After Dinner Speakers: Rod Stewart, Emma Jones, U2

International pop star Rod Stewart was born in London on January 10, 1945, the fifth child of a large family. Though he played in skiffle groups as a teenager, Stewart flirted with a career in professional soccer, before becoming a full-time musician in the early 1960s, touring Europe for a time with British folk singer Wizz Jones before returning home in 1963. Over the next year or so Stewart drifted between cities, performing in various small-time R&B bands alongside future greats like John Paul Jones (later the bassist for Led Zeppelin) and Mick Fleetwood (of Fleetwood Mac), before moving to London and joining Long John Baldry's backing band. By mid-1965 Baldry formed the group Steampacket, which featured himself, Stewart, and folk rocker Julie Driscoll; however, after a fortuitous tour supporting the Rolling Stones, the group disbanded over artistic differences. Within a year Stewart had hooked up with the Jeff Beck Group, whose heavy blues-rock sound and stage charisma won them a large following on both sides of the Atlantic. When the 'Group disbanded in 1969, Stewart and guitarist Ron Wood, formerly the bass player for the Jeff Beck Group, joined the Faces, an offshoot of the legendary '60s mod band Small Faces. Though he remained with the Faces until 1975, Stewart began a solo career in late 1969 with The Rod Stewart Album, an acoustic rock effort that broke into the Billboard Top 200 in the United States, though it failed to chart in Britain. 1970's Gasoline Alley and its accompanying U.S. tour expanded Stewart's stateside following; though better known as the Faces' frontman in the U.K., in North America he was already a minor star in his own right. As a result Stewart's 1971 follow-up, Every Picture Tells a Story, reached No. 1, spawning the surprise international No. 1 single "Maggie May" (originally a b-side). The Faces resented Stewart's stateside popularity, but it helped their 1972 album, A Nod is as Good as a Wink to a Blind Horse reach the U.S. Top 10, a feat their earlier albums failed to achieve. Nonetheless, when Stewart's Every Picture Tells a Story reached No. 2 that same year, it became clear that he was too popular to remain in the band; he formally quit in 1975. Now a full-time solo artist, Stewart released 1975's Smiler, then relocated to the U.S. for tax purposes, a journey commemorated on the poppier Atlantic Crossing, released later that year. 1976's A Night on the Town went platinum thanks to the success of its No. 1 single, "Tonight's the Night," while his 1977 follow-up, Foot Loose and Fancy Free, went triple platinum. Stewart was now a bona fide celebrity pop star, as known for his lavish lifestyle and relationships with actresses and models as for his slick, catchy hits like 1978's disco-influenced "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" (from the No. 1 album Blondes Have More Fun). Adroitly shifting from disco to synth-pop at the turn of the decade, Stewart scored another platinum album with 1981's Tonight I'm Yours. However, at the end of the 1980s Stewart was on the comeback trail, finally scoring a much-needed hit with 1989's "Downtown Train," a clever Tom Waits cover which earned him his first Grammy nomination. Stewart entered the '90s as a mature, adult-oriented vocalist, reuniting with former Faces bandmate Ron Wood to record a 1993 MTV Unplugged special, which also became a successful album. 1998's When We Were the New Boys featured covers of songs by contemporary British bands like Oasis ("Cigarettes and Alcohol"), Primal Scream ("Rocks"), and Skunk Anansie ("Weak"), as well as a Faces cover ("Ooh La La") and a Nick Lowe song ("Shelly My Love"). After touring to support New Boys, Stewart underwent a throat operation which took him out of action for a year. He came back with Human, an R&B - flavored effort released in early 2001.