RECENT READS # 21 ROD – THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Lambo Uracco in London (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A lovely cheerful account of a Rock Star’s life – which he frankly acknowledges is pretty good: bags of money, impressive cars (he likes Lambo’s – translation for us plebs = Lamborghini), flocks of beautiful, leggy blondes, mansions in the UK  and Los Angeles, drugs du jour  – he’s quite open about his coke taking – apparently its prevalent in the music industry. His great passion, alongside music, sex and drugs, is FOOTBALL. He and his entire family are absolutely football mad. Rod currently plays for a team in LA, I think they’re called the Expats. Mark you, this man is in his early 60s.

His saving grace is his wry humour throughout the book, particularly a  chapter, yes an entire chapter, related in deadpan detail, on how to create and maintain his famous spiky hairstyle. Several of the Book Club Ladies related how, during the 60s, they would ask their hairdresser to “give us a Rod” and would emerge with the spiky, tousled Rod hairstyle.

The Ladies reminisced about Britain in the 60’s – going to the pubs & clubs, hitch hiking home, late at night, and how safe it was. Alas, no longer.

Living in Rhodesia in the 60s, we didn’t have nearly so much fun in our colonial outpost, being 10 yrs behind the times, although bell bottom trousers, mini skirts and wedge heels had arrived in darkest Africa. In the late 60s there was the escalation of the Bush War, continuing into the early 70s, and we PARTIED. A country at war takes refuge in hectic partying, it’s a well known fact.

The same ladies agreed we all love Rod Stewart, we’ve loved him since the 1960s, and we continue to love him 40 years on – the man’s practically indestructible, when you consider how his music still sells, and in Christmas 2012 there was a TV special Rod Stewart’s Christmas  and there he was in a natty tartan jacket (he loves tartan, proud of his Scottish heritage) warbling away with the great and famous.

The book has great photos and tons of fascinating anecdotes. I bet you didn’t know he’s a model train fan? He built vast layout/rail network in his Los Angeles home, necessitating the removal of interior walls so that the track could extend across the width of the building. Nice to be a Rock Star, hey?

And in closing I must confess I want his marvellous pounding anthem  Rhythm of my Heart to be played at my memorial. I don’t want a funeral, but I do want a gathering, and they’re all going to have to listen to Rod.