From Tom Jones to the Rolling Stones, Who Are the Oldest Swingers in Town?
Van Morrison, 75
Known as “Van the Man” to his fans, Sir George Ivan Morrison OBE rose to prominence in the mid-1960s as the lead singer of the Northern Irish R&B and rock band Them, with whom he recorded the garage band classic Gloria. His solo career began in 1967 with the release of the hit single Brown Eyed Girl and the influential album Astral Weeks.
After the May 7th release of a new double-album titled Latest Record Project: Volume 1, the legendary Irish singer-songwriter will be performing his very first virtual concert, a pay-per-view show scheduled for May 8th via nugs.net from the famed Real World Studios in the village of Box, Wiltshire.
Van Morrison, a notoriously terrifying interviewee and increasing an outspoken political commentator, plans to debut new songs and perform his biggest hits as well.
News of the livestream concert comes months after Van Morrison shared his anti-lockdown opinions and displeasure with the UK government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. He wrote multiple tracks opposing the restrictions put in place to keep the public safe from coronavirus, including No More Lockdown, Born To Be Free and As I Walked Out.
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Rod Stewart, 76
Another musical knight, Sir Roderick David Stewart CBE, born in 1945, is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold over 250 million records worldwide. He has had 10 number-one albums and 31 top ten singles in the UK, 6 of which reached number one. He was knighted in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to music and charity.
Highly regarded for his stint with The Faces, he also pursued a solo career with albums fusing rock, folk and soul music, with his third album, 1971’s Every Picture Tells a Story topping the charts in the UK, US, Canada and Australia, as did the single Maggie May“. His 1972 follow-up album, Never a Dull Moment, also reached number one in the UK and Australia, while going top three in the US and Canada, and the single You Wear It Well topped the chart in the UK.
In more recent years Rod has produced a series of Great American Songbook albums, and in June he releases four of his mid-Seventies albums as part of a vinyl box set that also includes an extra LP filled with rare and unreleased studio outtakes from the era.
“It’s extraordinary for me to look back on this era of my career,” Stewart said of the box set in a statement. “I think fans will enjoy experiencing these songs on vinyl. I know I did.”
The box set’s fifth LP, dubbed Encores 1975-1978, is dedicated to alternate and early versions and studio outtakes from the four albums’ recording sessions, including five previously unreleased session outtakes from Foot Loose & Fancy Free and Blondes Have More Fun, including a cover of the Motown classic You Really Got a Hold on Me and the songs Silver Tongue and Don’t Hang Up. Three tracks Stewart recorded alongside Booker T. and the MG’s also feature on the fifth disc.
