Rod Stewart

One of the best-selling music artists of all time, with a raspy voice and a chameleon's instinct for reinvention that has kept him on the charts for more than half a century. Born in Highgate, North London, in 1945, Roderick David Stewart came up through the British blues scene of the early 1960s, busking with a harmonica before earning his reputation as a singer with the Jeff Beck Group and then Faces. His solo breakthrough came with 1971's Every Picture Tells a Story and its single "Maggie May," and the run that followed — Atlantic Crossing, A Night on the Town, Foot Loose & Fancy Free, and the disco-charged Blondes Have More Fun — made him one of the defining pop-rock stars of the 1970s.

Across 32 studio albums he has sold more than 120 million records, placed 16 singles in the US top ten with four reaching No. 1, and scored six consecutive No. 1 albums in the UK. His catalog swings from blues-rock and folk to soft rock, new wave, disco, and, in the 2000s, a hugely successful series of Great American Songbook collections. A two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee — once solo and once with Faces — Stewart was knighted in 2016 for his services to music and charity, and continues to tour and record into his ninth decade.