Keith Richards

                Keith gets his ya ya out...

 Brian, engineer Ron Malo, Loog and Keith, Chess Studio, 1964.



Sweden, 1965


Panic In Norway, hosing down the fans.


Little Red Rooster, 1965. "Brenda" Jagger takes a beating in Keith's autobiography Life.



"Shooting up the charts..." Little Red Rooster again, this time on Ready Steady Go.




Seven years later


 At the risk of boring the readership of this blog to tears with yet another posting on the Rolling Stones, I can't help but throw my 2 pence in on Keith Richards' autobiography- Life (Little, Brown 2010, co-written with James Fox who only gets an editor's credit, which is I imagine why Nick Tosches and Stanley Booth both passed on the job) a subject you may already be sick of since Keith's been hitting the promotional highway rather hard, and many of you must already be suffering from Stones overload in the wake of the Exile On Main Street re-issue hype.
Me, I never seem to get sick of the Stones, and have been playing the Genuine Black Box bootleg constantly since it fell through my mail slot last summer. So what's the word on Life?
Had I never read a book on the Rolling Stones, Life would probably be one my favorite  rock'n'roll books of all time. The problem then, is not so much the book, but the fact that I've probably read every book on the Rolling Stones ever published, and there's been some good ones (Tony Sanchez- Up and Down With The Stones, Stanley Booth's The True Adventures of The Rolling Stones, Bill Wyman's Stone Alone, Marianne Faithful and David Dalton's Faithful stand out off the top of my head as favorites). But like I said, I have a couple of shelves worth of these things, and that's not including photo books.  What's left to say?  Well, there's only a few untold stories here (an early romance with Ronnie Spector, which is not as much fun as Josh Alan Friedman's take on the same subject a decade later, see Tell The Truth Until They Bleed), a lot of wild and woolly party tales, and of course, just seeing it all from Keith's point of view. Oh, and the music itself, which normally I'd say is the most boring part of any rock'n'roll read, but in Keith's case,  it's my favorite part of the book. He explains why his open G guitar tuning style only sounds right with five strings, and just how it works. He also explains Jimmy Reed's unique way of making his  resolving d7 chord (which he learned from Bobby "Honey" Goldsboro)-- he simply played one note on the D string and left the A string ringing, instead of making the whole chord! A lazy man's road to genius.  At this point I'd like to say, I disagree with Keith's deciphering of Reed's lyrics to Caress Me Baby. According to Keith, the line "Don't pull no subway/I'd rather see you pull a train" means "Don't go on dope, dont' go underground, I'd rather see you drunk or on cocaine", the way I read the line, it means -- don't leave ("don't pull no subway"), I'd rather see you get gangbanged ("I'd rather see you pull a train"). The term "pull a train" slang for a gangbang was still in use when I was in high school in Florida in the early 70's, and I think my translation is correct. Gangbang of course still meant group sex back then, not drive by shootings. For more on Keith and Jimmy Reed, (he has mastered the Jimmy Reed sound), I refer you back to my posting of his 1981 Jimmy Reed session.
 The Stones' career is given Keith's once over in the sort of blurry way he saw it from the inside, the earliest years go by at 100 miles per hour, drug busts and screaming teenagers await everytime Keith attempts leave the recording studio or concert hall.  The dope years are fun to read about, but don't sound like much fun. To be honest, there are better junkie memoirs out there (Art Pepper, Dr. John). The dope stories make up on a small part of the book, and he writes more about the tribulations of trying to score drugs more than he does about taking them.
 Life covers nearly all of the most famous Stones stories which are of course the foundation of their legend -- living in squalor in Edith Grove, the riot in Blackpool kicked off by Keith kicking a punter who was spitting at him in the head, the Redlands bust ( finally putting the Mars bar rumour to rest), Swinging London and its fabulous characters-- Robert Fraser, Michael Cooper, et al,  the fateful trip to Morocco that sealed Brian Jones' fate and won Anita Pallenberg's love, the making of Exile On Main Street, Charlie Watts changing into his best Saville Row suit to punch out Mick Jagger for referring to him as "my drummer",  all great stories, and Keith's versions add a bit of inside detail, but seem to stick to the already written script. It's funny what Keith decides to add to the oft told stories, and also what new stories he adds to the legend-- bringing in Kate Moss to testify to his attempting to dismember with a sword a guest at his daughter's wedding who stole the onions for his Bangers and Mash (Keith includes his recipe for the same dish), his own holding up a show in Toronto until the culprits who ate his Shepard's Pie are brought to justice (admitting he never eats before a show anyway, just wants to have it there in case he gets hungry), breaking down the door to Truman Capote ("Truby")'s hotel room, and the like. These stories are all pretty funny, many new to print.  He also dedicates two sections of the book to the story of the Wingless Angels-- a rasta-gospel vocal group whose Keith produced 1997 LP was one of his greatest musical triumphs (and his best album since Exile) and was criminally ignored. In fact today it's out of print, although soon to be re-issued in a package with Vol. 2, but since it's out of print,  here's a few tracks-- Morning Train, Rivers Of Babylon, and Keyman A Capella to wet your appetite for the re-issue.
In Life, Keith's friends, band and family can be treated harshly or with incredible tenderness--  Stash Klossowski de Rola is "basically full of shit", while legendary bearer of sealed bottles of pharmaceutical Merc cocaine, the late Freddie Sessler is-- "Totally horrible, revolting. Absolutely over the top, stupid at times" but "totally solid" and someone Keith obviously still holds in high regard. Even Tony Sanchez, whose Up and Down With The Rolling Stones ended every paragraph with "you bastard, I thought", comes off looking okay. No hard feelings there. But forgiving doesn't pay back seven million dollar advances, and Keith knows what his audience wants. More than dope and celebrity stories, they (we, ....me) want to read about what a jerk Mick Jagger is.  Jagger, who is referred to variously as "Brenda", "Disco boy, "Her majesty" or sometimes just "the bitch" takes a major beating in Life, one he probably deserves. For those keeping score, Brian Jones, Donald Cammell, Ron Wood and Anita Pallenberg also get spattered with various degrees of shrapnel. After Jagger, Cammell (director of Performance) gets it the worst--"the most destructive turd I've ever met...utterly predatory... ". Much of this I guess is just giving the audience what they paid for. We go see the Stones to hear our favorite songs, and to hear loud guitars playing Chuck Berry licks rather sloppily, and we buy books like this to read about what kind of assholes people can be. Rock'n'roll brings out the worst in some (most) people-- on one hand it keeps performers infantile, while on the other inflating their egos beyond comprehension. Keith sees this all with fairly clear, if sometimes pinned eyes, and in recalling what he's seen, and lived, he delivers the goods.  I mean, not many writers get a seven million dollar advance (and Little, Brown and Co. obviously have high hopes for this book, the initial first printing is said to be three million copies). I used to think it was a put on, a way to get press in the years they weren't touring and that Keith and Mick were having drinks somewhere laughing at the whole thing ("Yeah mate, then I call you a "Prince imitator"). After reading Life, I don't think that's the case. I think Keith really does hate Jagger in a way you can only hate someone you once loved. This all may end up backfiring on Keith. Is it my imagination or were the audience booing Keith during his two numbers on the Stones HBO live broadcast a few years back? The show, coming hot on the heels of Keith's press attacks on Mick for accepting a knighthood (hey, Graham Greene turned one down just for the record, and so should any artist), I'm pretty sure the crowd were booing Keith for attacking Mick. Us old time Stones fans like to think the reason the Stones can't make good records anyore is that Jagger wants them to sound current and  up to date, something the Stones never used to care about. The best new music the Stones have made since 1981 are a few good Keith tracks like 40 Licks Am I Losing My Touch. Live, they started sounding like a Vegas act around the early 90's, as Bob Dylan astutely noted, when Bill Wyman left they really stopped sounding like the Stones.
There are few surprises in life and in Life, one being that Keith likes Jackson Browne, another is Keith crediting Ian Stewart putting the Stones together, not Brian Jones, but like I said, had I never read a word about the Stones, I'm sure every word here would have held some sort of enlightenment.
Keith ends the book wondering-- "How come I could get a great drum sound in Denmark Street with one microphone, and now with fifteen microphones I get a drum sound like someone shitting on a tin roof?" I've been wondering that out loud for twenty five years now. While on the subject, the above images come from the newly published The Lost Rolling Stones Photographs: The Bob Bonis Archive 1964-1966 (!t/Haper Collins, 2010), a collection of amazing pix from their first American tours taken by their American road manager Bob Bonis. It makes a nice perfect companion piece to Keith's book.
Addendum- Bill Wyman imagines Mick's response to Keith's book here.

Brian Jones

Brian, on a prospecting mission. John Lennon reads the shocking news. Brian At the Mellotron.

Rare sleeve.

Final resting place, Cheltenham. Dressed to kill..... Brian and Anita, the perfect couple....  

After the Beatles came the Stones and of the Stones one could never have ignored Brian Jones with his puffed up Pisces, all-knowing, all suffering fish eyes, his incredible clothes, those magnificent scarves, Brian always ahead of style, perfect Brian. How could Brian have asthma, a psychological disease (we're told) and certainly something strange for a member of a rock and roll group. We read in interviews that Brian saw himself as the original lead Stone, a position he held until their American tour singled out Mick for the honor in the hearts of the American female.

Can you remember 1964 when the Stones were called homosexual for long hair? (Were you?) Brian with two fourteen year old girls draped on each arm, must have laughed. And yet, the center of attention was drifting. In a group the attention may be evenly distributed (we all knew and loved John, Paul, George and Ringo) but in the Stones it was to be Mick. Now normally in a group an instrumentalist can never overshadow a lead singer (Exception: The Yardbirds where Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page did just that to poor Keith Relf). In the Stones there was Mick, the pivotal center. Charlie and Bill were for gourmets. That left Keith and Brian. Lead guitar always beats rhythm guitar for popularity, so that left Brian, who one assumes therefore turned to more and more exotic instruments to establish his presence to both himself and others. This is what I'm worth. Let me see you play the damn thing....but the great mass looked to Mick not Brian to be their leader through this Fall From Grace. And how can you take that? "But I started the thing," you might say. "It was my records in the first place, I turned them on, must I be a damn singer to turn on the world?" Yes, Or the champion of the guitar.

Then, of course, there are more problems, the drug arrests, the constant mental turmoil. What if they tour without me? Financial. Could I starve? (He died well in debt). If they play without me I shall be disgraced and have nothing where as if I leave and strike out on my own I'm out before they get me (how sad! how inevitable!), and I create my own myth, style, voice, the eyes will be on me, I have a future, there's so much I know, music, music, music, who would know it from THAT, I can do it, I have to do it, I will do it.

And of course the disorientation, am I backwards, forwards, the asthma attack (I am going to choke), the fall (where is the pool?!) and everything settles like a quiet bubble coming in spurts and then thin streams until finally the last one has popped itself right out of earthly existence.

-- Lou Reed excerpt from Fallen Knights and Fallen Ladies from the book Nobody Waved Goodbye (a casualty report on rock and roll) edited by Robert Somma, Fusion Books, 1971.

Not a mention in the press, upstaged by Jacko mania, does any one care anymore? July 3 was forty years since Brian Jones died, pulled out his swimming pool, "death by misadventure" it said on the paperwork. Asthma attack? Murdered by a thug laborer? Just got too damn loaded? Does it matter? Brian Jones was not built to last, he was never meant to be an old man. Had he lived, what would he have been?

As a non-singer, non-writer, his options were limited. If Brian handled fame badly, he certainly would have handled the lack of it worse. He could never have lived the life of Mick Taylor, whom most of us wouldn't recognize if he was sitting on the next bar stool. An old Brian? A fat Brian? A bald Brian? It could never have been. Mick may look like Don Knotts these days and Keith could adorn an iodine bottle, but Brian is etched in our memory, forever young, forever perfect. Of course he was an asshole, what rock star isn't? A monster even, what kind of cretin would hit a woman? Blacken beautiful Anita's mysterious eyes. Unthinkable.

But we forgive him even that, he left us a lot, he left us the Stones. It's hard to fathom that in the five short years Brian was in the Rolling Stones just how much great music they made. Depending on if you count the UK or US version (I'm still astounded the UK versions of most Stones LP's have never been re-issued, since they're much better)

they recorded either eight or ten albums, non counting the 45's and b-sides that never made it to LP. Brian's last performance with the Stones-- No Expectations was in '68, they no longer needed him once they got through their extremely under rated psychedelic phase. Everyone wanted to play with the Stones from Gene Pitney to Phil Spector to Al Kooper, it was easy to find players to fill out the recordings, not so easy for Brian to find something to replace the Stones in his life. We've all seen Godard's One Plus One with an out of it Brian attempting to make himself useful. "What can I play?", "What can you play?" Mick retorts, even his musicianship has failed him. He stopped showing up for sessions about that time. By Let It Bleed Keith had mastered the slide, with a few tuning tips from Ry Cooder (I find it hilarious when Cooder claims the Stones ripped off his riffs, he stole 'em from Blind Willie Johnson). Brian was no longer needed, and more trouble than he was worth. It was the era of the superstar lead guitarist and "Clapton Is God", a role Keith could have filled if he wanted to, but he chose to move into Brian's role-- rhythm and slide, and they brought in a hotshot young lead player, with the prerequisite John Mayall resume. Mick Taylor couldn't play rhythm guitar to shave his wife, listen to Get Your Ya-Ya's Out, when Keith takes a solo (Sympathy For The Devil, Little Queenie) the rhythm falls out. But rhythm guitar was the perfect place for Keith to drive from. Ron Asheton told me when the Stones were rehearsing in the next studio down from the Stooges only Charlie, Keith and Mick Jagger rehearsed, as long as Charlie followed Keith, the rest would fall in place. Poor Brian.

One thing that is rarely discussed is how good the Stones were at making records, they took to the studio like a preacher to a Cadillac and while the Keith was basically in charge in the studio, Brian's contributions are undeniable, whether it was as the world's greatest rhythm guitarist (The Last Time, Not Fade Away, Mona), or harmonica player (Spider & the Fly) or slide player (I Wanna Be Your Man) the early Stones records couldn't have been without him. As they moved into pop and psychedelia, Brian became the ultimate utility man-- Aftermath, Flowers, Between The Buttons (was Miss Amanda Jones about him?), Satanic Majesties Request are full of his flourishes-- the synth playing on Please Go Home, the sitar on Paint It Black and Mother's Little Helper, marimbas on Out Of Time, recorder on Ruby Tuesday and Citadel, mellotron on 2000 Light Years From Home, clarinet on She's A Rainbow. He knew just what to play, and what not to play. Listen to this alternate take of the basic track to Satisfaction. It was said Brian hated the song, and often would play the riff to "I'm Popeye The Sailor-Man" (no one could hear 'em over the screams at that point anyway), but listen to how he and Keith lock together-- perfect. Or Empty Heart, the greatest tune they never played live. Sloppy, out of tune and wonderful. Some rarities: Down In The Bottom (Chess version)-- Brian on slide!, Key To The Highway (another Chess outtake), Crackin' Up, Fanny Mae (BBC), Diddley Daddy, I Wanna Be Loved, Road Runner (these three from their 1963 demo), I Know (this is actually a Metamorphosis era Mick and Keith outtake, but I really like it and it's hard to find, Brian's probably not even on it). I was ten when Brian died, I'll always remember where I was when I heard the news (at the beach). He was the first person I would ever miss. I still miss him. Brian Jones, forty years gone, and we're still wondering about him. As John Ford said-- He was expendable.

Gillian's Found Photos #17

This week's edition of Gillian's Found Photos carries on last week's look at the Murray The K holiday shows at the Brooklyn Fox Theater. That's the Rolling Stones onstage. Playing in front of the curtain, which is drawn, I find that a bit odd. Brian looks rather lonely all the way over on the left. Can anyone date this? Does anyone know what songs they played? Generally the acts only did 2-3 songs. I assume this was before Satisfaction which really changed things for the Stones. Until Satisfaction they weren't all that big a deal in the States. They were well known, appeared on all the big TV shows: Ed Sullivan, Dean Martin (he made fun of them), Shindig, but certainly they were nowhere as big as the Beatles. In fact, the way I remember it, the Dave Clark 5 and Herman's Hermit's were bigger than the Stones in 1964. History tells us the Stones were the second biggest group of the British Intrusion, but as we know history is often wrong. And in the case of rock'n'roll, controlled and written by morons and hacks. The Rolling Stones struggled for a year and a half to make it in the States, only grabbing the #2 slot after Satisfaction went to #1 in the summer of '65, leading off an incredible string of hit singles that would last nearly eight years. Up until then, It's All Over Now and Time Is On My Side were their biggest hits, both were covers, and neither of them went to #1. I do remember The Last Time, issued a few months before Satisfaction as totally blowing my six year old mind with it's guitar sound. I'd been following the Stones since I got their first album for Christmas 1964,

but nobody else I knew seemed to care that much about them until the following summer. Not that I had a wide social circle at age six, but I knew they were cooler than Herman's Hermits, Gerry and the Pacemakers, or the Monkees. It's almost forty years since Brian Jones died, I've been thinking about him a lot. More on the subject to come. Here's the Dean Martin clip: