Rod Stewart: Still The Same

Rock N' Roll Legend Put Out Album Of Classics

(CBS)  Stewart says he's always preferred the energy of a live audience – where he's developed a trade-mark of kicking soccer balls into the crowd – to the tedium of studio recording. Yet it's his work in the studio in the last few years that has garnered him his biggest commercial success, and music's biggest prize: a Grammy. Stewart's interpretations of golden oldies, his "Great American Songbook" series, have sold fifteen million discs. To Stewart, making the album was simply a stroll down memory lane:

"You know when I was a kid we used to have these great house parties you know, really big parties at Christmas. Any excuse for everyone to get drunk. And everyone used to fool around and sing those songs. So I was just a wee lad hiding under the piano, I was supposed to be in bed, but you know I crept down so I could watch the adults and that's where I learned most of them."

The "Great American Songbook" series was a commercial triumph, and coming on the heels of his 1999 diagnosis with thyroid cancer, a personal one as well. The cancer nearly ended his singing career.

"I was out actually for about nine months to a year," he said. "Couldn't sing a note really because they cut right through your vocal cords and your voice -- the muscles around your voice go into memory loss."

He bounced back and now at 61, he's returning to his roots and is releasing a new collection of classic rock and roll hits this coming week, called "Still the Same."

"There are certain songs you have to leave alone and certain songs that can be revisited," Stewart said. "And I think we've chosen the ones that needed revisiting. And not everybody's gonna feel that. But these are the ones I thought maybe I could add something vocally to them, you know make a little bit more interesting."

The album includes covers of songs by Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens, and Van Morrison – the quieter side of rock that reflects the quieter side of Stewart.

"More age-appropriate, I suppose," he said.

For his next act, he says he's considering a return to writing his own songs, which he left behind because he's a "lazy bugger."

"Writing songs for me has always been difficult," he said. "You know, I have to sit down and finish the lyrics and then write and go lock myself in a room and I avoid it like the plague."

On the contrary, Stewart manages to live the life of a much younger man. He works out every day and he and his fiancée British model Penny Lancaster, 35, have a ten month old son Alastair. But even Stewart admits he's slowing down. He's more dedicated to his music, his privacy and his children.

"But you know, I haven't joined the pipe and slipper club yet," he said.