Sir Roderick David Stewart (born 10 January 1945) is a British singer and songwriter. Known for his distinctive raspy singing voice, Stewart is among the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 120 million records worldwide. His music career began in 1962 when he took up busking with a harmonica. He was a member of various bands before joining the Jeff Beck Group in 1967. Joining Faces in 1969, he also launched a solo career, releasing his debut album, An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down, that year. Stewart's early albums were a fusion of rock, folk music, soul music, and R&B. His third album, 1971's Every Picture Tells a Story, was his breakthrough, topping the charts in the UK, US, Canada and Australia, as did its single "Maggie May". His 1972 follow-up album, Never a Dull Moment, also reached number one in the UK and Australia, while going top three in the US and Canada. Its single, "You Wear It Well", topped the UK chart and was a moderate hit elsewhere.
After Faces broke up in 1975, Stewart's commercial success continued, starting with the UK number-one album Atlantic Crossing and the ballad "Sailing". A Night on the Town (1976), his fifth straight chart-topper in the UK, began a three-album run of going number one or top three in the US, Canada, the UK and Australia with each release. That album's "Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright)" spent almost two months at number one in the US and Canada, and made the top five in other countries. Foot Loose & Fancy Free (1977) contained the hit "You're in My Heart (The Final Acclaim)" as well as the rocker "Hot Legs". Blondes Have More Fun (1978) and its disco-tinged "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" both went to number one in Canada, Australia and the US, with "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" also hitting number one in the UK and the top ten in other countries. Stewart's albums regularly hit the upper levels of the charts in the Netherlands in the 1970s and in Sweden from 1975 onward.
After a disco and new wave period in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Stewart's music turned to a soft rock/middle-of-the-road style, with most of his albums reaching the top ten in the UK, Germany and Sweden, but faring less well in the US. The single "Rhythm of My Heart" was a top five hit in the UK, US and other countries, with its source album, 1991's Vagabond Heart, becoming, at number ten in the US and number two in the UK, his highest-charting album in a decade. In 1993, he collaborated with Bryan Adams and Sting on the power ballad "All for Love", which went to number one in many countries. In the early 2000s he released a series of successful albums which interpreted the Great American Songbook.
In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked Stewart the 17th most successful artist on the "Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists". A Grammy and Brit Award recipient, he was voted at No. 33 in Q Magazines list of the Top 100 Greatest Singers of all time. As a solo artist, Stewart was inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2006, and he was inducted a second time into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012 as a member of Faces. He has had 10 number-one albums and 31 top-ten singles in the UK, six of which reached number one. Stewart has had 16 top-ten singles in the US, with four reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100. He was knighted in Britain's 2016 Birthday Honours for services to music and charity. Guitarist Steve Cropper said Stewart ranked alongside Otis Redding as "the finest singer with whom he had ever worked".
Early life Roderick David Stewart was born at 507 Archway Road, Highgate, North London, on 10 January 1945, the youngest of five children of Robert Joseph Stewart1939 England and Wales Register and Elsie Rebecca Gilbart.Nelson and Bangs, Rod Stewart, p. 53. His father was Scottish and had been a master builder in Leith, Edinburgh. Elsie was English and had grown up in Upper Holloway, north London. Married in 1928, the couple had two sons and two daughters while living in Scotland and then moved to Highgate. Stewart's parents are buried in Highgate Cemetery.
Stewart was born at home during the Second World War, eight years after his nearest sibling.Ewbank and Hildred, Rod Stewart: The New Biography, pp. 2–3. The family was neither affluent nor poor; Stewart was spoiled as the youngest, and has called his childhood "fantastically happy". He had an undistinguished record at Highgate Primary School and failed the eleven-plus exam.Ewbank and Hildred, Rod Stewart: The New Biography, p. 7. He then attended the William Grimshaw Secondary Modern School (later Fortismere School), Muswell Hill. When his father retired from the building trade he bought a newsagent's shop on the Archway Road and the family lived over the shop. Stewart's main hobby was railway modelling.Ewbank and Hildred, Rod Stewart: The New Biography, pp. 9–10.
The family was mostly focused on football; Stewart's father had played in a local amateur team and managed some teams as well, and one of Stewart's earliest memories was of the pictures of Scottish players such as George Young and Gordon Smith that his brothers had on the wall. Stewart was the most talented footballer in the family and was a supporter of Arsenal at the time.Ewbank and Hildred, Rod Stewart: The New Biography, pp. 4–5. Combining natural athleticism with near-reckless aggression, he became captain of the school football team and played for Middlesex Schoolboys as centre-half.
The family were also great fans of the singer Al Jolson and would sing and play his hits.Nelson and Bangs, Rod Stewart, p. 54. Stewart collected his records and saw his films, read books about him, and was influenced by his performing style and attitude towards his audience.Moritz (ed.), Current Year Biography 1979, p. 374. His introduction to rock and roll was hearing Little Richard's 1956 hit "The Girl Can't Help It", and seeing Bill Haley & His Comets in concert. His father bought him a guitar in January 1959 and the first song he learned was the folk tune "It Takes a Worried Man to Sing a Worried Song". The first record he bought was Eddie Cochran's "C'mon Everybody". In 1960, he joined a skiffle group with school friends called the Kool Kats, playing Lonnie Donegan and Chas McDevitt hits.Gray, Rod Stewart: The Visual Documentary, pp. 4–5.
Stewart left school at the age of 15Ewbank and Hildred, Rod Stewart: The New Biography, pp. 10–11. and worked briefly as a silk-screen printer. Spurred on by his father, his ambition was to become a professional footballer. In summer 1960 he went for trials at Brentford,Stewart, Rod: The Autobiography, pp. 16–19. a Third Division club at the time. Contrary to some longstanding accounts, Stewart states in his 2012 autobiography that he was never signed to the club and that the club never called him back after his trials. Regarding possible career options, Stewart concluded, "Well, a musician's life is a lot easier and I can also get drunk and make music, and I can't do that and play football. I plumped for music ... They're the only two things I can do actually: play football and sing."
Music career 1961–1963: Early work and The Dimensions Stewart worked in the family shop and as a newspaper delivery boy.Ewbank and Hildred, Rod Stewart: The New Biography, pp. 12–13. He then worked briefly as a labourer for Highgate Cemetery, which became another part of his biographical lore. He worked in a North Finchley funeral parlour and as a fence erector and sign writer. In 1961, he went to Denmark Street with the Raiders and got a singing audition with well-known record producer Joe Meek, but Meek stopped the session with a rude sound.Ewbank and Hildred, Rod Stewart: The New Biography, pp. 14–16, 20. Stewart began listening to British and American topical folk artists such as Ewan MacColl, Alex Campbell, Woody Guthrie, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, and especially Derroll Adams and the debut album of Bob Dylan.Moritz (ed.), Current Year Biography 1979, p. 375.
Stewart became attracted to beatnik attitudes and left-wing politics, living for a while in a beatnik houseboat at Shoreham-by-Sea. He was an active supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament at this time, joining the annual Aldermaston Marches from 1961 to 1963 and being arrested on three occasions when he took part in sit-ins at Trafalgar Square and Whitehall for the cause. He also used the marches as a way to meet and bed girls.Nelson and Bangs, Rod Stewart, p. 57. In 1962, he had his first serious relationship, with London art student Suzannah Boffey (a friend of future model and actress Chrissie Shrimpton); he moved to a bed-sit in Muswell Hill to be near her.Ewbank and Hildred, Rod Stewart: The New Biography, pp. 17–19. She became pregnant, but neither Rod nor his family wanted him to enter marriage; the baby girl was given up for adoption and Rod and Suzannah's relationship ended.
In 1962, Stewart began hanging around folk singer Wizz Jones, busking at Leicester Square and other London spots.Ewbank and Hildred, Rod Stewart: The New Biography, pp. 24–28. Stewart took up playing the then-fashionable harmonica. On several trips over the next 18 months Jones and Stewart took their act to Brighton and then to Paris, sleeping under bridges over the River Seine, and then finally to Barcelona, from where he was deported from Spain for vagrancy in 1963. At this time, Stewart, who had been at William Grimshaw School with three of the members of the embryonic Kinks, was briefly considered as their singer.Hinman, The Kinks – All Day and All of the Night, p. 9. Dark period quote at 2:01, autobiography effect at 4:17, Ray Davies quartet quotes at 11:40.
In 1963, Stewart adopted the Mod lifestyle and look, and began fashioning the spiky rooster hairstyle that would become his trademark (it was made possible with sugar water or large amounts of his sisters' hair lacquer, backcombing, and his hands holding it in place to protect it from the winds of Highgate Underground station).Stewart, Rod: The Autobiography, p. 33.Wooldridge, Rock 'n' Roll London, p. 109.) Disillusioned by rock and roll, he saw Otis Redding perform in concert and began listening to Sam Cooke records; he became fascinated by rhythm and blues and soul music.Ewbank and Hildred, Rod Stewart: The New Biography, pp. 21–23.
After returning to London, Stewart joined a rhythm and blues group, the Dimensions, in October 1963, as a harmonica player and part-time vocalist. It was his first professional job as a musician, although he was still living at home and working in his brother's painting and picture-frame shop.Ewbank and Hildred, Rod Stewart: The New Biography, pp. 29–32. A somewhat more established singer from Birmingham, Jimmy Powell, hired the group a few weeks later, and it became known as Jimmy Powell & the Five Dimensions (which also included bassist Louis Cennamo), with Stewart as harmonica player.Gray, Rod Stewart: The Visual Documentary, p. 7. The group performed weekly at the famed Studio 51 club on Great Newport Street in London, where the Rolling Stones often headlined; this was Stewart's entrée into the thriving London R&B scene, and his harmonica playing improved in part from watching Mick Jagger on stage.Nelson and Bangs, Rod Stewart, p. 58. Relations soon broke down between Powell and Stewart over roles within the group and Stewart departed. Contrary to popular legend, during this time Stewart probably did not play harmonica on Millie Small's 1964 hit "My Boy Lollipop"; that was probably Peter Hogman of the Dimensions, although Powell has also claimed credit. Powell did record and release a single during this period, though Stewart did not appear on it.
1964–1967: Steampacket and "Rod the Mod" image