Rod Stewart Born: Rock's Raspy Storyteller

Rod Stewart failed a trial with Brentford Football Club as a teenager, then spent time as a gravedigger before music took hold. Born on January 10, 1945, in Highgate, London, to a Scottish father, he busked across Europe with folk singer Wizz Jones in his early twenties, sleeping rough and getting deported from Spain. He joined the Jeff Beck Group in 1967 as lead vocalist, then moved to the Faces in 1969, while simultaneously releasing solo records, a dual career that generated friction with his bandmates. "Maggie May" in 1971 hit number one on both sides of the Atlantic, the same week as the album "Every Picture Tells a Story." The song was originally a B-side that disc jockeys flipped over and played instead. Stewart's voice was an instrument unlike any other in rock: raspy, emotional, capable of tenderness and swagger in the same phrase. He sold over 250 million records across a career spanning six decades. His run of albums in the early 1970s, including "Gasoline Alley," "Every Picture," and "Never a Dull Moment," is considered one of the finest sustained creative periods in rock history. He pivoted to pop in the late 1970s with "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" which alienated rock critics but sold millions. His Great American Songbook series in the 2000s revived interest in classic standards and sold over 25 million copies. Outside music, he built a model railway at 1:87 scale in his attic that took 26 years to construct, a project he took as seriously as any album. Born to Scottish parents, he was awarded a CBE in 2007 and knighted in 2016.