Rod Stewart’s career began not with a chart hit but with a harmonica, busking in London and finding his way into the city’s rhythm-and-blues clubs. From there he moved through Steampacket, the Jeff Beck Group and Faces while building a solo career of his own. His 1971 breakthrough, “Maggie May”, established a sound shaped by rock, folk, soul and rhythm and blues; later successes, including the disco-tinged “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?”, showed how readily he could move between styles.

Highgate, football and a first harmonica

Roderick David Stewart was born in Highgate, north London, on 10 January 1945, the youngest of five children. His father, Robert, was Scottish and had worked as a master builder in Leith; his mother, Elsie, was English. The family lived above a newsagent’s shop after his father retired from the building trade. Stewart later described his childhood as happy, though he did not excel at school. He attended William Grimshaw Secondary Modern School in Muswell Hill and developed an early interest in football and railway modelling.

Football was a serious ambition. Stewart captained his school team and played as a centre-half for Middlesex Schoolboys. In 1960, aged 15, he went for trials at Brentford, then a Third Division club, but was not signed. After leaving school, he worked briefly as a silk-screen printer and took other jobs, including as a sign writer, while music increasingly drew his attention. His father gave him a guitar in January 1959; he later joined a skiffle group with school friends, the Kool Kats.

In 1962, Stewart began busking with folk singer Wizz Jones, playing harmonica around Leicester Square and elsewhere. The pair travelled to Brighton and Paris, and later to Barcelona, where Stewart was deported from Spain for vagrancy. Back in London, he moved towards rhythm and blues and soul. In October 1963 he joined the Dimensions as a harmonica player and occasional vocalist, beginning his professional life as a musician.

Finding his voice in the London bands

In 1964, Long John Baldry heard Stewart playing harmonica at Twickenham railway station and invited him to join the Hoochie Coochie Men. Stewart’s singing became more prominent, and he was billed as “Rod the Mod”, a name that matched his carefully styled appearance. He made his recording debut on a Baldry single in June that year, then signed a solo contract with Decca. His first single, “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl”, was released in October but did not enter the charts.

Stewart moved between projects as the London R&B scene gathered pace. In 1965 he joined Steampacket, a revue combining blues, jazz and rhythm and blues, whose first appearance was supporting the Rolling Stones. After leaving the group in 1966, he sang with Shotgun Express, whose members included Mick Fleetwood and Peter Green. Neither band brought major commercial success, but the work gave Stewart experience as a frontman and helped him develop the rough-edged vocal style that would become his signature.

His turning point came in February 1967, when guitarist Jeff Beck recruited him for the Jeff Beck Group. The band’s first album, Truth, appeared in 1968 and reached number 15 in the United States. Its mix of blues, folk and rock gave Stewart room to push his voice further. He left in 1969 after a turbulent period, but the group had given him a substantial audience and brought him together with guitarist Ronnie Wood, a friendship that would shape the next phase of his career.

Faces and the breakthrough of “Maggie May”

In 1969 Stewart joined Wood and the former Small Faces musicians Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones in a new group, Faces. He also began recording solo albums. An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down, released in 1969, established an individual sound built from folk, rock and country blues, with original songs alongside covers. Faces, meanwhile, developed a following through energetic live performances and released its debut album, First Step, in 1970.

Stewart’s third solo album, Every Picture Tells a Story, brought his breakthrough in 1971. Its single “Maggie May” began as the less-prominent side of “Reason to Believe”, but radio play made it a hit. In September, the album and single reached number one in the UK, the United States, Canada and Australia at the same time. The record’s acoustic textures, mandolin and narrative songwriting set it apart from a straightforward rock album, while the title song and tracks such as “Mandolin Wind” revealed the range of Stewart’s early solo work.

Faces remained active as Stewart’s solo profile grew. The band’s 1971 album A Nod Is as Good as a Wink...To a Blind Horse produced its only US Top 40 hit, “Stay with Me”. Stewart’s next solo album, Never a Dull Moment (1972), reached number one in the UK; “You Wear It Well” topped the UK singles chart. Differences over the growing attention paid to Stewart’s solo career contributed to tensions within Faces. Its last studio album, Ooh La La, arrived in 1973, and the group broke up in 1975.

Changing sound, changing audiences

After moving to Los Angeles in 1975, Stewart released Atlantic Crossing, a record that introduced a new sound and returned him to the upper end of the American album charts. Its single “Sailing” reached number one in the UK. The BBC later used the song as the theme for a documentary series about HMS Ark Royal, helping it return to the British Top 10. It became his biggest-selling single in the UK.

In 1976, A Night on the Town continued his run of international success. The album included “The First Cut Is the Deepest”, a Cat Stevens cover that reached number one in the UK, and “Tonight’s the Night (Gonna Be Alright)”, which topped the US and Canadian charts. Stewart’s range widened further with Blondes Have More Fun (1978) and its disco-influenced single “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?”. Both reached number one in the United States, Canada and Australia; the single also topped the UK chart. The song drew criticism for its departure from his earlier work, and its refrain prompted a lawsuit over its similarity to Jorge Ben Jor’s “Taj Mahal”. Stewart donated his royalties from the song to UNICEF and performed it at the 1979 Music for UNICEF Concert.

He continued to move between styles. In the early 1980s, his albums incorporated new wave and synthpop, while later recordings returned to softer rock. “Baby Jane” became a UK number-one single in 1983. In 1991, “Rhythm of My Heart” reached the UK and US Top Five. His 1993 collaboration with Bryan Adams and Sting, “All for Love”, topped the charts in many countries. That year he also reunited with Wood for an MTV Unplugged performance, which included songs from Every Picture Tells a Story and a version of Van Morrison’s “Have I Told You Lately”.

Songbooks, songwriting and recognition

From 2002, Stewart recorded a successful series of albums interpreting songs from the Great American Songbook. The first reached the US Top Five and the UK Top 10; the third, Stardust, became his first US number-one album in 25 years and won him a Grammy Award. The project introduced his voice to another repertoire and generation of listeners, while his recording career continued to include rock, soul and seasonal standards.

Stewart returned to writing original material with Time in 2013, after a long period in which he had concentrated largely on other songwriters’ work. The album reached number one in the UK, setting a record for the longest gap between chart-topping albums by an artist there. He followed it with Another Country in 2015. Later releases include Blood Red Roses (2018), The Tears of Hercules (2021) and Swing Fever, recorded with Jools Holland’s Rhythm and Blues Orchestra and released in 2024.

Recognition has come from both sides of the Atlantic. Stewart received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music in 1993 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 1994. He entered it again in 2012 as a member of Faces. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2007 for services to music and knighted in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to music and charity. After undergoing surgery for thyroid cancer in 2000, he also raised funds for the City of Hope Foundation, which works to find cures for cancer, particularly cancers affecting children.

Why Rod Stewart deserves a place in British Legacy

Rod Stewart’s place in British musical history rests on more than a distinctive voice or a sequence of hit records. His early career was built in the working music culture of London: busking, playing harmonica in rhythm-and-blues groups, and developing as a singer in bands that included Steampacket, the Jeff Beck Group and Faces. He carried that experience into a solo career that made Every Picture Tells a Story an international breakthrough. “Maggie May” and the album’s combination of rock, folk, soul and rhythm and blues show how a recognisably British musical voice could reach audiences across several continents.

His subsequent changes of direction are part of that achievement. “Sailing”, “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” and the Great American Songbook recordings belong to different musical worlds, yet each brought his voice to new listeners. His return to original songwriting with Time also demonstrated a continued connection with the craft behind the performances. Two inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame recognise his work both as a solo artist and as a member of Faces; his CBE and knighthood mark recognition in Britain for services to music. Together, these milestones make his career a record of British popular music’s ability to absorb influences, change with its audiences and travel widely without losing its local beginnings.

Sources

Rod Stewart — Wikipedia revision 1378019616

Adapted in part from Rod Stewart by Wikipedia contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Text has been edited and combined with the existing article; this adapted text is shared under the same licence. Contributor history.