If you work in the media long enough, you're sure to make a few enemies.As a columnist for The Spectrum & Daily News in St. George, Utah, I had plenty of detractors. They would revile me regularly in letters to the editor, leave nasty messages on my voice mail, send vicious e-mails and even make threats against my well being. I was warned that they would run me out of town and worse.
The first time I was threatened? Rod Stewart, who didn't particularly like a review I had given one of his concerts.
It was a particularly bad show. Stewart was in, for him at the time, a particularly drunken state, gave a sloppy performance and had spent most of the night on the stage at The Forum in Los Angeles posing. He was touring behind a string of two hugely successful albums -- "A Night on the Town" and "Foot Loose & Fancy Free." He was as hot as you can get in the music business and was fodder for the tabloids and gossip columnists with his on-again-off-again romance with Britt Ekland.
I had been a longtime fan, particularly of his early work with Jeff Beck, Faces and his first few solo albums. He had a way of re-inventing solid, old R&B songs -- particularly his remakes of Sam Cooke's catalog -- and put on an energetic, fun show. The Faces lineup that backed him was outstanding.
