Rod Stewart: Learning to Love a Spoiled-Rotten Lothario
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“'Spoiled rotten' tends to be shorthand for my childhood,” Rod Stewart writes in his autobiography. “I object. There wasn’t much to spoil anyone with.”
Rod’s self-effacing wit rips at these pages and will leave you adoring this aspiring bad boy or budding lothario, as he referred to himself in his youth. It wasn’t always easy for this lady-killer who was the son of a plumber. In the beginning, a record label said that his voice was too rough. “And had a bit of gravel in it. And I was not pretty enough to make it as a solo singer," Rod writes. As to being spoiled, it was his "mum" who did it to him.
“My mum used to make rabbit stew and the heart was a real treat and was cut into fours and shared with the children. Once I came along, it was given to me.”
Mrs. Stewart also drank gin and tonic while her husband did not drink at all. He gambled on the horses. Then Mrs. Stewart burned Rod’s smelly beatnik clothing just as she had her husband’s football boots when she wanted him to stop playing football. Hence Rod went from being a smelly beatnik to a mod -- “a guy you couldn’t get out of the bathroom." he writes.
In 1964, his mum made him cheese sandwiches to take to his first recording session. Mrs. Stewart reminded me of Fanny Mailer who took Norman freshly laundered white shirts to
Harvard on the milk train.
Harvard on the milk train.
“My lyrics I drew from experiences in the past. 'Cindy’s Lament' is about trying to impress a girl from a social class above mine. A big theme for me." So big he fell in love with Britt Ekland after spotting her on the arm of an elegant Peter Sellers whose lifestyle Rod emulated. Rod also was in awe of George Hamilton and his savoir faire. Enter Alana Hamilton, wife number one.
Also read: Rod Stewart Addresses Stomach-Pump Story You Never Thought He'd Ever Address Ever (Video)
Rod is loved, I would suspect, because he does not try to be something he’s not. Though when he was with Britt and Alana, his need for Hollywood’s approval clouded this thinking and lyrics. Hence we were given the vacuous, "Do You Think I’ m Sexy?”
Originally, Rod aspired to sound like Sam Cooke in “You Send Me” while he was in awe of the timbre of Dylan’s music and mystery of his lyrics which drew Rod to America and
its freedom. “I was confident that I could sing a song, but how to occupy it? To make it my own? I was blessed with distinctiveness,” Rod writes.
its freedom. “I was confident that I could sing a song, but how to occupy it? To make it my own? I was blessed with distinctiveness,” Rod writes.
Rod Stewart has had -- and that is the correct verb -- many women, but none so fair as Penny Lancaster who sounds down to earth and humble enough for the naughty Grammy Award
winner. She can allow him center stage and not muck it up by trying to climb up there with him or cry at a distance that her life has grown far apart from Rod and his entourage.
winner. She can allow him center stage and not muck it up by trying to climb up there with him or cry at a distance that her life has grown far apart from Rod and his entourage.
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