The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones. Stanley Booth

from the pornography he’d bought, and now as I sat on the Wizard of Oz bedspread I could think only of phrases like ‘Keith’s proud nipples stiffened.’ There was an idea at the back of my mind, certain words kept flashing: Stones, Apocalypse, I want help, but it was too heavy, not lighthearted. Finally I told Steckler that there was nothing new to be said about the Stones in 180 words.

      ‘That’s all right,’ he said. ‘I never thought it needed words.’

      EIGHT

      At the present time Buddy Bolden is made out to be an epochal figure, his importance in the history of jazz seems to be overwhelming, and legends are woven about his person: he was somewhat of a scoundrel and sot, he never paid his musicians, he delighted in regaling or shocking his audience by singing obscene couplets, his instrumental talents and his powers of improvisation earned him the soubriquet of ‘King’ Bolden; he used to place himself near the open window and blow his horn like a maniac, he could be heard miles away across the river, and all within range, attracted as if by a magnet by this clarion call, would flock around the great cornetist. We are witnessing the birth of an epic of our own times.

      ROBERT GOFFIN: Jazz

      ‘Because the chick has split, and Brian’s very upset, and because he gets thrown out of his pad, Mick takes it on himself to find Brian a nice pad where he can live,’ Keith said. ‘Mick finds him a pad in Beckenham, halfway between London and Dartford. Weird little pad in a suburban street full of houses. Brian had one big room built onto this house. It was quite groovy, until he invites some chicks down to cook for him one day, and they burn half of it down, but he’s still got to live there, so there’s a hole in the ceiling, piece of canvas above it, tryna hide it from the landlord. When I left home I went to live with Brian in this place. We used to lay around, listen to sounds and play all day and always read Billboard, just to see what was goin’ on and keep in touch with some kind of reality. Used to read every page, even jukebox profits, used to know everything about what was happening in the charts, absolutely everything.’

      ‘We were still rehearsing,’ Stu said. ‘We didn’t have a name or anything. In those days it was the thing to do, to open your own club. You’d find a room that you thought would be a good place and you’d have a club. Korner had started a very successful club up in London – the Marquee Club on Thursday nights – and he was packin’ the place. Thursday night was the BBC live jazz broadcast. They said to Alexis, Do you want to do this? which meant that he had to go to BBC studios. So he said to us, Do you want to fill in for me one night? We said Yeah – had to think of a name, so in desperation it became the Rolling Stones. The Marquee was our first job.

      ‘At the start, nobody in England played this kind of music. But nobody. Mick and Keith and Brian were about the only people in the country that knew the music and were trying to play it. Everybody else were jazz musicians trying to play the blues, that hadn’t really heard them. And having seen the Stones once at the Marquee, the people who were running the scene in those days were one hundred percent against us, and it was one bloody fight to get anywhere. They thought R&B was a jazz thing and there should be three saxophones. They said, What, two guitars and a bass guitar, that’s rock and roll, we don’t want to know about it, we’ll try and put it down.

      ‘We tried to open in Ealing on a Tuesday night and for two weeks we got not a soul, not one person would come to Ealing to see the Rolling Stones. We tried Tuesday night at the Flamingo, and it was the same thing. That lasted only two or three weeks. I’ll never forget the first time we went down to the Flamingo. We did an audition on a Sunday afternoon, and the Flamingo was a pretty smart place. It was the modern jazz club in town, and everybody was going down there in their zoot suits, white shirts, and all that. I’ll never forget sayin’ to Keith, “You’re not going to the Flamingo lookin’ like that, are you?” He said, “What ho, Stu, I’ve only got one pair of fuckin’ jeans.”’

      ‘Winter of ’62 was the tough one,’ Keith said. ‘It’s down to cellotaping your pants up, Scotch tape across the rips. We’re going through the weirdest period, completely broke, and this guy arrives, this strange little guy who lived in the next town to Brian, used to go to school with him. He was about five feet three, very fat, wore thick spectacles. He belonged to the Territorial Army, sort of a civil defense thing. They all live in tents and get soaking wet and get a cold and learn how to shoot a rifle and at the end they get eighty quid cash. This cat arrives in London fresh from the hills, from his tent. And he wants to have a good time with Brian, and Brian took him for every penny. The guy would do anything for Brian. Brian would say, ‘Give me your overcoat.’ Freezing cold, it’s the worst winter, and he gave Brian this army overcoat. ‘Give Keith the sweater.’ So I put the sweater on. ‘Now, you walk twenty yards behind us.’ And off we’d walk to the local hamburger place. ‘Ah, stay there. No, you can’t come in. Give us two quid.’ This cat would stand outside the hamburger joint, freezing cold, giving Brian the money to pay for our hamburgers.

      ‘Brian gets him to buy a new guitar, a new Harmony electric. He pays for everything, and so in two weeks we’ve spent all the money and we say, ‘See ya, man,’ and put him on a train and send him home. He’s incredibly hurt, but all the same, we’ve taken him around with us to all these clubs, and although he regrets very much being fleeced, he still comes up to London again later with even more bread, and we fleece him again. Terrible sadistic scenes we were pulling on him, Brian and I were really evil to this guy. It ended up with us stripping him off and trying to electrocute him.

      ‘That was the night he disappeared. It was snowing outside. We came back to the pad and he was in Brian’s bed. Brian for some reason got very annoyed that he was in his bed asleep. We had all these cables lyin’ around and Brian pulled out this wire: “This end is plugged in, baby, and I’m comin’ after you.” Brian would run after him with this long piece of wire cable that’s attached to an amplifier, electric sparks, chasing around the room, and he ran screaming down the stairs out into the street with nothing on, screaming, “Don’t go up there, they’re mad, they’re trying to electrocute me.” Somebody brought him in an hour later and he was blue.

      ‘The next day the cat split. Brian had a new guitar, and his amp fixed, a whole new set of harmonicas. This was down at Edith Grove. The second time the guy came we were at Edith Grove in this pad Mick found. I’m not in on it ’cause I haven’t got any bread, can’t afford rent. Brian can afford it ’cause he’s working, Mick can afford it ’cause he’s got a scholarship grant from the university. It’s Brian, Mick, and these two cats from the LSE. One’s a Norwegian and one’s a cat that comes from the Midlands. The straightest people you’ve ever seen in your life. Underneath are three old tarts, and on top are student teachers. It’s a three-story house, with the second floor Mick and Brian and those two guys, and immediately I start in with the immortal phrase, Can I crash at your pad? So as not to have to go home. So virtually I leave home. Because I’m staying there all the time these cats are always kicking up a fuss, they won’t pay the rent and they’ll kick Brian out for letting me stay there. We’re always very brought down when they arrive, and they’re sittin’ in the corner of the room lookin’ very out of it, ’cause there are three or four musicians in another corner trying to get their thing together, and these guys are trying to study.

      ‘Absolutely no bread at this point, Brian’s in and out of work more frequently than ever. Got caught stealing again and very luckily was let off. He was always very good, Brian, at getting out of things. He’d always chat up the manager and they’d say, Yeah, we understand, your wife’s left you (wasn’t his wife but he’d always tell them it was), and your grandmother died and anything else he could think of. Brian was the one who kept us all together then. Mick was still going to school. I was sort of halfway looking for a job. I went out one morning and came back in the evening and Brian was blowing harp. He’s standing at the top of the stairs saying, “Listen to this: Whoooo. Whooooo.” All these blue notes comin’ out. “I’ve learned how to do it. I’ve figured it out.” One day.

      ‘We were rehearsing two or three times a week, no gigging, we didn’t dare. Dick Taylor’s still with us, he’s on bass by now. We were looking for drums. Charlie was gigging with Alexis Korner. We couldn’t afford