The boy from a smog-drenched city who sang through addiction and into our hearts

in both the UK and the US, and in the UK it reached No. 1 after being released as a single.

“The day it happened, I got a telegram,” he later recalled. “THANKS YOU ARE FAR TOO MUCH, JOHN AND PAUL.”

The success of the song led to his first U.S. tour in 1969, and just a year later his live album Mad Dogs & Englishmen climbed to No. 2 on the American continue reading …