“How I got started”: the artist Rod Stewart said gave him a career
No one can justifiably claim to be one of the biggest stars in the music industry all on their own. There are many moving parts to every single career, and it normally takes hundreds of people working behind the scenes before someone gets to enjoy those few hours onstage when they get to soak in every bit of their crowd. Although Rod Stewart always committed to doing the work whenever he hit the touring circuit in his early years, he knew that he had some added help from the other hopefuls in the UK scene.
Granted, the idea of a raspy singer who sang the blues wasn’t exactly an outlandish idea when Stewart was starting in the early 1960s. The blues had been commonplace in England at that point, and once The Rolling Stones got their first record deal off the heels of The Beatles, everyone knew there was money to be made in reselling the lowdown and dirty blues tunes from America.
Then again, the blues musicians who became famous usually came from those who studied scales rather than vocal runs. There were some phenomenal singers like Terry Reid and Robert Plant on the circuit who were trying to emulate the growl of Howlin Wolf and Sleepy John Estes, but when Stewart was starting out, everyone wanted to find someone who could play with the same ferocity as Eric Clapton.
While Stewart did become friendly with some of the greatest guitarists on the scene like Ronnie Wood and Jeff Beck, he was still trying to make ends meet in the clubs when he crossed paths with Long John Baldry. And despite having an affinity for the blues, Stewart was brought face-to-face with the almighty blues missionary for that side of the Atlantic.
“He heard me singing on a railway station, playing the harmonica.”
rod stewart
When the blues was first getting brought over to English shores, Baldry was the one who helped expose players to the new art forms that were happening overseas. Most people had a taste of what rock and roll sounded like on American radio, thanks to icons like Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry, but this is where people would listen to everyone from Muddy Waters to Robert Johnson and everything in between. And when Baldry turned into one of the clubs, Stewart found himself in the perfect spot.
Even though Stewart had a bunch of friends helping him through his salad days, he said that he would not have had the career he does without Baldry in the first place, saying, “He heard me singing on a railway station, playing the harmonica. You know, I’d had a few drinks, and he said — I was 18 at the time, and he said, ‘Why don’t you join our band?’ You know, I need someone to sing. I need someone to warm the audience up, and so I was absolutely petrified, but I gave it a go, you know, and that’s how I got started, and that was 1963, ’64.”
And looking at how Stewart shaped up, his career went from being one of the many blues aficionados to a seasoned veteran of the scene. Although Led Zeppelin ended up stealing the thunder from the Jeff Beck Group when they came out, Stewart should be given credit for having the blueprint for that flavour of hard rock before Plant started channelling his inner Steve Marriott.
Since Elton John would also end up taking his surname from Baldry, though, it’s safe to say that he was much more than a glorified A&R man at the time. This was the kind of power player who knew when he saw future legends, and he was going to do whatever he could if he believed you had the potential to make it.
