It was the city where his mother Eva Scutts was born in 1913 at Marrickville, before, as a toddler, she and her four brothers and mother Gertrude left in 1916 at the height of the First World War to return to her family's native England.

However, Eva's father Alfred remained behind to work in the admiralty on Sydney Harbour with the intention of rejoining his family later. He never left Australia, and Eva never saw her father again.

Eva would go on to marry school teacher Michael Jagger and the couple raised two sons, the legendary Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger and his younger brother Chris.

"I was looking down on Sydney and I was overcome with this feeling of what it meant to my mother because that was where she was born and that's where her father stayed and she never saw her father," Chris Jagger tells Weekender.

"I felt that she must have felt such sadness, which she obviously lived with and shrugged off. Girls who don't know their fathers, it's a big thing and you've gotta live with that."

Jagger has spent recent years studying his family's history. Some of that research featured in his 2021 memoir Talkin' To Myself.

The book plots Jagger's childhood growing up in middle-class Dartford, Kent, before gaining a privileged insider's perspective of London's swinging '60s world of rock'n'roll due to his brother's soaring career with The Rolling Stones.

Along the way Chris hung out with everyone from Brian Jones to John Lennon to Dave Gilmour, and designed clothes for Jimi Hendrix before he took off on a year-long sabbatical to India, via the Middle East.

Later Chris Jagger became a theatre actor and musician, releasing 13 diverse albums across the genres of Cajun, zydeco, folk, country, blues, and rock.

He also appeared in a handful of films and worked as a journalist writing about music, travel and the environment for The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Mail on Sunday, The Independent on Sunday and Rolling Stone.

The 74-year-old is in Australia to perform a handful of shows and to promote Talkin' To Myself and his latest album Mixing Up The Medicine, which features a duet with Mick on the track Anyone Seen My Heart?

Carrying one of the most famous last names in rock'n'roll has been both a benefit and a curse for Chris Jagger.

Chris admits frustration at some journalists who "Wanna write what fits in their [story]. [They'll say] 'Mick plays in these big great stadiums and you play in these little places', and they'll take the piss out of you."

But mostly his family association has been advantageous, particularly as a wide-eyed music fan in the mid-60s.

Talkin' To Myself relays stories about Lennon's sarcastic humour and being invited into Paul McCartney's house for a lunch of meat and three veg prepared by his housekeeper.

"You get to meet all these people," Chris says of being Mick's brother. "It's an introduction. I've met quite a lot of people without my brother too."

However, Chris says he learnt quickly you can't survive on your surname alone.

"You'd go to some party and there's John Lennon and he knows who you are, but once you're there in front of him he's not gonna be nice to you because you're someone's brother," he says. "You're on your own mate.

"He'd be like, 'So what the f--k do you do?' And I'd say, 'Not much. What the f--k do you do?'

"They either like you or they don't. That's the situation. You have an opening, but what are you gonna do with it?

"You learn to try and get witty in conversation - and not amuse people - but especially well-known people, they like people with a bit of repartee or someone who cracks jokes."

The Jagger name once even created the opportunity for Chris to get on stage and duet with soul legend Mavis Staples.

Staples was told Mick Jagger's brother was in the audience and invited him on stage.

"She said, 'I don't even know if he do sing'," Chris laughs. "Because I was Mick's brother, he sings, so the brother must sing.

"That's the difference with black people. It's all in the family, they're like 'Come join us'. It's normal.

"White people aren't like that. They're like, 'Why are you doing the same thing? That's unusual, why didn't you become a banker'?"

What shines through the memoir, and speaking to Chris, is there's a genuine pride in his brother's accomplishments.

Family is of vital importance for the father of five and grandfather of 14.

"I have to pull him into line at times," Chris says of Mick. "People say about the brother, 'He'd be a miserable bastard if he didn't have a brother'. He's lucky to have a brother like me.

"You wouldn't want to be an only child. He had a brother and he's stuck with me."

Chris admits he doesn't see Mick, 79, as much as he likes due to his busy schedule.

"He has a lot of children and there's a lot of demands on his time, so I have to understand all that, but then it gets to a point where you either call me up and get in touch or not," he says.

"You have to make that effort to keep in touch with people and family too. You can't just assume, 'Yeah they're there', because one day they're not there and you go, 'I wish I'd gone and seen them'."