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.
As one of the most famous frontmen in this history of music, Mick Jagger has been the face (lips?) and voice of the most popular and longest-lived rock and roll band in the world. His voice, his stage presence, his dance moves and mannerisms in concert, and his raucous and raunchy private life are the stuff of legend and usually the first things anyone thinks of when they hear his name. However, perception is not always reality and for such a high-profile and famous public figure, let alone one who has been in the public eye for half a century and counting, Mick Jagger is also one of the most enigmatic, mysterious, and least understood figures to have come out of the 1960s rock music scene. Unlike his more forthcoming and open childhood friend and songwriting partner Keith Richards, Mick seems to be one for whom the expression "playing it close to the vest" was seemingly invented. Because of this, there haven't been too many in-depth looks at Mick's life before Philip Norman took a stab at it with his 2012 book, which is the subject of this review.
Philip Norman is a well known writer and biographer, perhaps most famously known for his divisive early 1980s Beatles biography Shout! Norman famously took an almost hero-worshipping pro-John Lennon stance in that book and so incensed the other three Beatles, especially Paul McCartney, that Paul has since referred to the book as Shit! and refers to the author was "Norma Philips." Norman subsequently wrote what was to be the authorized biography on Lennon, entitled John Lennon: A Life, with full cooperation from Yoko Ono until the very end when she withdrew her stamp of approval. Norman published it anyway and it has since become a definitive look at Lennon. (As an aside, I've read both of those books and intend to re-read them and review them for this site at a later date.) He is also in the process of writing a comprehensive biography of McCartney, who has since softened his stance and, while not authorizing the book, has given permission to his friends and family to talk with Norman if they so choose (this book is due out in 2016 and will be reviewed here). Getting back to Mick Jagger, having read Shout! (which I'm not crazy about) and the Lennon book (which is quite good), I'd been meaning to read his Jagger book for a while but hadn't gotten around to getting a copy. Luckily, a few weeks ago I was browsing in a local bookstore and saw a copy on the discount shelf for a mere $6...a deal too good to pass up! It's a hefty tome, weighing in at 600+ pages. In his introduction, Norman describes the process he used in researching his previous biographies on the Beatles and Lennon, and described how he had hoped to get authorization from Mick in the same way he did for the Lennon book. His requests were rebuffed, although he was able to add a lot of firsthand material from friends and family of Jagger's to supplement his research.
The book begins with young Michael Phillip Jagger's birth and childhood in the suburbia of Dartford, Kent. Young Mike (as he was known for all of his childhood) was born into a solidly upper middle class upbringing by parents Joe and Eva. Mike and younger brother Chris were raised in a strict but affectionate household where Joe, a physical education teacher, emphasized clean living and physical fitness. As a student, Mike did very well in his classes and was unconventionally attractive to his female classmates, while his chameleon-like ability to adapt his personality and even accent to particular situations meant he passed through his schooldays relatively unscathed, earning him the nickname of the "Indian Rubber Boy" from his peers. Like so many his age, he was bitten by the music bug although in his case, he had no interest in playing an instrument...rather, he wanted to be a singer. While building up his blues and R&B record collection, he reconnected with an old grammar school friend whom he hadn't seen in years: Keith Richards. Mike was by now attending the prestigious London School of Economics, while Keith was at Sidcup Art College. They started playing together and eventually came across Ian Stewart and Brian Jones, forming the band that would become the Rolling Stones. Adding Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts to the line-up finalized the roster. Steady gigging saw them build a devoted following on the London club circuit, and bringing Andrew Oldham on as their manager in early 1963 set them on their way to stardom.
Where the book first gets interesting is in how it lays out Oldham's calculated plan to take Mike Jagger, rechristen him Mick, and present a persona to the media that was completely at odds with what Jagger was really like. The careful, cautious, intelligent, always-in-control Mick was reshaped such that he became the symbol of everything wrong with the younger generation, at least in the eyes of the establishment. While his bandmates Keith and Brian brought a lot of the troubles they got into with drugs and (in Brian's case) women onto themselves, Mick was viewed much the same way by the public even though he was never more than a casual dabbler in drugs or alcohol. Indeed, the only area where he was in any manner scandalous in his personal life was in regards to his relationships with women. Norman's main thesis is that Mick is the sole purveyor/sufferer of what he (Norman) has dubbed the Tyranny of Cool; that is, everything Mick does or says is all in the spirit of affecting that he is too cool, too unaffected, too above it all. Beyond this, the dichotomy between the public persona of one who is too blase to give a damn versus the private man who is actually very emotional, generous, and sensitive is a seam that Norman mines throughout the course of the book. The constant harping on this, though, gives the impression that Norman has a bit of an agenda with Mick, which given his previous experiences with the Beatles and McCartney in particular, isn't hard to imagine. It seems even more clear that this could be the case when he reveals he was on the shortlist to ghostwrite Mick's aborted 1983 autobiography but was passed over in favor of a relatively unknown, younger journalist. In any event, the book traces Mick's life and career from birth through the exhilarating 1960s (including an in-depth focus on the infamous Redlands bust of 1967 and its fallout) and into the 1970s. However, the book seems to lose steam after getting through the turbulent late 1970s/early 1980s era, Mick and Keith's feud, and the Stones split in 1986. Once the band reconvened in the late 1980s, the book seems to rush through its final 100 pages to bring the story to the present (that is 2012, when the book was published). While it's true that the Stones' activity has been sporadic at best from the mid-1990s onward, this book isn't a Stones biography...it's a Mick biography and as such could have easily gone more in depth with regards to his life during the past decade or two. As a side note but worth mentioning, Norman does show real sympathy, almost to the ultimate detriment of Mick, for the "second-rank Stones" (as he calls them) Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, Mick Taylor, and Ronnie Wood. Also, in fairness, he goes out of his way to dispel many myths that have sprung up around Mick, such as his flippancy at Altamont (he was actually quite instrumental in preserving the small amount of order in the crowd), his feelings during Brian Jones' death (he was devastated), and the behind-the-scenes charity work he's done over the years (hidden from public view at Mick's behest, another casualty of the Tyranny of Cool).
While I did enjoy the book and found it to be on the whole informative and interesting, I do have several criticisms of it. The first is that it's not long enough. Yes, it comes in at exactly 600 pages (not counting the index), but the first 500 pages only bring us up to 1985 or so. From there, the final 100 pages cover the next twenty years at breakneck pace, leading to the end of the book feeling a bit unresolved. If Norman was to pay enough attention to Mick's life in these later years as he did in the earlier parts, he probably should have made the book at least another 50-100 pages longer. The second criticism is that he very subtly comes across as having an agenda...he's certainly a fan of Mick Jagger, lead singer of the Rolling Stones, although even here he makes constant snide remarks to how Mick enunciates while he sings (there are MANY phonetically written jibes, such as "ah cayn't get naw satis-fac-shyun!"). There are the constant digs at Mick's Tyranny of Cool (some of them justified, such as several callous remarks Mick has made regarding his wives/girlfriends and even his children). Norman even manages to take a few swipes at Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, echoing his treatment of them in Shout, and this isn't even a Beatles book! While he seems to admire Keith's willingness to stay true to the Stones' blues and R&B roots, as well as his determination to finally kick his debilitating drug habit in the late 1970s, he also takes swipes at him for his attire and appearance, how he's aged compared to Mick, and even many of the things claimed in his own memoir, Life. Staying on the subject of Mick and Keith, Norman does do a nice job juxtaposing the two and showing that they were very different personalities from the very beginning. Keith was a working class boy raised in a loving extended family, shy and introverted, and for the most part a monogamous partner and husband throughout his adult life, almost always treating women with respect. He had no class aspirations and lived for the music and the band, remained a rebel at heart (however much it's waned in his old age), and has always been 100% genuine. By contrast, Mick's public persona projects whatever he wants it to based on his situation and suroundings. His accent varies between his normal Kent accent, faux-Cockney (ie Mockney), the affected airs of the upper crust, and everything in between. From the first flush of the Stones' fame in the early 1960s he had an almost insatiable desire to break into the ranks of high society, preferring to hobnob with movie starts, royalty, politicians, and the artistic elite, again showing a marked contrast to Keith. The biggest wedge between them in this regard was Mick's eagerness to accept a knighthood in the early 2000s, something Keith not only doesn't want but has actively said he would turn down if it were ever even offered. It all goes toward showing that the outlaw persona Mick has had since the 1960s was more to do with Oldham's PR engineering and guilt by association with Keith and Brian Jones' actual recklessness than any innate quality. The only area in which Mick is truly deserving of his reputation (apart from his parsimony) is in his treatment of women. Until his most recent long-term relationship with designer L'Wren Scott (who tragically committed suicide in 2014), Mick had no qualms about sleeping with whoever he wanted, whenever and wherever he wanted, regardless of his domestic situation. This led to break-ups with fiancee Chrissie Shrimpton in 1966, girlfriend Marianne Faithfull in 1970, and divorces from first wife Bianca in 1978 and second wife Jerry Hall in 1999. He has sired seven children by four different women (1 with Marsha Hunt, 1 with Bianca, 4 with Jerry Hall, and 1 with Luciana Morad), although to his credit he is, by all accounts, a caring and attentive father. However, it's hard not to be more than slightly repulsed by his attitude toward monogamy and the women whose hearts he broke with his reckless, selfish behavior. All of that being said, I felt the book tended to focus far too much Mick's relationships, especially during the second half of the book. While they're obviously an integral part of his life story and worthy of mention, Norman started to draw so much on sources and interviews with Chrissie Shrimpton, Marianne Faithfull, and especially Jerry Hall that at times the book came across more as a tell-all of Mick's spurned lovers than an comprehensive biography.
The portrait of Mick Jagger painted by this book is actually quite close to the perception more studied Stones fans (reinforced by Keith's jibes over the years) have of him: a talented and superb entertainer who is also quite miserly, runs the Stones' business affairs with an iron grip and an eye always on the bottom line, and an international jet setter who prefers to affect an air of the "common man" while in reality moving in rarefied circles. His persona as the original bad boy of rock and roll is almost completely at odds with the truth, and that's something the author takes great pains to emphasize. The Tyranny of Cool, while a bit tiresome by book's end, is quite apropos in many instances, not least of which is Mick's constant rewriting of his past and his claims to "not remember" events, no matter how inconsequential or even monumental; his claims to not remember anything of the Redlands bust, for example, beggars belief. Rather, it's a testament to the man who never lets anyone get to close and who, strangely among his generation of musicians, never (or hardly ever) injected any of his personal life into his music. Lennon, McCartney, Dylan, Townshend, Davies, Morrison...all of them (and more) put themselves into their music, but Jagger remained aloof from his; apart from a few morsels here and there ("Wild Horses," "Some Girls," etc) there wasn't much, and what we did get was never more than a few words or lines sprinkled througout various songs over the decades songs. Mick is a complicated figure and while this isn't the perfect book, it's probably the most in-depth and comprehensive Jagger biography out there and worth a read for serious Stones fans or anyone interested in learning what Mick is like behind the public facade.
Recently I was having a conversation on Twitter with someone about the Rolling Stones when their great song "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" was brought up. The fellow I was chatting with mentioned that, to him, this was the quintessential Stones song. Since it's one of my favorite Stones songs, I could totally see his point, but it also got the wheels in my head turning. Does every band that any of us like have that one song that perfectly encapsulates everything about them? And could this be a fun and interesting way to help each other discover new music by grabbing our interest with that first, special song? I allowed my imagination to get away from me a little bit more and the longer I mulled this over, I decided to have some fun with it.
So here's the challenge:
Imagine that you've just met a time traveler...they could be from 100 years in the past or from 100 years in the future. Or maybe you've met an alien being from another planet who has no idea what music is. Regardless of the scenario, pretend that you are confronted with this person and have to describe what music is (doesn't have to be rock music, it can be any genre). You're explaining it and they're just not understanding what it's all about. You think to yourself "you know what? It'll be easier if I just play them some music...that will convey it better than mere words can." However, they don't have a lot of time before they have to be on their way...you've only got time to play them ONE SONG from each artist, so you need to make sure it counts. This one song needs to:
- encapsulate the artist's essence and overall sound - be memorable enough that it will stick in their head after just one listen - if the artist has distinctly different eras to their music, it should cover enough of them such that it can bridge most, if not all of them in the one song
Sounds tough, right?
After a lot of thinking and analyzing, here are the quintessential songs I've come up with for some of my favorite artists, with explanations why (and audio) to help my arguments. If you like some of these bands, please share your picks in the comments section, as well as your picks for other bands not mentioned here. This is Part 1 of what will be as many posts in the series until I run out of ideas, so here goes!
The Rolling Stones: I have to start with the band that was the impetus for this entire exercise, don't I? I thought long and hard about this because "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" as discussed above would be a great choice: it's got an iconic Keith riff at the beginning, a sexy groove, sneering vocals from Mick, and a killer jam during the second half. However, it's not my choice for their quintessential song mainly because it's not too well known outside of serious Stones fans. That's not to say that the quintessential songs should be the most popular ones, but they should have enough mass appeal such that someone uninitiated could pick up on why after just one listen...after all, that's the reason the song is popular in the first place, right? With that being said, my choice is...
Jumpin' Jack Flash. Released as a non-album single in 1968, for me this song (which narrowly beat out "Satisfaction" and "Gimme Shelter") has all of the ingredients that capture what the Stones are all about: an instantly recognizable riff, a slinky groove, a catchy chorus ("well it's aaaaaaaaaaall right now...") strutting, cocky vocals from Mick, and a darkness and swagger about the lyrics. It's also has one foot in the experimental 1960s Stones approach that they were soon to leave behind while the other foot is firmly planted in the powerful blues/roots rock approach they'd reach their zenith with over the next five years. In short, it captures everything great about the Stones as they were exiting the singles-driven Brian Jones era and entering the album-driven Mick Taylor era.
The Beatles: This was a really tough one because, I mean, how do you only pick ONE song to explain to someone how great the Beatles are? Beyond that, they had so much artistic growth in such a ridiculously short period of time that it's almost impossible to choose just one track that encapsulates everything they did. The early years were marked by infectiously catchy and exciting pop songwriting, the middle years had more complex songs, arrangements, and pioneering recording techniques, and the final years had a more stripped down but no less innovative approach. Beyond that, the sheer number of insanely popular and beloved songs means that there's a huge amount of stuff to choose from. That being said, I thought long and hard about this and came up with my choice, which is...
Hey Jude. Perhaps it's no coincidence that this is also my favorite Beatles song of all time, but I think it really does capture the essence of the band. Play, or even just say, those first two words of the song to anyone and they'll instantly know what you mean. Hell, all of my kids knew this song when they were so young that they could barely speak. It's got a beautiful melody, uplifting lyrics, a great arrangement, and an anthemic chorus that you can't help but sing along to every time you hear it (go ahead and try to resist...I dare you!). Seeing Paul play this (and singing along with the entire crowd) when I saw him in concert was one of the highlights of my life, and that's no joke. It hearkens back to the pop craftsmanship of the early years, the stripped down sound of the later years, and an ambitious production (strings and horns at the end) as in the middle years. Plus, John Lennon was on record for after stating that it was his favorite song that his longtime collaborator ever wrote...coming from John, that's got to count for a lot, doesn't it? (Songs it narrowly edged out: too many to list!)
The Who: There's a lot of ground to try and cover here with this band if you're going to reduce it down to just one song. There's the early, high-energy R&B stuff (1964-65), the mid-1960s power pop with all of those great, classic singles (1966-68), the rock opera/stadium anthems of the 1969-73 period, or the more introspective, cynical, and experimental later era stuff (1975-78). For me, there is and has always been one Who song that perfectly captures the essence of the band, and tough as it is to pass over classics like "Won't Get Fooled Again," "Pinball Wizard," "My Generation," "Love Reign O'er Me," "Slip Kid," and "Who Are You" among many others, the ultimate Who song for me is...
Bargain. First of all, this song has been hailed by critics, fans, and the band themselves as containing one of, if not THE best ensemble performances of the Who's entire career as captured on record. As Pete Townshend once said of this song, "I didn't play the guitar on that one...it played me." It's the perfect balance between the hard rock they were masters of and the melodic introspection Pete was always able to inject into his songs. And of course, you have Roger Daltrey getting inside the heart, mind, and soul of the main character, delivering the vocals with incredible passion and power. The chorus is instantly recognizable and hits you like a ton of bricks ("I call that a bargain...the best I ever had...the best I EVER HAD!"), and the quieter middle section sung by Pete Townshend is so beautiful and moving, musically and lyrically, that it's enough to make you cry. And that, to me, is what makes this the quintessential Who song: it goes from ass-kicking rock to tear-jerker back to kicking your ass again in the span of a few minutes. It doesn't hurt that in addition to Daltrey's and Townshend's tremendous performances, Keith Moon and John Entwistle turn in one of the performances of their lives. John's bass guitar is all over the place, melodic and powerful, while Moon is a monster on the drum kit but is at the same time incredibly tasteful and plays to the song. His double-bass drum flutters and the workout he gives his entire kit during the outro is exciting as all get out, and the final strummed guitar chords and synth melody still give me chills after all these years. Everything great about the Who, all in one song...that's the whole point of this post, isn't it?
(I had to include this live version from San Francisco in December 1971 because it's just so damn good!)
The Kinks: Along similar lines, the Kinks' career was so long and so varied that there are numerous distinct eras that need to be taken into account. There's the early R&B and proto-punk rock/heavy metal of early singles like "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night." There's the mature, groundbreaking string of brilliant hit singles from 1965-1968 like "Tired of Waiting For You," "See My Friends," "Waterloo Sunset," "Sunny Afternoon," "Autumn Almanac," "Days," and more. There was the string of brilliant albums beginning with 1966's Face to Face and running through 1972's Everybody's in Showbiz. There was the concept album phase of the early to mid-1970s, their hard rock/arena rock phase of 1977-1984, and the gradual petering out of their career from the mid-1980s until 1996. Ray Davies was one of the most brilliant and prolific songwriters of his, or any, generation (and his brother Dave was no slouch in this department either) and managed to steer the Kinks on an always unpredictable course over their thirty-two year career. And as a fan of all of their material, I found it incredibly hard to choose just one song to encapsulate everything about this great band. How do you pick just one song to cover all of the ground that they did over such a long career? Surely some aspect of their essence, their sound will be left out, right? Keeping all of this in mind, and thinking long and hard about this, I came up with...
Lola. An obvious choice, perhaps, but hear me out. I was trying to come up with one of the more obscure, but no less excellent, Kinks songs to fit the bill and while several came close, all roads kept leading back to Lola. For me, it's the right song for a number of reasons. It has an instantly recognizable and iconic riff at the opening of the song. It straddles the hard rock side of the Kinks' music with a bit of theatrical camp. It has classic Ray Davies lyrics that are not only cerebral and thought-provoking, but very humorous. It's got great harmony vocals from Dave (which I've always found to be absolutely integral and vital to the Kinks' sound), as well as a great band performance from all involved. And the chorus is catchy and, at this point, known by just about anyone in the English speaking world whether they even know the song or not. It also fits perfectly within the Kinks' ethos of being a great standalone single, yet also fitting in context perfectly on the album it was lifted from. Finally, the seemingly humorous (and true!) tale of a man falling in love with a woman who may or may not be a man in drag hints at deeper things, such as questioning and reaffirming what it is that makes the singer masculine. The ambiguity when Ray sings "well I'm not the world's most masculine man, but I know what I am and I'm glad I'm a man, and so is Lola" is classic Davies: is Lola glad he's a man, or is Lola a man, too? It's left unresolved and for the listener to decide. In my mind, the answer to this open-ended question has always been "yes"...as unresolved as the question itself. That's the mark of a great song, and for me Lola is quintessential Kinks.
Led Zeppelin: Yet another band who had distinct phases to their career, although perhaps in a different way to the Kinks, Who, or Beatles. While they definitely incorporated different elements into their sound and effectively utilized dynamics and acoustic instrumentation, they never strayed too heavily from their heavy blues and folk roots. Still, they were definitely a 1960s band that evolved as the 1970s went along, unlike the one-dimensional heavy metal bands they subsequently inspired. That being said, it was still quite difficult for me to distill their musical essence down to just one song because there were so many facets to Led Zeppelin: hard rock, blues, Celtic/English folk, and more. Beyond that, there are signature elements of their sound, from Robert Plant's powerful vocals and Jimmy Page's virtuoso guitar work, to John Paul Jones' brilliant bass guitar and multi-instrument work and John Bonham's fantastic drumming. In addition, Bonham and Jones were one of the finest rhythm sections in the history of rock...one of the few that really locked in and could swing. I had to keep all of this in mind when making my decision, which ended up being...
Over the Hills and Far Away. No, I didn't go for the obvious choice of "Stairway to Heaven"...great song, but overplayed to death. As for other signature Zeppelin songs like "Black Dog," "Whole Lotta Love," "Immigrant Song," "Achilles Last Stand," and others in that same vein, they didn't have as much of the famous light and shade that Zeppelin traded in. Honestly, this song beat out "Kashmir" and "Ramble On" by a very slim margin: "Kashmir" just doesn't feature enough of Page's guitar or Jones' bass, while "Ramble On"...well, it's a GREAT song but I just feel "Over the Hills and Far Away" beats it by a nose. In my opinion, it's got it all when it comes to Zeppelin: a quiet acoustic intro that builds up, a hard rock main body of the song, Plant singing in his best, most powerful wail, driving bass and drums from the Jones/Bonham rhythm section, a great Page electric guitar solo, and a gentle acoustic outro. Plus, it's catchy and melodic, two things Led Zeppelin almost always was (and for which they don't get nearly the credit they deserve). It may not rock as hard as their heaviest moments, but Led Zeppelin was never only about being heavy, and to me "Over the Hills and Far Away" is the perfect cross-section of everything that makes Led Zeppelin great.
The Doors: For the last entry in Part 1, I've decided to pick a song from one of the greatest American rock bands to come out of the 1960s, and again, a personal favorite: The Doors. Besides being one of the biggest bands of the era, the legendary band from Los Angeles had one of the most unique line-ups and sounds in all of rock, consisting solely of guitar, organ, drums, and vocals. No bass guitar at all in the band except on some of their studio tracks. The bulk of the bass parts on record, and all of them on stage, were handled by keyboard player Ray Manzarek's left hand on a Fender Keyboard Bass; at the same time, he played his intricate and complex keyboard/organ/piano melodies with his right hand. Beyond Ray's talent, they had a solid and talented drummer in John Densmore who had more of a jazz background than in rock, but he had a very unique style and sound. The same can be said for guitarist Robby Krieger, who was not a blues and rock based guitarist like the vast majority of his peers, but rather was rooted in classical, jazz, and flamenco guitar. He played without a pick, had a one-of-a-kind style, and wrote the majority of the band's music (along with Morrison). While their various albums had subtle shades and shifts in sound, at their core the Doors were a blues-based psychedelic band with more classical and jazz leanings than anyone around at the time. With all of that said, and with all of their music to choose from, I perhaps still took the obvious way out by choosing their first #1 single...
Light My Fire. Written mainly by Robby Krieger (with significant input from Jim Morrison), the Doors breakthrough single from 1967 is widely considered to be their signature song and in my opinion, is the ultimate Doors song. Starting with a machine-gun crack of John Densmore's snare drum, it's got every element of the Doors sound wrapped up in its 7-minute duration. First, there's Ray Manzarek's throbbing keyboard bass and classical flourish lead melody line that drives the entire song. There's Krieger's bluesy/jazzy fingerpicked guitar licks filling the spaces between throughout, playing more of a supporting role to Ray's keyboards. Densmore's Latin-influenced jazzy drumming and rock-steady backbeat underpins it all and is the foundation the other three rest upon. Jim Morrison's vocals, ranging from his hushed baritone before he gets into his throat-tearing screams, build excitement before he ends the song by whipping himself into a frenzy at the end of the song. The lyrics range from a simple professing of the singer's desire for his girl's love to some slightly darker, almost mysitcal elements as to what needs to happen so that they can "set the night on fire." Sandwiched in between the beginning and ending verses is a long solo section that takes up half of the song and is a showcase for both Manzarek and Krieger, the former playing a hypnotic bassline with his left hand while his right hand solos masterfully, the latter playing a very jagged and dissonant solo that sounds nothing like all of the blues noodling of his fellow American guitar contemporaries. While the Doors had loads of great songs throughout their career, for me, "Light My Fire" is the song that has all of the elements that made the Doors one of the biggest American rock bands of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
So concludes Part 1 of this series! It was a lot of fun and made me really think about what it is about each of these bands that appeals to me when it comes to their music. If you're a fan of any of these bands, what do you think of my selections? Agree/disagree? And for your own favorites, what would your one song be to show an uninformed listener what they were all about? Part 2 will have more of these song choices from other bands, so I hope you'll stick with me as we go through this exercise!
From the moment it was released in 2010, Keith Richards' memoir Life has been hailed as one of the greatest rock musician autobiographies ever published. I first read the book shortly after it came out and wholeheartedly agreed with the popular appraisal, but I ended up reading it pretty quickly and so there were huge chunks of it that, looking back, I didn't think I fully appreciated. Part of what made the book so great was Keith's down-to-earth nature and the sheer joy and love of life and music he's so well known to have, both of which leaped off the pages. As one of my favorite guitarists in one of my favorite bands, it seemed like the type of book I would read more than once, so when I decided to finally review it for this site, a thorough re-reading of it definitely seemed to be in order (not to mention long overdue).
In Life, Keith, with the help of his longtime friend and ghost writer James Fox, takes us through the story of exactly that: his entire life, from the very beginning all the way to the present. Starting with his birth and post-War upbringing as an only child in the London suburb of Dartford, it's clear that he had a hell of a lot of affection for his parents Bert and Doris. He also has fond memories of his numerous aunts as well as perhaps the most significant member of his family, both personally and musically: his grandfather Gus. It was Gus who ignited Keith's interest in music and nurtured it through by playing piano for the young boy and his eventual encouragement of Keith to take up guitar. In particular, the song "Malaguena" was a favorite of Gus' and would hold significance for Keith throughout his life after he learned how to play it...the song's significance literally runs through the book right to the very end. Taking us through the various adventures of his childhood, we see Mick Jagger briefly come into Keith's life as a classmate in primary school before they part ways. Jagger was from a more affluent family and had class climbing aspirations while Keith came from a more working-class background and was always down to earth. In fact, this is something Keith points out early on in the book and returns to several times throughout the book: Keith enjoyed the spoils of the Stones' success but remained, at heart, a normal guy without airs, while Mick aspired to climb the social ladder and became the rock and roll embodiment of the culture they initially rebelled against. Eventually Keith (now a student at art college) and Mick (a student at London School of Economics) encountered each other again in their teens while waiting for a train. Mick had an armful of records that caught Keith's eye and so began their mutual love affair with the blues, rock n' roll, and R&B music coming out of America in the 1950s and early 1960s. Finding out that Mick sang and played with a ragtag band called Little Boy Blue & the Blue Boys, Keith talked his way into the group and they began frequenting the numerous club nights on the nascent London blues and R&B scene. Eventually crossing paths with Ian Stewart and Brian Jones, they formed the nucleus of the band that became the Rollin' Stones. Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts, the latter of whom they had to court for a while before he accepted their offer, completed the classic line up. (It should be mentioned here that Keith persists in insisting that Kinks drummer Mick Avory was their drummer for their first ever gig, while Avory himself and all others involved insist he only played one rehearsal with them and never did a gig...the truth is most likely lost in the mists of time).
Keith does a wonderful job of describing the Stones' career from their humble, hardscrabble beginnings (including the pigsty flat he shared with Brian and later on, Mick, at Edith Grove) to meeting the Beatles and becoming part of the burgeoning London rock scene. The huge revelation was when Lennon and McCartney gave them a song, "I Wanna Be Your Man," which became the Stones' breakthrough single and inspired Mick and Keith (via manager Andrew Oldham) to begin writing their own songs. As Keith tells it, he's not so much the creator as he is the vessel for the music to come out of the ether. It's clear throughout the entire book that he absolutely loves music, all music...country, jazz, classical, rock, blues, folk, it's all part of the magic of sound and something that is as essential to his life (and mine, too, honestly) as water, air, and food. For him, the greatest joys in life are writing songs, recording music, and playing onstage. However, he's very open and honest about all aspects of his life as he tells his story through the tumultuous 1960s, detailing the problems the band had with Brian Jones which in particular are interesting to read again since I've just recently read a thoroughly researched account of this period from someone on Brian's side. He discusses how his long-term relationship with Brian's ex-girlfriend Anita Pallenberg began and how Brian ended up becoming so much dead weight that he was booted from the band, eventually dying in July 1969. The Mick Taylor years of 1969-1974, which produced the band's best run of albums, are mentioned as such by Keith although it's interesting to hear him describe how Taylor never fit in as a personality with the band. Despite all of this, his sudden departure from the band in 1974 on the eve of new recording sessions and an upcoming tour left the Stones in the lurch. Eventually they recruited Ronnie Wood in 1975 and embarked upon what is, for me, the least interesting and most unfulfilling era of their career, at least musically. However, Keith's life was no less interesting from 1975 onward...if anything, as he sank further down into heroin addiction and an increasingly chaotic relationship with Anita that now involved their two small children, it gets more fascinating. Making no bones of his heroin addition and how awful it was from his perspective, it's gratifying to read how Keith finally broke up with both Anita and "the junk," as he called it, in order to save himself. It's equally funny to read of how frustrated he gets at people who still think he's a wild-man junkie even though he's been clean and sober for over thirty years!
Bringing us up to the present day, including such high-profile incidents such as his falling off a tree limb in 2006 which required serious brain surgery to save his life, getting his "blood changed" in Switzerland, the "snorting" of his father's ashes (read the book for the true stories), and others, Keith never fails to make you smile and laugh out loud as you read passage after passage. It's nice to see that he's found love and contentment in his personal life, being married to his soul mate Patti Hansen since 1983 and adding two more daughters to his brood, but Keith never manages to sound content to drift into old age. Indeed, he states many times that music is what he does and who he is and that the only way he'll ever stop is "when I croak." He puts to bed many of the myths that have sprung up over the years about him while also revealing several new things that none but the most hardcore fans would ever have suspected, if even known. Years spent in a nomadic existence as a tax exile from the UK, living in Jamaica and forming a ragtag band (Wingless Angels) that he's recorded albums with, his various side- and tribute- projects, the various animals he's rescued and adopted, his love of bangers & mash and shepherd's pie (complete with recipes!)...nothing is off limits. Of everything, though, the most fascinating thread running throughout the entire book is his lifelong friendship with Mick. In fact, as Keith describes it, they're no longer friends; rather, they're brothers and despite their ups and downs, they'll always be there for each other. He laments the fact that he doesn't really know Mick anymore and hasn't since the mid-1970s and that they have two entirely different approaches to life, fame, and music. Clearly there's still something there as they continue to work with each other into their sixth decade together. (And for the record, the famous line about Mick's "tiny todger" that caused such an uproar when this book first came out...read it in its proper context and it's little more than just the way all guys rib each other, although it's no less hilarious!). Yes, he takes several swipes at Mick, Bill Wyman, and Mick Taylor, but it's clear that he still has a lot of affection for them all (well, maybe not so much for Bill...).
I'm really glad I read Life again because it's only reaffirmed my opinion that Keith is one of the funniest, earthiest, coolest, and most talented musicians of our era who also happens to embody what being a "rock star" is all about. Reading this book is like sitting in the darkened corner of a pub with Keith and a couple of pints as he chain smokes cigarettes and tells you story after story. It may sound strange but after reading this book, you almost feel like you know Keef and that he's your pal. It's the mixture of honesty, candor, perspective, and humor that makes Life such an engaging read and one of the rare memoirs that's worth multiple revisits. It's certainly essential for any true Rolling Stones fan (although I'd have a hard time believing all Stones fans haven't already read this), any fan of 1960s rock, or really, any music fan in general. Just be prepared to have a hard time putting it down and to laugh out lout...a LOT.
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.
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.
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.
