It's Hot: Sir Rod

If people had just quit nagging him about it, Tommy Edward would never have started impersonating Rod Stewart.

"People would come up to me and say, 'Well, you sound like Rod Stewart, and you look like Rod Stewart,' " Edward said from his studio in Ocean City, Md. "And I was like, 'Maybe I look a little bit like him, but I don't really look like Rod Stewart.' "

Edward tried to dodge the comparisons. He grew a goatee. He let his hair grow long and dyed it jet black. It didn't help. He kept getting compared to Rod Stewart. Finally, he'd had enough.

"I was trying to be my own star, like everybody else was trying to be," he said. "But once you hit your 30s, you have to make a decision. So, after six years of people saying I look like Rod Stewart, I finally said, 'Well, that's enough of this. I might as well impersonate him, since people won't leave me alone about it anyway.' "

And so, Sir Rod was born.

For the last 23 years, Edward has impersonated Stewart at shows in the Mid-Atlantic and in Las Vegas. But he has a particular affinity for crowds in Northeast Philadelphia and at the Jersey Shore, where he has played everywhere from he Surf City Hotel on Long Beach Island to casinos in Atlantic City to Lighthouse Pointe in Wildwood (now the Bay Club). He plays Saturday night in North Wildwood at the Knights of Columbus Hall.

Edward began his career as Sir Rod in an unlikely place: As part of a Rolling Stones tribute band.

After playing a few shows in West Chester and Upper Darby, he was introduced to a group that wanted to play two sets of Stones songs sandwiched between a set of Rod Stewart tunes.

"I didn't know what to think," Edward said. "These guys looked like the Rolling Stones, because they were a Rolling Stones tribute." The pairing lasted less than a year, but a chance reunion at a Maryland show inspired Edward to continue.

"My agent said: 'You don't need those guys, you need your own band. And you call it what you want,' " Edward said. "And I said I'd already been calling it Sir Rod."

That was prescient: This was the early 1990s, and the actual Rod Stewart wasn't knighted until 2007. Edward began playing at clubs in his native Baltimore - when he's not doing Stewart, he has a thick Baltimore accent - and in Northeast Philly. He eventually moved to the city where tribute acts rule: Las Vegas.

After about 10 years, he moved back - but without his band, which stayed in Las Vegas. His agent said people in the area were still clamoring for Sir Rod shows. He assembled a new band and has been playing scores of shows every year in the area since. The current iteration of the Sir Rod tribute band is in its second decade rocking the Jersey Shore every summer.

Sometimes, things get surreal. The real Rod Stewart has been playing Caesars Palace in Las Vegas since 2011, and Edward recently saw him in concert. "It was weird - you've been impersonating this guy for so many years," he said. "He looked at me. He didn't frown at me, but he didn't smile, either. He gave me a look like, 'What are you trying to do, look like me?'

"I was blubbering like a kindergartner, 'Oh, wow, Rod, I can't believe it, I love you.' It's a little freaky being that close to someone you look like and you've idolized since you were 6 years old."

So what's a Sir Rod show like?

Those people who bugged him were right: When Sir Rod is on stage, he really does look and sound like him. It could actually be Stewart (well, a younger Stewart) until you realize this isn't an ordinary tribute band. Sir Rod will pull up kids in front for a hula hoop contest, wish everyone a happy birthday before "Forever Young," or bring women up on stage for a sing-along. A Sir Rod show is often like Rod Stewart playing in your basement in front of a few dozen fans.

The performance at the Knights of Columbus is a solo Sir Rod show, as the venue is simply too small to host a small band. He just plays with a backing track. "The venue is only, like, 40 feet wide," he says. "The stage only holds one person." The lack of a band allows him more freedom - he can improvise with audience members, clown around more, and have a bit more fun.

He says fans down the Shore (and in Northeast Philly and Baltimore) are the ones primarily responsible for his success. "They've almost booked us ourselves," Edward said. "They're always recommending us and they're just feverish about it. I never thought it would get past one year, and I'm in year 23 now. That's how that goes."