Rod Stewart has sold the rights to his catalog to Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group for close to $100 million.
“Irving and I are a couple of old-timers and I believe we have a mutual respect and admiration for each other,” Stewart said in a statement given to the The Wall Street Journal. “My life’s work is in safe hands with him.”
Other artists who have also sold their catalog to Azoff’s company include the Beach Boys, Cher, David Crosby, Linda Ronstadt, Graham Nash and Stephen Stills. Additionally, Iconic has reportedly raised over $1 billion to invest in future catalog purchases.
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The news comes less than a year after Stewart turned down a potential deal with Hipgnosis Songs.
“This catalogue represents my life’s work,” Stewart said at the time [via MusicWeek]. “And it became abundantly clear after much time and due diligence that this was not the right company to manage my song catalogue, career or legacy.”
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Stewart is currently gearing up for the Feb. 23 release of his 32nd album, Swing Fever, a collaboration with Jools Holland. Primarily recorded live in the studio, it features 13 covers of classic big band numbers.
“Jools would rehearse with the band for a day with songs,” Stewart explained to Rolling Stone late last year, “and then the next day I’d show up and everything was live and in three hours we’d have three takes, solos were live, everything was live apart from my vocals, there’s not many records that are made like that nowadays.”
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Gallery Credit: Allison Rapp
