet to fly to Lisbon, where his favorite soccer team, Celtic, was trounced, 3-0.

"I flew all the way to fucking Portugal to see my team get beat," he says. "Everything was absolutely marvelous until the game started. Then, as we say, they all went pear-shaped. And I'm Celtic's most famous supporter, so when the other team scored their first goal, the whole stadium looked at me like I'm responsible. It was horrible." As if he'd admonished himself a million times before, he adds, "I put far too much energy into football." And it's probably true; he's definitely tired, cranky and a little hung over. But Stewart won't wallow in misery much longer. A minute later he slips off his heavy brown coat and opens the door onto a deck. He takes a seat, shimmies out of a silk scarf to expose his red, splotchy clavicles, takes a deep breath, closes his eyes and tilts his head back. Despite the frigid temperature, Stewart is now tanning, attempting to absorb as much remaining sunlight as possible.

"Oh, I'll be fine," he says. "A glass of wine will cheer me up."

And that's all it takes. On a day like today, as soon as Stewart takes that first sip of wine -- on his way to three glasses, two white and one red, which he calls his daily average -- and today's alcohol meets up with last night's, Stewart is himself again. And days like this are few and far between: Celtic are enjoying a fairly successful season and, though Stewart may consider it to be less important than football, he is still in the midst of a remarkable career resurgence that began in 2002 with It Had to Be You . . . The Great American Songbook. That collection of standards, including "The Way You Look Tonight" and "You Go to My Head," spawned three sequels over the next three years -- As Time Goes By, Stardust and Thanks for the Memory. Together, these four CDs have sold 16 million copies around the world, garnered Stewart his first-ever Grammy (for Stardust) and brought fans back to his high-energy shows, which mix his old hits like "Tonight's the Night," "Hot Legs" and "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy" with even older hits from his standards repertoire. On his three-year world tour of stadiums and arenas, called "From Maggie May to the American Songbook," no ticket went unsold. (In 2005 he topped Dave Matthews Band, the Eagles, Jimmy Buffett, Green Day and Bruce Springsteen, grossing $49 million in ticket sales.)

And in October, Stewart released Still the Same . . . Great Rock Classics of Our Time, in which he takes on hits by Van Morrison, Bob Seger, the Pretenders and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Still the Same debuted on the charts at Number One, which is what sets Stewart apart from contemporaries like Paul Simon, Elton John, Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones: While those legends still sell out concerts around the world, Stewart still sells records. "They're not new anymore," he says. "It's as simple as that. When you've been around the block so many times, it's hard to come up with something different. Elton -- he put so much love into that album [The Captain & the Kid] -- he told me, 'This is the one.' And I feel so sorry for him." He smiles, because Elton John, whom Stewart sometimes refers to as Sharon, has been a friendly adversary over the years. "But not too sorry for him, of course."