Rod Stewart - Sailing

"Sailing" is a song composed by Gavin Sutherland of the Sutherland Brothers in 1972, best known as a 1975 international hit for Rod Stewart. "Sailing" was recorded by Rod Stewart for his first album recorded in North America rather than Great Britain: Atlantic Crossing, which album was recorded April – June 1975 at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio with Tom Dowd producing. The first single from the album, "Sailing" afforded Stewart an international hit notably in the UK where "Sailing" was No. 1 for four weeks in September 1975: augmented by a return to the UK chart in 1976 and – to a lesser extent – 1987, "Sailing" remains the Rod Stewart single to have the greatest success in its UK release. However, "Sailing" failed to afford Stewart a major hit in his newly adopted US homeland. In the US, where Atlantic Crossing had been issued in August 1975 without a single release, "Sailing" was issued as the album's lead single in October 1975 but failed to reach the Top 40 of Billboard, attaining a Hot 100 peak of No. 58. Overall "Sailing" did afford Stewart a major international success reaching No.1 in Ireland, the Netherlands, and Norway; No. 2 in Australia, Belgium's Flemish Region, South Africa and Switzerland; No. 3 in New Zealand; No. 4 in Germany; No. 7 in Austria; No. 13 in Sweden. Stewart would recall the recording of "Sailing" being a challenge: he was awoken in his hotel room by a 10 am phone call from Dowd at Muscles Shoals, in which Dowd said "Get down here in half an hour; we've mixed the track and need the vocal"; Stewart (quote): "I was like: 'You're joking, recording at 10:30 in the morning. I need a drink to calm the old nerves'...There was nothing alcoholic to be had anywhere and I was terrified to sing without a drink"..."I'd never sung anything in a studio without having a drink – let alone a big old anthem. And I'd never sung anything, anywhere that early in the morning. Got it in six or seven takes though."