Sailing with Rod Stewart

"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 #1 for four weeks in September 1975.
According to Iain Sutherland the connection between the Sutherland Brothers and Rod Stewart which led to Stewart's recording of "Sailing" began when Stewart's live-in girlfriend Dee Harrington saw the Sutherland Brothers on the 20 June 1972 broadcast of the BBC2 music program The Old Grey Whistle Test: Harrington recommended the Sutherland Brothers as a musical act who'd interest Stewart and Stewart did indeed become a Sutherland Brothers fan after seeing them perform at the Marquee Club.

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: "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."