In Rod we trust: World exclusive re-issues preview!

We’re Cheryl Pawelski and Andy Zax, the producers who’ve been overseeing Rhino/Warner Bros.’s ongoing work on Rod’s catalog. We wanted to take a moment to introduce ourselves and tell you a little bit about what we have planned for the coming months.

We know that hardcore Rod fans have been eagerly awaiting news about upcoming projects, and we truly appreciate your enthusiasm and excitement, as well as your patience.

Because Rod is the global icon that he is, and because his music means many things to many groups of people, we’ve created a diverse slate of releases that are tailored to different audiences. We began last fall with the release of “The Definitive Rod Stewart”/”Some Guys Have All The Luck,” and continued with the expanded “Unplugged…and seated” earlier this year. While both of those releases had some new audio content (and a lot of new DVD content), we’re pretty sure that a many of you may have been thinking: “Is that it? What about unreleased material? What about B-sides and remixes and compilation tracks and live stuff? Aren’t you going to do something with all of that?”

In a word: yes!

We’ve spent the last year going through every single Rod Stewart tape held by the Warner Music Group, as well as Rod’s manager Arnold Stiefel’s private warehouse of unexplored material, and over the next 18 months we’ll be deluging you with the results of our labors.

On June 30th, we’ll be releasing 2 CD Collectors’ Editions of Atlantic Crossing and A Night On The Town. Each of these has been carefully remastered from first-generation tapes (especially notable in the case of A Night On The Town, as we managed to find the original album master which had been missing since 1976 — the improvement in quality is massive). Each includes pertinent non-LP material from the period, as well as an entire disc of previously unreleased outtakes and alternate versions. (Collectors Editions of Foot Loose And Fancy Free and Blondes Have More Fun will follow in early 2010.)

Even before that, we’ll be rolling out expanded digital editions of Rod’s 1980-2001 albums May 19th (for the US & Canada, the rest of the world to follow shortly thereafter). These are intended for a more general, less-hardcore audience, and although they do include some things you won’t have heard before (we’re especially partial to a 1980 studio rough in which Rod and the band discover the seeds of something that would blossom into “Young Turks” the following year), we want to make sure that you know that this is just the tip of the iceberg: the bulk of the unreleased and rare material will be arriving in different ways, and it will be available on CD.

We feel pretty confident in saying that for serious Rod aficionados, the biggest event of 2009 will be the release of a brand new boxed set. We’re sworn to secrecy about the details for a little while longer, but we’re really excited about this box, and we think that you will be, too.

But wait! — as they say on TV — That’s not all! 2010 will see the arrival of a decades-spanning 4CD live retrospective. We’re also planning a series of internet-only CD releases designed with the serious Rod Stewart fan in mind. There will be volumes devoted to b-sides and remixes, an Out Of Order Collectors’ Edition, the long-delayed debut of the legendary lost album Once In A Blue Moon, and more. By the time we get finished, we hope you’ll feel like we’ve given Rod’s catalog the care and attention that it has long deserved.

We’re really looking forward to the next 18 months, and we hope that you enjoy hearing all of this music as much as we enjoyed putting it all together.

As the letter indicates, we are releasing 2 CD Collectors’ Editions of Atlantic Crossing and A Night On The Town on June 30th. The following are links to hear two exclusive tracks from the upcoming Collector’s Editions.