The New York Times
In a season full of books by or about aging rockers, [Stewart's] memoir turns out to be the most fun…[his] antics have earned him a richly deserved Jack the Lad reputation. But that doesn't mean they're rich enough to support a good book. It's his storytelling style, which mixes wild boastfulness with barely credible self-deprecation, that proves so winning, if only because he is so willing to embarrass himself.
—Janet Maslin
From the Publisher
Funny, self-deprecating and a whole lot less boastful than he could be, Mr. Stewart offers a string of Grade-A rock ‘n’ roll debauchery stories and…makes them charming.” –The New York Times
“The best news about Stewart’s autobiography is that it revives the rollicking humor and self-deprecating personality of his early career. It takes the jolly perspective of a guy who knows he’s one of the world’s luckiest men, and the result proves infectious.” –New York Daily News
“In an action-packed memoir, Stewart explains how he survived the excesses of Seventies rock stardom…full of bad behavior and enough ex-wives to fill an entire soccer side.” —Rolling Stone
“A he-said romp through a five-decade music career that spawned a string of enduring pop classics…[Stewart is] an entertaining storyteller who admits that at age 67 he still spends time on that bottle-blond, high-maintenance hair. We love him for that.” –The Tampa Bay Times
“Unsurprisingly, Rod Stewart has a few stories to tell…The singer tells them in a charming, often humble and self-deprecating, and always entertaining fashion throughout Rod, his autobiography….A moving read.” –The Buffalo News
“…a life that seems to be one endless romp from hit song to hot date, with a few stylish Italian sports cars and expensive pieces of Pre-Raphaelite art thrown in for good measure. Blondes (Have More Fun), indeed.” –USA Today
"The most outrageous—and wittiest—rock autobiography of the decade." –The Daily Mail
“Amiably and self-knowingly told… the tone [is] pitched right and the jokes good." –The Guardian
"Forget your Salman Rushdie. Put down your JK Rowling. Tomorrow sees the publication of one of the most entertaining, revealing, captivating books of the year— the autobiography of Rod Stewart. Truly." –The Independent online
“Anyone who wants to be a rock and roll superstar should read this…crazy stories.” –Jimmy Fallon
“A likable, mostly generous and well-written look back at the days of bedding starlets and destroying hotels.” –Kirkus
“Looking at the fall release schedule and seeing memoirs slated from Pete Townshend and Neil Young, who would have tipped Rod Stewart as being the rock graybeard most likely to produce the best book? But he did. Rod: The Autobiography (Crown) is a warm, roguish reminiscence. More playful than Townshend's at times ponderous Who I Am and far more insightful than Young's numbing Waging Heavy Peace, Stewart's memoir has much of the joyful, big-hearted raffishness of the singer's classic early '70s recordings. (It's more "Mandolin Wind" than "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?" — or anything else of his from the last 35 years or so.) The book is a fun, rollicking read.” —Spin.com
Library Journal - Audio
Rock legend Stewart traces his five-decade career from being the lead singer in the Jeff Beck Band and the group Faces through his highly successful solo years. Stewart is candid and humorous as he discusses his music, wild days on the road with his band, amusing anecdotes about his great friendship with Elton John, and a seemingly endless list of affairs and marriages with tall leggy blondes (all together he has been married three times and has eight children). Digressions along the way delve into his passion for cars, model railroads, and his most identifiable asset—his hair. Simon Vance expertly captures the man. VERDICT Stewart's legions of lifelong followers and fans of rock 'n' roll musician tell-alls will enjoy this amusing behind-the-scenes romp with "Rod the Mod."—Phillip Oliver, Univ. of North Alabama, Florence
Kirkus Reviews
In which Roderick David Stewart, aka Rod the Mod, bares all--not least the secrets of spiky hair. If Keith Richards is the dangerous old man of rock 'n' roll, Rod Stewart is the standards-crooning nice old geezer. Even in his down-and-dirty days--for example, snorting mounds of cocaine with pal Elton John--he was a nice guy, unless, perhaps, you were married to him. This memoir sails from one mostly amiable anecdote to another, quickly revealing an odd factoid: Like recent memoirist Neil Young, Stewart is a model-train fanatic ("In December 2010, I reached a major career milestone. I appeared on the cover of Model Railroader magazine for the second time. Getting on the front of Rolling Stone had nothing on this"). Unlike Young, Stewart is no motor geek. He admits to liking to drive cool cars without feeling the need to know anything about them, instead reserving his major store of passion for models (female, not railroads) and soccer. Stewart charts his rise from unwashed beatnik poet to lead singer with the Faces, a position fraught with politics and intrigue. He is surprisingly modest about the three great solo albums that marked his work in the early 1970s, though he does reveal the secret of how "Maggie May" came to be written, and he is nicely cheeky about his decline later in the decade ("I may have lost the thread a couple of times in that period"). Even so, he professes to being somewhat mystified by his being named the enemy of all things punk in the '70s, since the likes of the Sex Pistols worshiped the Faces. He pulls off a nice and not too heavy-handed bit of comeuppance, though, even while compounding his enemy status with the runaway commercial success of his four albums of grandpa-era standards, which is perhaps forgivable in a man approaching 70. A likable, mostly generous and well-written look back at the days of bedding starlets and destroying hotels.
