Rod Stewart began as a busker with a harmonica

Rod Stewart's career began with a harmonica and a street corner. In 1962 he took up busking, long before he became one of the best-selling artists of all time. Born in Highgate, North London, in 1945, the youngest of five children of a Scottish father who had been a master builder in Leith and an English mother, he was born at home during the Second World War, eight years after his nearest sibling.

He drifted through various bands before joining the Jeff Beck Group in 1967, and in 1969 he signed up with Faces while also starting a solo career with the album An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down. Those early records blended rock, folk, soul and R&B. His third album, Every Picture Tells a Story in 1971, was the breakthrough, reaching the top of the charts in the UK, US, Canada and Australia, as did its single “Maggie May”. Its follow-up, Never a Dull Moment, went to number one in the UK and Australia.

After Faces broke up in 1975 his success carried on. Atlantic Crossing reached number one in the UK and brought the ballad “Sailing”, and A Night on the Town in 1976 gave him “Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright)”, which spent almost two months at number one in the US and Canada. Blondes Have More Fun in 1978 included the disco-tinged “Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?”, number one in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia. In the early 2000s he turned to the Great American Songbook.

The numbers are large: ten number-one albums and thirty-one top-ten singles in the UK, four American number ones, and a knighthood in 2016. Steve Cropper said Stewart ranked alongside Otis Redding as the finest singer he had ever worked with. That judgement sits comfortably with the rasp that has carried him from the harmonica days through every era since.