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Rod Stewart
A rock critic reviews the life of the pop-music star, discussing Stewart's early admiration for Al Jolson and Bob Dylan and chronicling his dramatic rise to the top of the charts
159 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1981
23 people want to read
About the author
Paul Nelson
184 books9 followersLibrarian Note:
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There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 17, 2015
I got a used copy of this long out-of-print, thirty-plus-year-old book online for about two bucks; from the looks of its binding and a stamp inside it was once on the shelves at the Library of Congress. So, the LoC copyright office is unloading its quickie rock bios. This one has a small claim for journalistic notability, however, as it was coauthored by Paul Nelson and Lester Bangs. No doubt commissioned as a long-form fluff piece—some text to go along with the glossy photos (see cover)—the authors nonetheless have an ax to grind. Stewart was more popular than ever, but five albums into his Warner Bros contract he was one of the most crass rock stars on the planet. Nelson and Bangs are depressed over the creative decline, outraged by the success of the current product, and deeply nostalgic for the great artist that had been lost in the process. The anatomy of a sellout becomes the subject of the book. Executed in the banal environment of a fan book, it makes for very strange reading.
Aside from a polished, behind-the-scenes tour article by Nelson (a scrapped Rolling Stone piece, maybe), the contents are fairly raw; you can feel the looming deadline. The minimum word count, too: to fill up pages, the two authors even include a long transcription of one of their own conversations. This self-interview goes on for twenty pages and gets its own chapter (title: "Two Jewish Mothers Posing as Rock Critics," a joke about the hand-wringing they do over how wayward Rod has gone wrong). The centerpiece of the book is a long chapter by Bangs on the rise and fall of Stewart's great early-70s band, the Faces. It is an obsessed piece of writing. Lester digs deep into the rock-writing archives, quoting a shitload of articles from both the US and the UK; he delivers firsthand accounts of numerous Faces shows; he traces the band's final days like he's piecing together a murder mystery. And he makes a lot of sense, from a convincing sizing-up of passive-aggressive bandmate Ronnie Lane to a joyless but focused Stewart. But it's only fitfully readable. It cries out for some slash-and-burn editing. Nelson takes over for the exhausted Bangs in the home stretch, actually handing out letter grades to the oeuvre (an exercise that would have been left out of a more rigorous book), and then they call it a day and go pick up their paycheck.
Bangs died less than a year after the book came out (from an overdose of substances that included Nyquil—Lester was way head of Lil' Wayne in his cough-syrup abuse). Nelson got booted from his 15-year tenure as Rolling Stone's record review editor around the same time and went to work in a video store; supposedly he slept all day and worked all night on a screenplay he never let anyone read. He kicked the bucket in 2006. Rod Stewart, who was once as great as Van Morrison, is now covering old standards. Your grandma might have his DVD.
Aside from a polished, behind-the-scenes tour article by Nelson (a scrapped Rolling Stone piece, maybe), the contents are fairly raw; you can feel the looming deadline. The minimum word count, too: to fill up pages, the two authors even include a long transcription of one of their own conversations. This self-interview goes on for twenty pages and gets its own chapter (title: "Two Jewish Mothers Posing as Rock Critics," a joke about the hand-wringing they do over how wayward Rod has gone wrong). The centerpiece of the book is a long chapter by Bangs on the rise and fall of Stewart's great early-70s band, the Faces. It is an obsessed piece of writing. Lester digs deep into the rock-writing archives, quoting a shitload of articles from both the US and the UK; he delivers firsthand accounts of numerous Faces shows; he traces the band's final days like he's piecing together a murder mystery. And he makes a lot of sense, from a convincing sizing-up of passive-aggressive bandmate Ronnie Lane to a joyless but focused Stewart. But it's only fitfully readable. It cries out for some slash-and-burn editing. Nelson takes over for the exhausted Bangs in the home stretch, actually handing out letter grades to the oeuvre (an exercise that would have been left out of a more rigorous book), and then they call it a day and go pick up their paycheck.
Bangs died less than a year after the book came out (from an overdose of substances that included Nyquil—Lester was way head of Lil' Wayne in his cough-syrup abuse). Nelson got booted from his 15-year tenure as Rolling Stone's record review editor around the same time and went to work in a video store; supposedly he slept all day and worked all night on a screenplay he never let anyone read. He kicked the bucket in 2006. Rod Stewart, who was once as great as Van Morrison, is now covering old standards. Your grandma might have his DVD.
August 12, 2011
Uneven, and clearly knocked out in a weekend, but more honest, intelligent, and funny than the usual fan biography.
June 15, 2013
Really personal take on Rod Stewart by obsessive rock fans who wished he never entered his mainstream phase. Over analytical and brilliant.
April 10, 2022
"He has this image, this thing he's supposed to be, and finally it doesn't matter that once it might actually have been at least somewhat real, the fact is that's what the fan is buying in the first place: a picture of how life supposedly is, or should be, or wishes it could be for him. It's as if everybody were steadily growing half-deaf, then a little more each day, so the drums and trumpets and TV commercials have gotta keep being retuned, amped higher until they're at a level that quite recently would have been considered past the pain threshold. That's what images are all about, and talent or inspiration has nothing to do with it. Directly the opposite. It's freezing the self for vending purposes."
February 18, 2008
CO-WRITTEN BY LESTER BANGS--and, while Nelson is a proven rockwriter, Bangs' sections are far more fun! Worth digging up at a flea market.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews