Review by Booklist Review
Stewart recalls a brutal childhood of poverty, neglect, and abuse as well as an incredible determination that helped him eventually succeed as a radio personality and social commentator during the civil rights struggle. Stewart and his three brothers witnessed their alcoholic father murder their mother with an ax. The four boys spent the remainder of their childhood living with a series of uncaring and abusive relatives. Intelligent and ambitious, Stewart looked to various potential escapes--the military and New York's Harlem--before returning to the South and building a career in radio. His lively shows included biting social commentary and support for the civil rights movement, at considerable risk to his employment. Stewart also helped launch the careers of Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, and Gladys Knight. This is an inspiring memoir that, despite its grim beginnings, is at times as lively and vivacious as radio patter. --Vanessa Bush
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this riveting memoir, Stewart, a prominent African-American businessman and radio personality for more than 50 years, tells a harrowing, inspiring story rivaling any of the current hard-bitten chronicles heralding triumph over poverty and other social obstacles. He opens by recollecting a racial incident during his days on the radio as "Shelley the Playboy," in which several of his white teenaged fans serve as an unlikely buffer between their idol and some irate Birmingham Klansmen, Stewart withstands the constant wrath of a father who gambles, drinks excessively and steals, and eventually kills his dutiful wife while his children watch. Spurned by relatives, the children reside briefly with a malicious aunt, who feeds them fried rats and makes them sleep on bedbug-infested mattresses, while they scavenge in the streets for survival. Vicious beatings, deprivation and sexual abuse inflicted upon the children drive them to seek refuge with a white man named Papa Clyde and his family, who treat them with a kindness that defies the era's racial code. If the lows of Stewart's remarkable life are depicted with frank, clear-eyed potency, then his recovery from depression and alcoholism come off as almost miraculous. In the author's fairly low-key narrative, he weathers a troubled military tour, a stint in a mental ward, a start-and-stop marriage and run-ins with the law. Through the years of struggle and short-term success, Stewart's determination and resourcefulness propel him to radio stardom and ownership of a multimillion dollar music business empire, something the author nearly underplays in this powerful, moving rags-to-riches tale. (July 10) Forecast: Warner is backing this stand-out memoir with a national print campaign and media blitz, as well as nationwide radio telephone interviews and a Southern tour. At a time when tolerance, tenacity and heroism are being touted, the popularity of a book like this is almost assured. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
This memoir of civil rights activist and radio personality Stewart revolves around the cruelty of his mother's death (at the hands of his father) when he was five years old, his lifelong reliance on her spirit for guidance, and his steady longing to forge loving bonds with his three brothers, the mothers of his children, the children themselves, and others in his life. Rejected and then grossly mistreated by his father and his extended family, shunted from caretaker to caretaker, the young Stewart nevertheless took to learning, became an avid reader, hustled, and endured. Somewhere within him was a confidence in his ability to survive despite an abysmal repetition of beatings, setbacks, and rejections in the segregated South of the Forties and Fifties. In high school, he was the only African American in a variety show and won an audition and shoe-store sponsorship for a local disk jockey spot. After a 50-year record as an outspoken popular radio personality, Stewart is now vice chairman and chief consulting officer of a large advertising and communications firm. The moving story of a very strong individual, this is highly recommended to a general reading public. Suzanne W. Wood, formerly with SUNY Coll. of Technology at Alfred (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Southern radio personality Shelley "the Playboy" Stewart chronicles his rocky beginnings, professional rise, and never-ending struggle to find love. Stewart surely led one of the most hardscrabble of childhoods on record: after witnessing his father murder his mother, Shelley and his brothers were left to raise themselves. Banned from his father's house, fed on fried rat, the siblings were separated, with Shelley farmed out to a physically and emotionally abusive aunt. Aimlessness and capricious separations, reunions, and kindness from unlikely sources (white families who defied social mores) marked Shelley's childhood; his life began to take more definite shape following the night his dead mother's spirit chose to manifest itself to a teenaged Shelley while he sat in the outhouse. Stewart went on to spring his brothers from their indentured servitude on a Mississippi plantation, graduate from high school, join the army (where his struggle for equal rights was met with placement in the psychiatric ward and electric shock treatment) and finally create the persona of Shelley the Playboy, a radio DJ who promoted civil rights in between spinning platters. Despite troubles with the tax man and racism at the office, Stewart continued to move up in his field over the course of decades. Meanwhile, he attempted repeatedly to create a loving family, winding his way through three failed marriages and whole crew of children and stepchildren--who won't likely be pleased to see how they are summarized at the conclusion. Unfortunately, Stewart's narrative is hobbled by clumsy prose, capturing none of the fire that must have animated his popular radio shows. Though his personal story is remarkable, the greatest strength here may be the matter-of-fact reporting on a virulent strain of deep Southern racism. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
