It has been announced that Rod Stewart will finally release an autobiography in October 2012. With one of the most iconic and successful musical careers of all time, and one of the most colourful personal lives running in parallel with it, it is amazing that Rod Stewart hasn’t published an autobiography before now!!

Rod Stewart’s music career spans five decades from his hell-raising years touring with The Jeff Beck Group and The Faces in the 1960s and early 1970s, through to his peerless solo career in the last 35 years. However Rod Stewart is as famous for his glamorous girlfriends and relationships which have been plastered over the tabloid front pages for four decades and have led to three marriages and eight children!!

What really strikes you about Rod Stewart though, is that in a rock and pop music landscape, scattered with the corpses and casualties of self destructive souls who foundered on the rocks of drink and drugs, Rod Stewart is a remarkably uncomplicated, straight forward man!! Yes he has a gargantuan appetite for beautiful women, but beyond a few beers his life is a clean and healthy one these days. He possesses the normal interests of the typical bloke in the street, of girls and football, which make him as appealing to men as he is to women. Undoubtedly women find him sexy, but men like him just as much for his blokey cheekiness and joie de vivre!!

Ultimately though Rod Stewart is liked and loved because he is a damn fine vocalist, with a gravelly, soulful voice steeped in all the best traditions of the blues. Some of his best work was in the early 1970s with the Faces, which comprised the surviving members of the Small Faces after their lead singer Steve Marriott left. Marriott, one of the greatest vocalists of all time, was a hard act to follow but Rod Stewart filled the gap effortlessly and seamlessly; and his chemistry with Ronnie Wood was evident for all to see. The Faces had limited chart success, but what they lacked in quantity was more than compensated for by quality singles – “Stay with me Baby”, “Cindy Incidentally”, “Pool Paul Richard” and “You can make me Dance, Sing or Anything” made up a quartet of hits as good as any between 1971 and 1974.

In early 1975 Ronnie Wood was poached by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to replace Mick Taylor in the Rolling Stones and Rod Stewart took the opportunity to bow out from The Faces to solely pursue the solo work he had begun with such success ( the No1 “Maggie May” ) in 1971. He hit the jackpot straight away with his third No1 “Sailing” and a fourth No1 quickly followed in 1977 with the Double A Side “I Don’t want to talk about it” and “First Cut is the Deepest”. For me the follow up “You’re in my Heart” was Rod Stewart’s finest hour – a ballad paying tribute to his girlfriend at the time and Bond Girl, Britt Ekland ( where he gives her parity with his beloved Celtic Football Club!! ). Special mention should also be paid to his brace of 1976 hits, “Tonight’s the Night” and “The Killing of Georgie”, which were sublime records. By 1978 my interest in Rod Stewart started to wane as he went down the Disco route, with “Hot Legs” and his fifth No1 “Do ya think I’m sexy?”. Clearly a rhetorical question because despite declining fortunes in the charts in the last three decades, female fans continue to lust after this incredibly fit pensioner!!

So all Rod Stewart fans will look forward to the eagerly awaited publication of his autobiography in October 2012.

In the meantime you can create your own Shrine to Rod Stewart, by ordering your favourite Rod Stewart vinyl record or CD, single or album, framed and mounted as a picture disc. ORDER NOW by clicking on…….. http://www.myfirstrecord.co.uk/

Alternatively this would make a unique present or original gift for a special celebration  ie a Wedding, 30th, 40th, 50th, 60th or 70th Birthday, a Silver, Ruby or Golden Wedding Anniversary, Father’s or Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day!! THE PERFECT PERSONALISED PRESENT!!

For all other merchandise and memorabilia and news, go to the Official Rod Stewart website…… www.rodstewart.com/us/home