A nice anniversary last week – 50 years since the Rolling
Stones played their first gig at the Marquee Club in London. 50 years!
No other band from those days is still around, alive and kicking, even
if a little ragged around the edges.
It’s a quite extraordinary achievement, given the lifestyle they’ve led
this half century.
I salute them.
* * *
I can still remember the first time I saw them on Top of the Pops.
I was 9 at the time, I guess, or 10, and up until then my
music had been provided by my elder sister’s tastes – which was basically
Cliff, Cliff, more Cliff, a bit of Adam Faith, maybe a Marty Wilde or two….oh,
and yet more Cliff. That and Two Way Family Favourites on a Sunday
lunchtime, which was all Glen Miller, Frank Sinatra (nothing wrong with either
of them, mind you….), and novelty stuff like “The Laughing Policeman”. Oh,
and Cliff…… So crap, basically.
The Stones even then had a reputation of being wild and
hedonistic. You have to remember that in
the early 60s artistes were still expected to be well groomed on stage:
matching suits and ties, neatly combed and Brilliantine’d hair, and saccharine
smiles. If they could master little
carefully choreographed dance steps (usually one forward, one or two to the
left (or right), one back and then another two to the right (or left) so they
ended up where they started from, like the Shadows were really good at), then
so much the better.
So these guys from South London, as they were billed, who
didn’t wear matching suits, sometimes didn’t wear ties, didn’t apply buckets of
grease to their (longer than normal) hair and – in Keef’s case, horror of
horrors! – had a bit of acne…..well, they were instantly disliked by mums and
dads across the country. And of course
loved by us kids….nothing like a bit of youthful rebellion.
Anyhow, they were on TOTP,
singing their first hit record, the old Chuck Berry song “Come On”. Mick Jagger, I
remember, wore a roll necked jumper – no idea what colour as we still had a
black and white tv – and manically shook a pair of maracas while bawling into
the mike and stamping one foot roughly in time to the music. Keef was glowering at the camera, Bill Wyman
held his bass vertically instead of slung across his belly, and looked bored, as
did Charlie Watts on drums. Brian Jones
looked absolutely stoned, smiling angelically at the camera every time it was
pointed in his direction, his face framed by long blond hair (at least to his
collar). It was totally unlike anything
I had seen before on 6-5 Special or Ready Steady Go! (or TOTP for that matter) and was the
absolute dog’s bollocks. Love at first
sight. My mum, God rest her soul, rather
spoilt it all by laughing long and loud at Mick’s “rubber lips” and saying over
and over again how ugly and dirty they all were. But her view was no different to every other
parent, I suppose. My dad shook his head
sadly, as if to say “and to think I fought a war for you lot…..” My sister liked them, I think, as she was
tapping her foot to the beat, but still laughed and agreed with my mum and
dad…..it wasn’t Cliff, after all.
The Beatles came out at around the same time, and were
always in marked contrast to the Stones.
For one thing, they toed the corporate line and wore the matching suits
and ties, and had relatively tidy – though still longer than normal –
hair. Mums and dads loved them – as did
we young ‘uns, because their music too was unlike anything that had gone
before. But there was no getting away
from it – they were the kids from the nice neighbourhood, whereas the Stones
were the scruffs from the local council estate.
Interestingly, the reverse was true: the Beatles came from the generally
poorer parts of Liverpool that in years to come would be riven by civil unrest
and unemployment as the docks closed down, while Mick and Keef came from
relatively well to do parts of Dartford and Wilmington – Mick’s dad was a
school headmaster, a nice cosy middle class occupation – and both went to
better schools (Dartford Grammar and Wilmington Tech respectively) than any of
the Beatles had been to in their childhood.
Brian Jones went to a private school in Bath, and both Charlie and Bill
had had decent education too.
What made the Stones different, from the wrong side of
tracks, was that their music was an Anglicized (but definitely not sanitized)
version of rhythm and blues – American black music. While the Beatles were churning out wonderful
two minute pop songs like She Loves You and
I Wanna Hold Your Hand, Mick was bawling Let’s Spend the Night Together and (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction. The
contrast was sharp and obvious. It was
there throughout their respective careers.
Even as they grew musically and became leaders of the psychodelic
movement, the Beatles still had a tendency to release sugary sweet or novelty
songs (When I’m 64, Octopuses Garden) alongside
Lennon’s meatier output (Revolution,
Twist and Shout) – whereas the Stones continued their own dirty way – Brown Sugar, Street Fighting Man and
especially the wonderful Sympathy for the
Devil. And so parents tended still
to prefer the Beatles, and their offspring tended to prefer the Stones –
certainly that’s how it was in my family, and those of all my mates too.
The Beatles of course imploded finally, in a welter of drugs
and litigation, all very sad, and went their separate ways, leaving a brilliant
and game changing back catalogue of songs and the lesson that any group of kids
could really get together, learn to play a few instruments (not necessarily
well), and make a shedload of money – just ask Noel Gallagher. It’s not an exaggeration to say that any “pop
group” from about 1964 on owes them a debt of gratitude for showing them the
way.
Meanwhile, the Stones trod their own path. There were more drugs, more sex, more of
everything, and it made no difference.
They were arrested and taken to court for pissing up against a garage
wall – cue public outrage. There were
more court cases for possession and smoking of cannabis. More outrage.
There was a spectacular drug raid on Keef’s country mansion, where a
naked Marianne Faithful (Mick’s then girlfriend) was allegedly pleasuring
herself with a Mars Bar – years later she reportedly denied it, and insisted it
was actually a Crunchie bar. Brian Jones
died in his swimming pool, drowning under the influence of various toxic
substances. Mick and Keef were
continually in and out of detox clinics, trying to kick heroin and cocaine
addictions with varying degrees of success.
Bill was accused of having sex with an underage girl, and didn’t help
his cause by claiming he’d actually slept with “thousands”. It was all riveting stuff, and the music
really didn’t suffer while all this was going on……they churned out brilliant
album after brilliant album, each seemingly better than the last.
Brian died and was replaced by Mick Taylor, a respected
blues guitarist, but surprisingly he didn’t fit in with the rest of them and
quit a year and an album later. Ronnie
Wood joined, fresh from an all too briefly successful career with the brilliant
Faces, who themselves collapsed when Rod Stewart simultaneously left to find
world-wide fame and fortune as a solo artist (personally I think his Faces days
produced by far and away the best music of his career). Bill just got bored and left, married,
divorced, re-married again (this time to a girl 30 years younger – more
outrage!) and divorced again, and devoted his time, musically at least, to
occasional albums and tours with Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings, a pick-up band of
session musicians and old mates who fancied a few gigs now and then – and very
good they are too.
The Stones tours got bigger and more outrageous, lasting for
years at a time, and printing money faster than even Keef’s drug habit could
spend it. At times it became parody,
especially in the later years, as their 50s approached. But they got a second wind, went back to
their roots and picked it up again with the epic Steel Wheels and Bigger Bang
tours – global tours that outgrossed very other act doing the rounds. Only U2 have made more out of a single tour.
So here we are, an amazing fifty years on, and they’re still
going strong. Charlie has beaten cancer
and is still playing perfect drums.
Ronnie Wood has been in and out of rehab, made a second career as a
session musician, a third as an artist in oils and watercolours, and is now
busily carving out a fourth career as an award winning radio presenter. Mick even got a knighthood. Keef should have died a dozen times from the
unbelievable amount of toxic substances of one kind or another that he’s taken
either orally or intravenously, but came closest to death when he fell out of a
coconut tree, sober, and fractured his skull.
Needless to say he recovered and was back on the road within a couple of
months. His autobiography is one of the
best and funniest books I’ve ever read – taking the lid off life in the world’s
biggest and best rock’n’roll band, and providing the man’s own recipe for
bangers and mash (his favourite meal ) – I’ve tried it and it’s really
good. He looks a wreck, as though he
died years ago and has been re-animated, but he’s the perfect Rock Star image:
aviator shades, bangles and bracelets, a voice shot to hell by too much brandy
and nicotine, hands that look like they’ve been through a mincer – no-one else
comes close. The man’s a genius. My hero.
A couple of years ago, one of my kids bought me their Forty Licks greatest hits compilation, a
double CD that really is the soundtrack to my life. Forty pieces of quite wonderful rock and
r’n’b music by a bunch of guys who changed the world. I was listening to it on the iPod at the
weekend as I wandered around London in the rain, my first visit for maybe two
or three years. Sympathy for the Devil playing loud in my ears as I wandered around
Canary Wharf was quite fitting, I thought…..
They’re planning another tour, although they’re all well in
their 60s (in Charlie’s case 70-odd, but he still looks pretty sprightly). In a way I’d love to go to a concert, but I
would be worried that at their age it would be crap, like Sinatra’s much
vaunted Albert Hall concert back in the early 80s, when his voice was gone and
he had to sit on a stool and read the lyrics from sheet music on a stand in
front of him – a tragic end to performing of another game-changing genius. I’ve never seen the Stones live – back in
the 70s my mate had tickets for their Hyde Park concert and I was going with
him, but the night before he phoned me up and announced he was taking some bird
from the office instead – the bastard.
It turned out to be one of their best ever shows….. The only silver lining was that the bird
hated it, and wouldn’t sleep with my mate – serves the fucker right.
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