Rod stewart autobiography mobile fidelity

The extraordinary life and career of music legend Rod Stewart, in his own words for the first time.

With his soulful and singular voice, narrative songwriting, and passionate live performances Rod Stewart has paved one of the most iconic and successful music careers of all time.

He doesn’t blame the women for his broken marriages and relationships, he laments being and absent father (and when he is present, it seems to be all fun and games with the kids, nothing about the work involved in single motherhood.) If this had taken up a couple of chapters, fine, but it was at least 50-60% of the book and the fact that he feels bad about it doesn’t mitigate the number of pages he spends on it.

So, that’s it for me.

Stints with pioneering acts like the Hoochie Coochie Men, Steampacket, and the Jeff Beck Group soon followed, paving the way into a raucous five years with the Faces, the rock star's rock band, whose offstage antics with alcohol, wrecked hotel rooms and groupies have become the stuff of legend. He was the charismatic lead singer for the trailblazing rock and roll bands The Jeff Beck Group and The Faces, and as a solo artist, the author of such beloved songs as "Maggie May," "Tonight’s the Night," "Hot Legs," "Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?," "Young Turks," "Forever Young," and "You Wear It Well." Now after more than five decades in the spotlight, he is finally ready to take a candid and romping look back at his life both on and off the stage.

Not bad, as he says, for a guy with a frog in his throat.

His idols from soul and blues left it all on the stage because their audiences wouldn’t accept less but these shows felt more like Vegas or supper club stuff. Which brings me to the book.

Rod also has the reputation of being one of the nicest and down-to-earth guys you could meet., which I can easily believe because there’s not a bad word about anyone here, not even the publicist he fired who then went on to invent one of the great rock legends – or rock myths – to revenge himself upon Rod.

(For those not up on the story, which I heard MANY times with only slight variations in details, Rod allegedly went to a bikers’ bar and “serviced” every customer there, on his knees, after which he had to have his stomach pumped; the quantity of “material” which had to be pumped was usually about a gallon in most of the stories I heard and anyone with even the vaguest idea of how many bikers would be needed to produce a gallon would see through the story but critical thought is not always a strong point here.) The most Rod said was that the publicist was very good at his job.

A huge middle part of the book is dedicated to the two protuberances on the front of his body, meaning his sexual and cocaine exploits, with names named, and how he could have maintained some of the relations with some of the world’s most beautiful women if he hadn’t been a slave to the lower one and how he almost lost his voice forever due to stuffing white powder in the upper one.

Despite some early close shaves with a number of diverse career paths, ranging from gravedigging to professional football, it was music that truly captured his heart - and he never looked back. Rod's is an incredible life, and here, thrillingly and for the first time, he tells the whole thing, leaving no knickers under the bed. We were on the second level and Rod put those balls way over our head.

As a university professor, this has been less problematic for me and as a red-blooded hetero male, this could be my first case of ”penis envy” – but it isn’t. Cash in elsewhere.)