BOOK REVIEW: You Had to Be There! The Rolling Stones Live 1962-69

The Rolling Stones are one of the longest-lived rock bands in history, having remained active for over fifty years and counting. In that time, they've played countless concerts all over the world, yet for most fans, their greatest work was during the 1960s. Starting off as a blues and R&B cover band in the clubs and coffee houses of London, the Stones played a grueling and punishing schedule of concerts to minuscule crowds in their early years, building up their following and becoming second only to the Beatles in the 1960s hierarchy of great bands. In You Had to Be There! The Rolling Stones Live 1962-69, author Richard Houghton offers a trip back to those heady years by telling the story of the Stones' 1960s concerts in the words of the fortunate fans who were there to witness them firsthand. 

***special thanks to the author for sending me a copy of the book to review!***

Soliciting memories from fans who were at any of the Stones' concerts in the 1960s, Houghton and his contributors tell the story of a ragtag group of five obsessive blues and R&B fans who started the decade playing dingy basement clubs to handfuls of teenagers and ended the decade as the second biggest rock band in the world. When I first heard of this book, I assumed it would be similar to another very good, if not flawed, book I've read and reviewed on the Beatles' UK tours. That book was enjoyable but suffered from being quite repetitive and devoid of charm after a while. However, as this Stones book got closer to being released, I began to think it might be quite different. This was most noticeable to me when my mum sent me a story from my parents' local newspaper in Massachusetts where Houghton was soliciting submissions from fans who had attended the Stones concert there in 1965. When I finally got my hands on the book and saw how the author had put the book together, I was delighted but still slightly hesitant. For each of the shows between 1962 and 1969, the story of the concerts was told entirely in the words of the fans who were there. What made me wary was the fear that the book would get repetitive the way the Beatles book did (that book became a real slog once I was halfway through it).

I'm happy to say that this wasn't the case at all with You Had to Be There...each entry is interesting and engaging and there are many reasons for this. When multiple people shared their memories about the same show, it was fascinating to see how similar or different their perceptions and experiences were. Reading about how the various concertgoers managed to get their tickets, got to the shows, met the Stones, and got home was a wonderful look back to a more innocent time when rock music and the concert business were both young and everyone was flying by the seat of their pants as the world changed around them at a rapid pace. Security was minimal, amplification was inadequate, prices were low by today's standards, and the bands were much more accessible. It was also amazing to read firsthand how quickly and profoundly it all changed...fans who attended a Stones show in 1964 mentioned how when they saw them just a year or two later the experience was different and in many cases, not as enjoyable. By the time the band got to the end of the decade, their tours were huge events and the small club and theater crowds they'd played to in earlier years gave way to faceless seas of humanity in arenas and stadiums. The innocence and simplicity of the earlier 1960s was now marred by restless crowds, police violence, drugs, groupies, cynicism, and money while the band became aloof and untouchable heroes to the masses. These are not new revelations, but somehow hearing it from the perspective of all of those were were there makes it more vivid and sharpens its impact.

Adding to the charm of the book are the many photos accompanying the entries of the contributors, with most pictures being representative of how they and the fashions looked back then. There is also a large section in the middle with fan photos of various concerts and meetings with members of the Stones throughout the 1960s. It's quite something to read about someone in their 60s or 70s looking back on something that happened to them when they were a teenager, especially when they mention how much they've seen the world around them change in the years since. Even better are the instances when fans mention that they went to the concert with their boyfriend or girlfriend who they then married and are still married to. It's really touching to read about couples who went together as teens and are still together fifty years later...some of these entries even have photos of the couples now and then, which is heartwarming and adds a more human touch to their story. Overall, You Had to Be There is a real time capsule that takes the reader back in time to those heady days and tracks the rapid pace of the decades evolution through the eyes of the everyday people who experienced their little bit of rock history. If I have any complaint, it's only that I would have liked to have seen more contributions from fans who attended shows on the 1969 American tour, including Altamont, as the book ends with the Stones' show at Hyde Park in July 1969. Thinking about it, though, I can understand why the author may have stopped here as Hyde Park was the first show the band played in the immediate aftermath of Brian Jones' death and in way, it was the full-stop end of their 1960s incarnation. However, the 1969 tour was their first that was an actual event and the Altamont show is widely seen as what killed the 1960s dream, so those could have been a nice way to bookend the decade for the Rolling Stones. Still, this is a small quibble of mine and as I said, the more I think about it the more I understand why Houghton ended the book at Hyde Park...it was the end of an era and the first chapter in the Stones' career. 

In closing, while not offering any new revelations in terms of the inner workings of the Stones or their music, this is still definitely a book that any fan of the band would enjoy. Even those who are more a fan of the 1960s and its music in general and perhaps not dedicated Stones fans would have a good time taking a trip back to those years and reading about the experiences from the lucky fans who were there to live through it firsthand.

MY RATING: 9/10

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BOOK REVIEW: Brian Jones: The Making of the Rolling Stones

One of the most enigmatic and tragic figures of the 1960s rock music scene is Brian Jones. A founding member of the Rolling Stones, if not the founder, as well as a brilliant multi-instrumentalist, his short life and career is the stuff of legend, myth, and misinformation. The charter member of the modern-era 27 Club, he's more remembered for his problems with drugs, his steep and sudden musical decline, and his mysterious death. These perceptions of him have been fostered and abetted by numerous people over the decades, perhaps none more so than the two bandmates with whom he first plotted the course of the band and who later froze him out. Indeed, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards formed one of the most successful songwriting teams of the rock era and, along with former manager Andrew Oldham, subsequently marginalized, subdued, and in many ways psychologically destroyed Brian Jones. Most Stones history of the nearly fifty years since Brian's death portray him as a tragic casualty of the rock lifestyle, but in Paul Trynka's new book it's laid out that the truth is far more interesting...and different.

***special thanks to Andrea at Viking Press for sending me a copy of the book to review!***

From reading various accounts of Rolling Stones history over the years, including memoirs by Richards and Oldham, one would think that Brian Jones was little more than a drug addled musical dilettante who fathered numerous illegitimate children whom he didn't support. Indeed, that was pretty much how I had always viewed him; the stories of him nodding off in a drug-induced stupor during recording sessions, of smacking around his girlfriend-of-the-moment, of making life so intolerable for the other Stones that they had to ditch him to save their own careers...these were all things I'd read and heard over the years and which formed my opinion of Jones. Are any of them true? Yes, actually most of them are. However, they didn't just happen in a vacuum and as is usual with these sorts of complex people, there is typically a fair amount of good that counterbalances the bad. This is where author Paul Trynka seems intent on taking Brian's story.  Rigorously researched and drawing upon new interviews with many people who were around the Stones and the London rock scene in the 1960s, Trynka sets out with this book to tell the definitive, true story of Brian's life and also to reestablish his status as a pioneer of British blues, R&B, and rock music. 

Trynka begins with Brian's birth and upbringing, describing in excruciatingly sad detail the nearly loveless and emotionally bereft household he was brought up in from his birth in 1942. Brian's parents, Lewis and Louisa, were successful in their careers and welcomed their eldest child (and only son) into this very stern and cold house. While they were both musical (Louisa was a piano teacher), according to every account from Brian's childhood friends the atmosphere in the house was very unaffectionate.  A sister born when Brian was very young died of leukemia and was a secret the boy was instructed to never divulge to anyone outside of the house. Another sister, Barbara, was born a few years later although she and Brian were never particularly close. By all accounts, Brian was a shy, sensitive, intelligent student who excelled at school and was a star athlete until his chronic asthma began to flare up enough that it affected his physical abilities. As one of his classmates later recounted, beyond resenting the his asthma, Brian resented himself for suffering from it and never got over it. Brian's interest in music was first indulged when he began playing clarinet and saxophone at school and he heard his first jazz record. Eventually his parents bought him a guitar and once he was bitten by the blues, music was all that he lived for. Combined with a growing disrespect for authority figures and his developing prowess with girls, Brian became a profound disappointment to his austere parents and the estrangement that would last the rest of his life began in earnest. It was also around this time he began fathering a series of illegitimate children and causing heartbreak in the lives of each of the women who he'd eventually abandon.  

Deciding to risk it all by moving to London and plying his trade, Brian soon made a name for himself as one of the most knowledgeable and talented blues and R&B guitarists on the burgeoning London scene. In particular, his ability to play authentically gritty slide guitar caught the attention of many, including a couple of young schoolboys from Dartford named Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.  Brian eventually set out to put a band together and recruited Ian "Stu" Stewart, Mick and Keith, bass player Bill Wyman (who replaced the original bassist); after an unsuccessful first attempt at poaching him, he successfully persuaded Charlie Watts to join on drums and the Rollin' Stones (as Brian originally named them) were born. While the band collectively worked toward their goals, it was Brian who was the undisputed leader during these early days of 1962-1963. He formed the band, named it, decided on what material they would play, and he booked the gigs. However, the beginning of the end came with the arrival of the Stones' first co-manager, Andrew Oldham. A fast-talking teenager who had recently worked with the Beatles and unsuccessful co-managed the Who before they were famous, Oldham fixated on Jagger as the star and also (rightly) realized the band needed to pen original songs in order to sustain their success as he didn't think covers would earn them much money or respect. Encouraging the Jagger/Richards partnership to begin writing songs, Oldham formed a troika with Mick and Keith that began the slow process of isolating and freezing Brian out out the band. According to Trynka, as early as 1965 Brian could sense what was happening and planned an escape route. However, like most things in his life, he had big ideas and talked a good game but never followed through on anything. Eventually he sank deeper into drug addiction and was relentlessly (and honestly, unfairly) hounded by the police, led by the notorious Sgt. Norman Pilcher who became famous for planting drugs and tipping off tabloids in advance of his high profile busts. While Jagger, Richards, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Donovan were all notches in Pilcher's belt, Brian Jones was public enemy #1 because of how blatantly he flouted authority; he would thus become the target for a staggering number of repeated plants and busts. Combined with some downright nasty treatment from the Stones (to be fair, Wyman saw what was going on and didn't participate, while Charlie Watts saw it but remained quiet) and Oldham, led to Brian becoming a shell of himself. By early 1969 he'd been sacked from the band and on July 2nd, 1969 he was found dead in his swimming pool at the age of 27.

Trynka's book does an excellent job of providing a detailed history of the Rolling Stones' career in the 1960s through the prism of Brian's life and the pictures he paints of both aren't pretty. While it's well known that the band were embattled with the press and the establishment, the darker internal band issues are laid bare. It is surprising to realize just how close to the brink of dissolution, both financially and artistically, the Stones were even as late as 1968 before they saved their career with Beggars Banquet. While Brian's character faults (and there were many) are detailed and make understandable the exasperation of those around him, it was also obvious to multiple people involved in and around the band how downright cruel and nasty Mick, Keith, and Oldham were to him. From inviting him to sessions and telling him the wrong time so that he would show up when no one was at the studio, to wiping his parts off of songs or not plugging his amp and microphone in, they did everything they could to make him unwelcome and marginalized within the band.  Combined with external pressures and his mental issues, it reached a point where Brian stopped playing guitar altogether by 1966 or so.  While this actually helped to enhance much of the Stones' best music (for instance, his sitar part on "Paint It Black," his marimba part on "Under My Thumb," and his recorder part on "Ruby Tuesday") eventually it reached the point where he would just come to the studio and nod off or wander around while the rest of the band went about their business.  By the time of the last Stones album he contributed to, 1969's masterpiece Let It Bleed, he was begging to play bongos, harmonica, anything while Mick famously and coldly told him to "just go home, Brian."  Keith ran off with Brian's girlfriend Anita Pallenberg in early 1967 on a trip they all took to Morocco and they, along with Mick, abandoned him there all alone with no money, among other indignities.  In reality, it is a testament to Brian's resolve and forgiving nature that he stuck it out in the band for another two years! Trynka details all of this, much of it via firsthand accounts from friends, producers, fellow musicians, and music journalists who were all around during this period. The resulting portrait depicts a very talented, sensitive, and flawed young man who drove those around him to madness yet took a physical, mental, and emotional battering from those closest to him which eventually wore him down and indirectly led to his death.

Speaking of his death, Trynka tries to set the record straight once and for all with his final chapter. Rather than tackling the event head on, he systematically goes through each of the various theories that have sprung up over the years, one-by-one, and discusses their plausibility (or lack thereof), using facts old and new and good old fashioned common sense in order to include or exclude different scraps of information. His conclusion is that (***SPOILER ALERT***) Brian's death was simply a tragic accident. While there are some inconsistencies in the witnesses' stories, some shoddy police work and a woefully sloppy (in the figurative sense) autopsy, as well as lingering suspicions about Brian's driver Tom Keylock, all of the evidence points to it being an accident. Basically, Brian, who was known to nod off due to his overindulgence in Mandrax (a muscle relaxant) most likely had an unfortunate nodding-off spell while swimming in his pool that night. And while Keylock was indeed a sleazy character who was later found to have stolen many of Brian's possessions and sold them to collectors, he most likely had nothing to do with the death (and his subsequent "revelation" of a deathbed confession by Frank Thorogood, a builder who had been working at Brian's house, has been soundly debunked).  As a final reminder of the lack of warmth and love from his parents, it's mentioned how Lewis and Lousia inscribed Brian's headstone with "In Affectionate Memory;" even in death, his parents seemed incapable of expressing to him the love which he had so long craved. It makes for a depressing ending to a very sad life.

During this concluding chapter and indeed throughout the entire book, Trynka goes to great lengths to almost plead with the reader than they shift the decades-long focus on Brian's death to his life and music instead. He does this by not only documenting several instances where Brian's pioneering musical achievements have been downplayed or forgotten (such as his introducing open tunings to Keith as early as 1962/63, his use and incorporation of unorthodox and ethnic instruments on the Stones' classic recordings between 1965-68, his introducing the blues to a mainstream audience) but how there were aspects of Brian's personality that were actually enjoyed by his friends. Indeed, for as insufferable as he truly could be, Brian did have a lot of friends and admirers...shockingly, all of them were from outside of the Rolling Stones. Pete Townshend, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Jimmy Page, Alexis Korner, Ginger Baker, and others all spoke fondly of Brian and hung out with him regularly, whereas Mick, Keith, Stu, Andrew Oldham, and many others within the Stones camp have spent the years since his death doing whatever they can to all but write him completely out of their history. Trynka does a nice job trying to reclaim Brian's musical legacy and I would say that he succeeds in the main; personally, I had always thought of his as a flawed musician, talented but a dilettante. While he was indeed a dilettante in most aspects of his life (not just music), it didn't make him any less important to the Stones or 1960s rock music and I will admit that this book changed many of the preconceived notions I had about Brian. The author is clearly a fan of Brian's and that comes through loud and clear in his writing. While I won't say he's unbalanced, there are many instances where, in trying to present both sides of a situation he will give one or two sentences in Mick or Keith's defense (for example) and then devote an entire paragraph (or more) to Brian's defense. While it's not unbalanced per se, the bias is definitely in favor of Jones, although given that this is a book about him that's shouldn't be too surprising. Overall, this is an excellent book that not only gives a nice history of the Stones' career in the 1960s, but serves to set the record straight on Brian Jones and reclaim his legacy as the musical pioneer he truly was.

MY RATING: 8/10

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BOOK REVIEW: The Rolling Stones

For over fifty years, the music of the Rolling Stones has been blasted out of our speakers and performed on concert stages across the world. As absolute legends of rock music and the longest continually active band of their generation (if not of all time), the time was ripe for a career retrospective book by the band, for the fans.  That moment is finally here with Taschen's officially authorized book, titled simply The Rolling Stones.

***special thanks to Julie and Mallory at Taschen for sending me a copy of the book to review!***

I first need to get the obvious out of the way: this is a MAMMOTH work of art, with emphasis on those two words for a reason. The book is absolutely huge, handsomely presented in hardcover with a dust jacket featuring a photo by the legendary Gered Mankowitz from the Between the Buttons cover session on the front and a shot of a massive concert audience on the rear.  The book comes housed in a folding cardboard case complete with carrying handle (see photo below).  A quick look at the table of contents reveals that, in addition to the gorgeous photos contained within its 500+ pages, there are also some essays on the Stones and large sections in the back dedicated to other aspects of their history. I'll go through these in order as the review progresses, so keep reading...

The book next to its box

This book is an officially authorized photographic history of the Rolling Stones, put together with complete cooperation from the band; this included access to their vast archives in both London and New York City. It spans the period of 1962, when the nucleus of the band first came together, up to the present day.  Most of the photos take full advantage of the high quality paper stock and large page sizes and are of such high resolution and clarity that many of them look as though they could have been taken yesterday, never mind decades ago. What makes this book more than just a collection of photographs are the detailed captions that accompany each photograph. These include the year, date (when available), photographer, and a brief explanation from both the photographer as well as the subject of the particular picture. Thus, even as you go through the visual tour of the book, there is information and background for each photo that puts it into context and clarifies what is going on.  Sprinkled throughout are the essays, which are interesting enough although they don't really offer anything too new in terms of information that any serious Stones fan won't already know. Additionally, one of the essays is rather annoying in how the author feels the need to simultaneously tear down the Beatles with every compliment he bestows upon the Stones; it's doubly pointless since then as now, both bands have been good friends and were never rivals.

Starting with the earliest photos, the book traces the history of the band from their beginnings as shaggy young men playing blues and R&B in sweaty London nightclubs as they worked their way up the ladder to become one of the leading bands of Swinging London and 1960s rock.  From their 1969 American tour to the present, the Stones became larger than life and beyond immersing themselves in now-cliche rock and roll lifestyle, they became the rock and roll lifestyle. We see them go from young, shaggy, wide-eyed young men who cannot believe their good fortune to get paid for making music to the road weary, drug-addled bad-boys of the mid-to-late-1960s over the course of many pages. Most fascinating and also most tragic is witnessing the gradual physical and mental decline of Brian Jones over these same pages.  From 1969, when Mick Taylor replaced Brian shortly before his (Brian's) death to the present, the Stones were (and still are) larger than life; this is conveyed perfectly through the pictures.  The bulk of the book (I'd estimate ~2/3 of it) focuses on the 1962-1975 era which coincidentally happens to be what I and most Stones fans consider their best era.  The remainder of the photographs cover the Ron Wood era in rather rapid succession which is surprising given that this has been the longest-lived incarnation of the band! Indeed, it feels as though once the book gets past the release of the Some Girls album in 1978 it rushes fairly quickly through the rest of their career. There is a paucity of images documenting the 1980s...the Dirty Work album (admittedly, one of their worst) is completely absent from the book. I was also really surprised (and a little disappointed) that there weren't extra photos devoted to sixth Stone Ian "Stu" Stewart, their loyal friend, roadie, and piano player who tragically passed away in 1985. I would have expected numerous photos of Stu when the book got to the point in their history when he passed, especially given the love and admiration they've expressed for him throughout their career. Not something I'm taking major points away over, but a confusing omission nonetheless.  Finally, the end of the book has two large sections devoted to Stones history: the first is a detailed chronological list of their history year-by-year starting with the birth of the oldest member (Bill Wyman) and hitting every milestone over the past 50+ years.  The second section is a collection of single, LP, and magazine covers from all around the world over the same time span.  It's truly a wealth of history and imagery that is almost too much to take in all at once!

Overall, this is an absolutely gorgeous and extremely well thought out, well put together book chronicling one of the most important rock bands of all time.  It's nearly flawless...the only things I will knock it for are the aforementioned thin selection of photos from the 1980s and the fact that there are several pages left blank apart from small captions pertaining to photos on the opposite page: I would have loved even more pictures from the archives to fill these pages up.  These are minor quibbles, however, and no serious Rolling Stones fan can be without this book.  This should be the benchmark by which any band who aspires to put a photographic history together should measure.

MY RATING: 9.5/10

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BOOK REVIEW: The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones

They've been called "the greatest rock and roll band in the world," and for a time during the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was hard to argue that it wasn't true.  Bursting onto the rock music scene in 1964 in the wake of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones are music history's greatest runners-up.  Ironically, while the media pitted the Beatles and Stones against each other as rivals, the bands were good friends.  However, whereas the Beatles were universally adored and considered a national (and later, worldwide) treasure, the Stones were set up as their polar opposites by the press: scruffy, dirty, vulgar, and dangerous. As usual with these sort of things, the truth of the matter lies somewhere in the middle of the two extremes, although it is fair to say that the Stones did have a seedier image, lifestyle, and mystique attached to them. This reached its fever pitch during their golden period of 1968-1973 when they released a run of albums and singles that stands with the best that any band of any era produced.  In the middle of all of this, from 1968 to 1970, writer Stanley Booth traveled with the Stones and the resulting book, The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones, ended up being one of the greatest rock and roll books ever in spite of its tortuous gestation period (more on that in a bit).

***special thanks to Stacey at Chicago Review Press for sending me a copy of the book to review!*** 

Drug busts,  trials, sentencing hearings, and the rapid deterioration of Brian Jones forced the Stones off the road after their 1967 European tour.  Even though they'd continued to release several excellent singles and albums in the interim, by early 1969 the band were itching to get back on the road and play in front of crowds, especially in America where they hadn't toured since 1966. Complicating matters was the mental and physical degradation of Jones, who had become increasingly irrelevant to the Stones' music since the end of 1966. With Mick Jagger and Keith Richards firmly in control as the songwriters and creative drivers of the band, Jones was marginalized as he sank deeper into his addictions. Several months before setting out on their comeback tour of the US, the Stones replaced Jones with Mick Taylor, whose debut show was to be a massive festival in London's Hyde Park in July 1969. A few days before this concert, Jones was found dead in his swimming pool, turning the concert from its intended introduction of Taylor into a tribute to Jones. Three months later, the band would head to America to rehearse for the tour, which started in November and became one of the most epic and mythical tours of its era (at least until the Stones' equally celebrated 1972 US Tour). Into the middle of all of this dropped Stanley Booth, an at the time unknown writer from Waycross, Georgia who spent 1968 and 1969 in London working on a biography of the Stones before accompanying them on the 1969 tour. The resulting book would turn out to be more gripping, informative, interesting, and shocking than either the author or his subjects could have ever known.

The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones was originally written between 1968 and 1970, but wasn't published until 1984.  Thankfully, it has been reprinted for its 30th anniversary by Chicago Review Press and it is this edition that is the subject of the present review.  The book is set up as both a history of the Rolling Stones from their inception to the present (ie 1970, when Booth's time with the band was over) and as a blow-by-blow chronicle of the 1969 tour as it happened.  The structure has chapters alternating the band's history with the ongoing tour before they meet head-on at the end.  After starting the book with a tease about the situation at the ill-fated Altamont Festival (which we'll get to later) prior to the Stones taking the stage, Booth takes the reader for a ride on two parallel tracks: from humble beginnings in the country suburbs of London and the R&B clubs of the city before the Stones achieved stardom, and the decadent sleaze and boredom of a rented house in Los Angeles a month before the US tour starts in November 1969.  The central figure of both tracks is Brian Jones, the enigmatic and doomed young man who founded the band before he was usurped and pushed to the side the more successful they got.  As far as the band history part of the book goes, Booth does an excellent job tracing their history from the nascent jazz and R&B clubs of London where the band members began sitting in with each other to the moment when the five of them finally came together and started down their road to success.  Besides the concert riots and negative press that dogged them at every turn, what was most shocking to learn was just how soon after the Stones became famous that Brian's influence and participation in the band began to wane.  Indeed, Mick, Keith, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, and Ian "Stu" Stewart all recall how Brian would not turn up for gigs or recording sessions, leaving the band to capably carry on without him.  Additionally, while Jagger and Richards' dismissive and often cruel treatment of Jones is well known and well documented, most fans (myself included) usually consider it to have started in the 1966-67 period, when Brian's drug problems became overwhelming and he lost his girlfriend, Anita Pallenberg, to Keith. However, the book clearly shows that the Stones (and then-manager Andrew Oldham) took this attitude toward Brian as early as 1964 and in earnest by 1965.  The book also gives the most detailed and in-depth look at the infamous Redlands drug busts of Mick and Keith and the resulting overreach of the courts in sentencing (and then releasing) the duo. However, Brian's offenses are also discussed, in even more detail as Booth was present at the hearings, and it's quite surprising as to how differently he was viewed by the media and the courts when compared to his two bandmates.  Booth also managed to interview Brian's parents for the book, albeit after his death, and their somewhat ambivalent yet ultimately loving feelings toward their late son and his former bandmates makes for fascinating reading.

Running concurrently with the band history is Booth's diary of the 1969 tour which is the beating heart of the book, bringing all of the threads together.  Beginning in October 1969 when the band, their various mates, management, and hangers-on decamped to several rented houses in Los Angeles to rehearse and prepare the logistics of the tour, Booth's prose is a narrative of not only what was going on in the Stones' world, but in his own life.  His troubles with his agent and publisher in getting his advance and a proper contract for the book drawn up, the strain the assignment put on his marriage, and his burgeoning drug addition as he imbibed alongside the Stones and their friends are all issues that continued to dog him throughout the tour. Along with this, he does a great job detailing the boredom and drudgery that accompanies a lot of rock and roll touring. While the Stones were demigods by this stage, earning a small fortune every night for a few hours' work and able to have their every whim and desire catered to, there were still endless hours slogging around on airplanes, buses, taxi cabs, in hotel rooms, and the constant bouts of hurry-up-and-wait as they flitted from city to city. All of this led to the inevitable climax, the disaster at the Altamont Festival. The last show of the tour (although not actually part of the tour proper as it was added at the last minute and took place a week after the true end of the tour), Booth had a backstage view of the mayhem and violence of the festival from the moment the Stones arrived at the site all the way through their performance and their harrowing escape to the safety of their hotel. In particular, his play-by-play recap of the concert itself (which, along with listening to the audience recording of the entire show and watching the Gimme Shelter film gives one an almost completely immersive and accurate picture of what went on) makes for edge-of-the-seat reading.  Indeed, I literally could not put the book down while I was reading this chapter. His grisly description of Meredith Hunter's fatal injuries at the hands of the Hells Angels doesn't make for easy reading, especially when he conveys an eyewitness account from a man who was involved in trying to save Hunter's life. While most accounts rightly point the blame at Hunter for pulling a gun in the midst of the huge, restless crowd (and indeed, it's all captured in the film), the manner in which Booth describes the entire event is terrifying and places the reader firmly in the pitch dark madness of that cold California night in December 1969.

After that disaster, the finality of the tour is remarkably brief as everyone in the Stones entourage scattered to the four winds almost immediately after Altamont.  The rest of Booth's story, both in terms of his personal life and his book, is no less troubling.  It took him many years to recover, emotionally and physically, from the experience; he had to kick his drug addictions after a few more years of spending time with the Stones on subsequent tours nearly cost him his life.  The long and winding road his book took to being published, as well as the various missteps made by his publicity handlers, cost him a lot of money and fulfillment which led him to the desperate brink of suicide. He never made much money off of the book despite its critical darling status since its publication and this seems to have left a slightly bitter taste in his mouth, and understandably so.  However, we should be eternally grateful that the book did come out and that it is now available again.  If method acting involves an actor getting so immersed in his or her character that they actually become the character for a time, then Booth was a method writer as he became one of the Stones during this period in his life, and he paid a dear price for it both mentally and physically.  Apart from some rather dense and perhaps overly verbose and slightly pretentious passages scattered throughout, this is a fascinating and enjoyable book that puts the reader there in the moment. It's not fly-on-the-wall writing so much as it is fly-in-the-ointment writing, and it also contains one of my new favorite sentences of all time:

"In the sixties we believed in a myth: that music had the power to change people's lives; today people believe in a myth: that music is just entertainment."

That is powerful, profound stuff and so, so true.

This book has rightly been hailed as a classic of rock music writing and I can't argue with that assessment. It is, in my opinion, the most rock and roll book about the most rock and roll rock and roll band ever. And I meant that sentence exactly as I wrote it.  None other than Keith Richards himself said "Stanley Booth's book is the only one I can read and say 'Yeah, that's how it was.'" If it's good enough for Keef, that's more than good enough for me.

MY RATING: 9.5/10

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BOOK REVIEW: 27: A History of the 27 Club

The story of the dead rock star is almost a sad cliche at this point in time; certainly when a famous musician dies at a young age, most people aren't surprised and in many cases, it's almost expected to happen. Drink, drugs, reckless behavior, and unhealthy lifestyles are all some of the reasons many of the top musicians of their day end up passing away before their time at an age when most of us are just starting to come into our own as adults. However, there is a small subset of these deceased stars who all have a rather eerie thing in common; this is, of course, the fact that a disproportionate number of them died at the age of 27. Brian Jones, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Kurt Cobain are the most famous and highest profile cases of this, but there have been numerous others, including Amy Winehouse, D. Boon, Pete Ham, Al Wilson, Robert Johnson, Pigpen McKernan, and so on. What is it about the age of 27 that seems to be so cursed? The exploration into this phenomenon is the thesis behind Howard Sounes' new book 27: A History of the 27 Club.

***special thanks to Sean and Da Capo Press for sending me a copy of the book to review!***

The term "27 Club" was coined by Kurt Cobain's mother after he died in 1994, when she said "now he's gone and joined that stupid club..." The idea behind the term has been around for decades, however, most notably after three of the highest profile rock stars of all time all died within ten months of each other: Jimi Hendrix in September 1970, Janis Joplin in October 1970, and Jim Morrison in July 1971. Their deaths brought to larger attention the fact that so many musicians before them had died at 27, and the pattern continuing to the present day has only strengthened the idea that there is something almost supernatural behind it. However, is this really the case? Author Howard Sounes takes a look at six of the highest profile deaths in order to examine this.

The book is set up as a multi-strand mini-biography of each of the subjects, starting with investigations into their births and childhoods, later going on to detail how they achieved fame, how they coped with it, and the series of events that ultimately led to their untimely and premature deaths at 27. In this way, the author hopes to see if there is any commonality between his subjects and whether the fact that they (and many others) all died at the same age is more than just mere coincidence. While the level of depth into the lives of the subjects (with the exception of Winehouse...more on this in a bit) isn't any deeper than what can be found in any potted synopsis of their lives, the author does a nice job weaving them all together, which is especially useful given how much the lives and careers of Jones, Joplin, Morrison, and Hendrix overlapped and interacted. 

While there is much that is different about them, one thing they all do have in common is their unhappy childhoods. In the cases of Morrison, Joplin, and Jones, they came from intact nuclear families that nevertheless had strained parental relationships that were not as emotionally nurturing or safe as they should have been.  Conversely, Hendrix, Cobain, and Winehouse all came from broken homes.  In all cases, all six had very strained, and sometimes nonexistent, relationships with one or both of their parents that persisted into adulthood. All found success at a relatively young ages after years of struggle, and all used drugs and alcohol in order to cope with their sudden fame and wealth, as well as to dull the pain of their unresolved traumas. In several cases (Cobain, Joplin, Hendrix) there were serious mental issues such as depression and bipolar disorder, while Brian Jones singularly seems to have simply been a nasty piece of work as a human being. Indeed, as the author points out by the end of the book, of all of the "Big Six 27s" (as he calls them), at their core they all seemed to be decent people who had serious issues, except for Jones, who seems to have just been an unlikeable character; nearly everyone he worked with or interacted with did not speak kindly of him.

The premise of the book is that there is something all of the Big Six 27s have in common may that explain their demises at the same age (as well as the others who have died at the same age)...is this really the case? I commend Sounes for debunking any supernatural connotations that many others have tried to ascribe to this tragic coincidence of age, because as he rightly points out, nearly all of them led lives of high risk.  Whether it was drugs, drink, reckless behavior, or in some cases simply bad luck, it was inevitable that unless they changed their lifestyles, that probability that it would catch up with them was inordinately high.  However, at the same time, this makes it less than surprising that any of them died, and because of this I was somewhat skeptical going into the book; is it really shocking when someone abuses their bodies with substances, lives on the edge, and as a result dies at a premature age? Obviously it's not, but regardless of that fact, it is still curious that, of all of the ages between, say 21 and 30, an unusually high proportion of these deaths occur at 27. Indeed, when plotting over 3,000 prominent musician deaths over the past 100+ years, Sounes' chart shows an prominent spike at 27. And while he doesn't offer an explanation as to why this is so surprising, he does show that given how the 27 Club members lived and the various mental and behavioral issues they struggled with, it's not unsurprising.

Getting back to the subject of the book's over-emphasis on Amy Winehouse, it does at times seem that this is a book about her with small amounts of material about the others sprinkled throughout in order to make it more broadly about the 27 Club; in the afterword Sounes admits as such when he admits that his intention going into the book was always to spend the most amount of time and detail on Amy. As someone who is not really a fan of hers, I did feel that while her story was interesting and tragic, she perhaps didn't deserve this level of emphasis nor to be put on the same level as the other five main subjects.  I will say that I am also of the opinion that her musical output (while pretty good) does not stand up to that of the other five and her iconic status seems to be based almost solely on her wild behavior and death, and not any profound cultural impact the way the other five had. It did feel as though her inclusion was either shoehorned in, or that, as I said above, this was to be a biography on her within the greater framework of the 27 Club. That being said, the book was still enjoyable and a quick, easy, and fun read. The writing style was a bit stilted and simplistic, and I'm not sure if that's simply because of the subject matter or if that's just Sounes' style (I'll know for sure when I read his biography on Paul McCartney).

Overall, this is a book that is enjoyable and thought-provoking. It doesn't really offer all that much new information apart from the sections on Amy Winehouse, although it does draw on new research the author conducted, as well as previously available information in order to debunk many of the conspiracy theories that have arisen over the years as pertaining to the deaths of Jones, Hendrix, Morrison, and Cobain (the author does not think foul play was involved in any of them).  This isn't a groundbreaking or revelatory book, but any rock music fan will enjoy it, and looking at his list of 27 Club members at the end of the book will open your eyes to the fact that if there isn't something supernatural going on behind the scenes, it's still a might strange coincidence how many of them all expired at 27.

MY RATING: 7/10

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