| After years as a bit
of a wild rocker with The Faces, and as a solo singer,
Rod Stewart is having the biggest success of his career
singing American standards. Rod has had a colourful past. In
the 1960s he was deported from Spain, when he was a self-confessed
Beatnik, and also had time as a gravedigger. A gifted
footballer, Stewart was an apprentice at English football
team, Brentford.
Musically, Stewart's career began in folk music. Looking
back on Rod Stewart's career, he was on the cusp of fame
for quite some time. His first recorded single was with
Jimmy Powell & the Five Dimensions in the early 1960s,
then he joined the much respected Long John Baldry's
Hoochie Coochie Men, but a single, 'Good Morning Little
Schoolgirl', failed to do anything. The Hoochie Coochie
Men became Steampacket, and their line-up reads like a
Who's Who of British music luminaries, including Stewart,
Baldry, a very young Julie Driscoll, and Brian Auger.
Again there were signs of a big breakthrough in Rod's
career, and, in 1965, Steampacket supported top acts of
the time, including The Rolling Stones and The Walker
Brothers. Stewart (like David Bowie a year earlier) made
his first TV appearance regarding men's fashion,
specifically, in Rod's case, the Mod movement, hence the
Rod the Mod sobriquet. After Steampacket broke up in 1966,
Stewart became lead singer for Shogun Express, which
featured future Fleetwood Mac legends Peter Green and
Mick Fleetwood. One single on they broke up, with one
part of the group burgeoning into Fleetwood Mac.
Rod Stewart's big break came when he joined The Jeff Beck
Group as lead vocalist. Jeff Beck was the guitarist, and,
curiously, Stewart's future Faces bandmate, Ron Wood, was
on bass. The first album by The Jeff Beck Group, 'Truth',
made a good showing in the UK and the US charts in 1968.
Stewart once said that The Jeff Beck Group "blew"
the much feted psychedelic lynchpins Vanilla Fudge away,
when they were their support act. The Jeff Beck Group's
second album, 'Beck-ola' was also successful, in 1969,
but the band split up, and Stewart and Wood joined forces
with three of the four Small Faces, (the exception being
Steve Marriott who formed Humble Pie with Peter Frampton),
Ronnie Lane, Kenny Jones, and Ian McLagan. Wood became
the lead guitarist, and Stewart's voice was not that
unlike Steve Marriott's raucous vocal style. Lane (bass),
Jones (drums), and McLagan (keyboards) made up the line-up
of one of rock's hottest acts of the early 1970s. Rod
Stewart was also able to cultivate a solo career at the
same time, and when 'Maggie May' became a number one
single on both sides of the Atlantic in 1971, he had
really cracked it. He had also recorded a single with
Python Lee Jackson, an Australian group, in 1970,
entitled 'In A Broken Dream', which was re-released in
1972 and became a hit. Stewart was famously paid for his
contribution with a set of car seat covers. The song
remains one of Rod Stewart's best and most moving vocal
performances.
- Paul Rance, Peace & Freedom Press.
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