He'll turn 60 in January, a career ice age for most graying rockers. So why is Rod Stewart smiling? Because last month Stardust...The Great American Songbook, Vol. III, the gravel-voiced Brit's latest album of standards, became his first ever to debut at No. 1, selling 240,000 copies in its first week. Nesting nowadays in his Beverly Hills estate with his girlfriend, Penny Lancaster, 33, a British model, the twice-divorced Stewart says his late-blooming comeback is "absolutely sweeter. I've been written off so many bloody times, it's like I had the last laugh." As he enters his elder statesman years, PEOPLE asked Stewart to look back in wisdom at the days when he was a mere towheaded lad in very tight trousers.

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1976 "It's a lovely figure of a man, you must admit. Can you imagine I used to wear this and then go play [soccer] on Saturday?"

1976 "This is my favorite picture because it's so funny. Harem pants, they used to call them, and I've got silver braces around my ankles."

1979 "Little broader across the beam there. If there was one thing I wished I didn't do, it's sweat onstage. I always look like a drowned rat."

1980 "This is the most typical rock outfit you could get. It's what the lead singer of the Darkness wears. I'm sure he knows nothing about me."