Rod Stewart – Hair, heart and hits

From Faces to disco hits: a career built on voice and timing

Roderick David Stewart was born on January 10, 1945, in Highgate, north London, the youngest of five children. His father had come down from Edinburgh to run a newsagent and sweet shop in Archway. The family were Celtic supporters; football came first in the house. Stewart played football seriously enough in his teens to trial with Brentford, before deciding that music asked for less of that discipline and suited the restlessness he already had.

The early career was journeyman and instructive. He sang with the Hoochie Coochie Men, briefly with Steampacket alongside Long John Baldry and Brian Auger, and then as second singer in the Jeff Beck Group from 1967 to 1969. Two albums with Beck – Truth (1968) and Beck-Ola (1969) – introduced him to American audiences who had not heard a British voice quite like his: rough, warm, built on American blues and English folk clubs in equal measure. He was learning how to use it in large rooms.

In 1969 he joined the Faces, the band formed from the remnants of the Small Faces after Steve Marriott left for Humble Pie. Ron Wood, Ian McLagan, Kenny Jones, and Ronnie Lane completed the lineup. The Faces were a live band first: loose, beer-soaked, rough around the edges, and popular with audiences who felt the band was playing to them. “Stay with Me” (from A Nod Is as Good as a Wink to a Blind Horse, 1971) caught that quality on a record. They were a strong touring band in Britain, and the studio records never quite matched the shows.

The solo career ran parallel from the beginning on a separate label, Mercury Records. “Maggie May” arrived in 1971, on side two of Every Picture Tells a Story as an afterthought, a B-side on the original UK release. It went to number one on both sides of the Atlantic after radio programmers flipped the single. The arrangement was acoustic and uncluttered: twelve-string guitar, mandolin played by Ray Jackson of Lindisfarne, and a story about an older woman and a younger man that ended without resolution. The song still puts the voice, the story, and the acoustic arrangement in one place.

Every Picture Tells a Story (1971) is the album that holds that period. It ran from the title track, which opened with a drum figure borrowed from Sam Cooke, through acoustic folk balladry to R&B, and demonstrated that the voice could handle all of it. Never a Dull Moment (1972) was nearly as strong. The combination of Faces live work and solo recording in this period was unusual for the time.

The pivot came with Atlantic Crossing (1975) and A Night on the Town (1976), recorded in America with larger productions and hired session bands. “Sailing,” a Sutherland Brothers composition, became an anthem. Stewart’s image shifted toward the international jet-set world he now inhabited. “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” (1978) was a disco track that worked commercially and infuriated the audience who had loved “Maggie May.” The 1980s and 90s produced consistent radio fare and strong moments – “Young Turks,” “Baby Jane,” the Great American Songbook series later – without returning to the coherence of the early 70s.

The voice comes from a specific mix of sources: Muddy Waters absorbed young, English folk clubs in Twickenham and Richmond, London pub culture, football terrace singing, and an instinct for the right note at the cost of technical precision. It is a raspy voice that sounds worn in, and the rough edges are still there. The upper register is less reliable than it was, but the midrange and the timing remain intact.

Every Picture Tells a Story holds the early peak in one album. “Maggie May” is the single that sets the voice and the character. “Stay with Me” covers the Faces years in three minutes. A Night on the Town marks the move, and Atlantic Crossing carries “Sailing.” Next to Elton John there is less piano and more American rhythm and blues. Next to David Bowie the songs stay direct, and the changes of style follow the records. The persona lines up with the Highgate years, the Faces tours, and the solo hits on Mercury that came after.