Rod almighty

For a North London lad whose abiding passion was playing with his model train set in his bedroom in Highgate, Roderick David Stewart has somewhat exceeded his early teenage ambitions. 'Then, I just wanted to stick in a job for six months and save up £300 to buy an Austin Healey sports car so I could pull the birds,' Rod reminisced recently.

It's almost 40 years since Rod Stewart landed his first job as a singer, earning £35 a week with Long John Baldry's Hoochie Coochie Men. And though at first he was so shy he would sing with his back to the audience, he's stuck at it with spectacular success.

All 25 of his albums have been Top Five chart successes, and he still fills stadiums and concert halls around the world. In the notoriously fickle world of pop music, the longevity of Stewart's career as a solo singer is remarkable.

Moreover, the former Highgate Cemetery gravedigger, who in his teens was deported from Spain for vagrancy while busking in Barcelona, has become something of a national treasure. Britain's affection for Stewart and his songs has prompted Ben Elton to write a new stage musical, Tonight's The Night, which is loosely based on Stewart's early life and features many of his hits. 'It's based on the lure, the essence of Rod,' says Elton.

But what makes Rod so special? 'He's one of the great interpreters of a song. Everyone knows he has a uniquely soulful voice, but his phrasing is also exquisitely tasteful. Like Sinatra, he sings the lyrics as well as he sings the tune. I also love the fact that Rod so obviously likes a laugh,' adds Elton. 'I write comedy, and Rod's sense of fun is part of his life and work.

His body of work would have guaranteed him fame and success even if he was a grumpy, self-important old git, but the fact that he's obviously very talented and able to laugh at himself just makes his music even more accessible.'

Rod Stewart's enduring popularity owes much to a nation which still lets the rascal of rock flaunt his fame and get away with it all - five children with three wives, that rooster hairstyle at the age of 58, flash cars, young girlfriends with legs that don't know when to stop in skirts that are unsure where to start, laddish, boozy nights out with longtime friends like Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood.

'He had a voice that could tear your head off,' says music aficionado Paul Gambaccini. 'A man with a sandpaper throat gargling with acid and still getting the words out. If it was a rock track, that voice would take you by both ears and shake you till you were at its mercy. If it was a ballad, the voice was as soulful and expressive as that of a first-class blues singer.'

Elton John goes so far as to say, 'Bar none, he's the best singer I've heard in rock'n'roll. He's also the greatest white soul singer. He's got that quintessential voice for rock'n'roll and ballads, that marvellous rasp.'

Stewart emerged in the London blues boom in the mid-Sixties, progressively making an impact first with Baldry's band Steampacket, then with the Jeff Beck Group in America and, crucially, as lead singer with riotous good-time band the Faces.