AUGUST 6, 1964 – Rod Stewart made his TV debut on BBC-TV’s “The Beat Room” as a member of The Hoochie Coochie Men. In 1960, Stewart had joined a skiffle group with schoolfriends called the Kool Kats, playing Lonnie Donegan and Chas McDevitt hits. In 1962, Stewart began hanging around folk singer Wizz Jones, busking at Leicester Square and other London spots. Stewart took up playing the then-fashionable harmonica. On several trips over the next 18 months Jones and Stewart took their act to Brighton and then to Paris, sleeping under bridges over the River Seine, and then finally to Barcelona. Finally this resulted in Stewart being rounded up and deported from Spain for vagrancy during 1963. At this time, Stewart, who had been at William Grimshaw School with three of their members, was briefly considered as singer for the embryonic Kinks.
Having begun his career playing folk and jazz, Long John Baldry (nicknamed “Long John” due to his towering 6′ 7″ frame) became a major figure on the English R&B and early rock scene, employing many musicians in his blue-based bands who would go on to great fame and critical acclaim like The Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart, and Elton John
