Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Must for all Al Stewart Fans, 2 Aug 2002
The "True Life Adventures of a Folk Rock Troubadour" is an insightful book into the life of one of the most talented singer/songwriters of this generation, Al Stewart. The book chronicles the life of Stewart from birth to the present day with many humorous and sad antecdotes along the way. I like the way author Neville Judd composited the book. The interviews with Al's mother, record executives, managers, studio musicians, contemporaries, friends and Al himself gave me a better perspective of Stewart and the trials and tributlations he went through before Year of the Cat, his success during the mid to late seventies and is horrendous battles and bad luck he had with the dreaded record companies after Time Passages. As the book moved along from album to album, I found myself pulling out my Al Stewart collection and following along with Judd what was going on during the making and release of that album. I learned so much about what Stewart was thinking during that period. His transformation from the bed-sit writing to the historical period is truly fascinating and without a doubt, I rate Stewart as the best lyricist going today. Not being from the UK, the book explained a lot of questions and gaps I had regarding friends and locations in England, from listening to Stewart's earlier work. I thought I was a rabid Al Stewart fan and knew mostly everything about him. This book proved me wrong. The stories involving Yoko Ono, Jimmy Page, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, Alan Parsons and Clive Davis were fascinating.
There are no margins in this book. So a 325+ page book was easily 425+ pages with a normal book. As an avid Stewart fan, I didn't care for a repeat of lyrics of current Al Stewart material. It was, however, a pleasure to see the lyrics of unreleased Stewart material that on the surface were as strong as anything Stewart as written.
Couple of drawbacks with the book. There was a great amount of time in the book spent from teenage years through the first 4 albums. I would have liked to seen equal time spent from the 24 Carrots period to the present. Laurence Juber has been a big part of Al's life the past few years and I felt more should have been devoted to that. Also, I would have liked to see more pictures of Stewart's wife and family.
Other than that, the book is first rate. Highly recommended for any Al Stewart fan or fan of the folk rock period of the 60's and 70's.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Must-read for fans of Stewart and British folk-rock, 7 Jun 2002
By A Customer
Neville Judd's Al Stewart: The True Life Adventures of a Folk-Rock Troubadour is, above all, a fun read. It is clear from page one that Judd is passionate about music and about singer-songwriter Al Stewart ("Year of the Cat," "Time Passages," "Roads to Moscow"). That passion pleasantly carries the reader through 312 densely packed pages of amusing anecdotes, free-flowing factoids, and the occasional surprise from the life story of the only artist from the '60s British folk-roots scene to score two LPs in the US Top Thirty. Judd enjoyed close access to Stewart and many of his contemporaries, colleagues, friends, and family members: The resulting book is an interweaving of snippets from interviews, writings from Stewart's own journals, and the author's own enthusiastic, largely comma-free prose. The whole offers a breezy, if sometimes repetitive, and detailed look at Stewart's life from birth through the present day, although the lion's share of attention is given to his public-school years and his hardscrabble bedsit days as a rising player in London's folk scene. Judd also shines more light on the dark side of the starmaker machinery of the record business--it's fascinating to see how the rock-and-roll dream turned nightmarish through the differing perspectives of Stewart (who, to Judd's credit, does not get kid-gloves treatment), former manager Luke O'Reilly, and various bandmates. Here's hoping that the much-deserved resurgence of Al Stewart will bring about a sequel--this book, sadly, offers very little about the mature Stewart, who is its most compelling character. But for the richly portrayed Soho scene and the glimpses into the past of a truly gifted and woefully underrated and underappreciated artist, Al Stewart: The True Life Adventures of a Folk-Rock Troubadour is enjoyable reading for any music lover. It's a must-read for serious Stewart fans and devotees of British folk-rock.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Al Stewart's biography, 25 Jul 2002
By A Customer
As a fan of Al Stewart's music, I'm thrilled that someone wrote a biography about him. However, I have to agree with most of the review by "Mark", who also pans this book.This book has little continuity and should have been edited. The anecdotes break up the timeline. Even Judd can't keep what he wrote straight because he often repeats several anecdotes throughout the book. Chapters dealing with Stewart's earlier, pre-"Past, Present & Future" days are tediously long. Sadly, Stewart's more recent career has been paid comparatively scant attention. If one is familiar with most of his work, this is unfortunate since his last two albums "Between the Wars" & "Down in the Cellar" are excellent. One would like to know more about his work with Laurence Juber. All negativity aside, Stewart fans may want to plow through this book because it may be the only biography about him. That Judd chose to write about Al Stewart is laudable. I'd rather read a single, mediocre book about him than ten good books about Brittany Spears. For that reason alone, I'll give this book two stars.
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