True Adventures of the Rolling Stones

by Stanley Booth

  The biggest and richest and best educated generation in history knew no better than previous and later tiny, deprived generations what life was about. Prudent people cultivated their gardens. Early in September, Charlie and Shirley Watts moved from the Old Brewery House at Southover into Peckham’s, a thirteenth-century farmhouse at Halland, eight miles from Lewes, where Mick and Keith had been tried. A forty-acre farm went with the house, but Charlie said he intended to lease all the land except the garden to a farmer.

  On September 14, four of the Stones left Heathrow for America—Brian and Suki being photographed by English paparazzi—to work on the $25,000 cover (a 3-D photograph with images that moved) for their new album, Satanic Majesties. On their arrival the Stones were delayed while immigration officers questioned Keith for more than half an hour before allowing him “deferred entry.” When Mick and Marianne arrived from Paris on a later flight, Mick was also questioned and his luggage thoroughly searched.

  After a seven-minute interview with the Stones the next morning, the director of immigrations said that they were being allowed to stay pending the arrival of court records. As Mick left, one of the immigration officers asked for an autograph for his daughter. The Stones stayed at the Warwick Hotel, where a war correspondent named Martin Gorshen, back from his third trip to Vietnam, where U.S. forces had increased in five years from five thousand to five hundred thousand, saw them and wrote a newspaper piece to complain: “We’ve got kids dying out there without a sound and we’ve got punks here who dress up like girls and make millions of dollars doing it.”

  The Stones had made millions—their Decca records had earned around a hundred million dollars—but they were having trouble getting at the money. While in New York they met with Allen Klein, who had taken the $1.4 million advance from Decca and deposited it not into the Stones’ business account, Nanker Phelge Music Ltd. in London, but the U.S.-based N.P.M. Inc., Klein’s own creation. It would take the Stones years to learn that Klein had spent all the money on General Motors stock, which produced little of the ready vital to being nigger rich. Their contract with Klein, he would point out when the time came, obliged him only to pay them the advance within twenty years.

  Money was a big problem, but the Stones had bigger ones. Their major effort of the last two years had been, apart from staying out of prison, trying to learn to make Rolling Stones records without Brian. For most of the Satanic sessions Brian had been absent, spending a lot of time in Spain with Suki. Brian’s trial took place on October 30 at Inner London Sessions. He was charged with possession of cannabis, methedrine, and cocaine, smoking and allowing his flat to be used for smoking cannabis. He pleaded guilty to possessing and smoking cannabis, otherwise not guilty.

  The prosecutor, Robin Simpson, said that on May 10, at four o’clock in the afternoon, the police searched Brian’s flat. Asked if he had any drugs, Brian had said, “I suffer from asthma, the only drugs I have are for that.” Eleven objects were found in different places, in different rooms, to contain or to bear traces of drugs: two canisters, two wallets, two pipes, two cigaret ends, a box of cigaret papers, a jar, a chair caster used as an ashtray. The total number of grains of cannabis found was thirty-five and a quarter, enough to make from seven to ten cigarets. The police had shown Brian a tin containing some of the material now in evidence and a phial that appeared to have traces of cocaine. “Yes, it is hash,” Brian had said. “We do smoke. But not cocaine, man. That’s not my scene.”

  The defending attorney, James Comyn, Q.C., said that Brian had suffered a breakdown and had been under strict medical care. He had been very ill but had at last responded to treatment. Comyn said that Brian was a highly intelligent (IQ 133) and versatile musician and composer, with tremendous writing talent. The defense called Dr. Leonard Henry, a psychiatrist from Northolt, Middlesex, who said that Brian had been agitated, depressed, incoherent, and had to be treated with tranquilizers and antidepressants. He was very sick and got worse. He didn’t respond to treatment and was recommended for treatment in Roehampton Priory in July. Brian was now less depressed and less anxious, but the doctor said, “If he is put in prison, it would be disastrous to his health. He would have a complete mental collapse, a breakdown, and he couldn’t stand the stigma. He might injure himself.”

  Another psychiatrist, Anthony Flood, of Harley Street, testified that Brian was “deeply distressed, anxious, and a potential suicide.”

  Then Brian took the stand. He was wearing a navy suit with flared jacket and bell-bottom trousers, a polka dot cravat, and shoes with Cuban heels. Judge Reginald Ethelbert Seaton said that he’d been told Brian intended cutting out drugs completely. “That is precisely my intention,” Brian said. He told the judge that drugs had brought him only trouble and disrupted his career: “I hope that will be an example to others.”

  “I am very moved by what I have heard,” the judge said, “but under the circumstances nothing less than a prison sentence would be correct. I sentence you to nine months imprisonment for being the occupier of premises, allowing them to be used for the smoking of drugs, and three months for being in possession of cannabis resin, the sentences to run concurrently.”

  The judge also ordered Brian to pay £250 costs and refused to grant him bail pending an appeal. Brian was led away to jail as teen-aged girls, some of whom were Brian’s friends and loved him, left the courtroom in tears. The next day, Brian’s appeal was set for December 12, and he was released on bail.

  The other Stones were digging their trenches. Mick bought a country estate near Newbury, Berkshire, called Stargroves, with a twelve-bedroom mansion that had no running water. Keith had built a nine-foot wooden fence, like a fort in a Western movie, around Redlands, and further fortified the place with two guard dogs, a Labrador named Bernard and a Great Dane named Winston.

  Andrew Oldham was fast fading from the Stones picture, and the Beatles’ manager, Brian Epstein, had recently died. Mick and Paul McCartney began to talk about the possibility of the two groups’ purchasing a recording studio and forming a joint production company to be called Mother Earth. Neither group was happy with its record company. After the effort of making what sounded like a difficult album and creating the elaborate cover art, the Stones were infuriated by a delay in the release of Satanic Majesties because Decca, so they said, were out of cardboard. The album finally reached the shops at about the time of Brian’s appeal.

  Brian appeared before a panel of four judges. Dr. Leonard Neustatter, a court-appointed psychiatrist who had interviewed Brian four times, said that he was intelligent but “emotionally unstable, with neurotic tendencies.” In a report prepared for the appeals court, Dr. Neustatter wrote, “He vacillates between a passive, dependent child with a confused image of an adult on the one hand, and an idol of pop culture on the other.”

  Dr. Leonard Henry, again testifying for Brian, said that, faced with an intolerable situation, Brian “might well make an attempt on his life.”

  In the light of these opinions and the fact that Brian had never before been convicted of anything worse than peeing in a garage—though he had been guilty of worse things many times—the court substituted a £1000 fine and three years probation for Brian’s prison term, telling him: “The court has shown a degree of mercy, but you cannot go and boast, saying you’ve been let off. If you commit another offence of any sort—you will be brought back and punished afresh. And you know what sort of sentence you will get.”

  Two days later, Brian was taken to St. George’s Hospital in London after being found unconscious on the floor of a flat in Chelsea, rented in the name of his chauffeur, John Coray. Doctors in the hospital’s emergency department wanted Brian to stay, but he left after an hour, saying he was only exhausted and wanted to go home.

  Mick and Marianne were in Brazil for the holidays, staying at a remote beach where the people thought that Marianne was the Virgin Mary, the unshaven Mick was Joseph, and Nicholas, Marianne’s two-year-old son, was the baby Jesus. Keith and Anita we
re in Italy, Bill and Astrid were in Sweden. Charlie was at home with Shirley, who was going to have a baby.

  As the new year began, Jo Bergman, who had come to work for the Stones in September, made an analysis of their situation:

  1. Rolling Stones personal working accounts overdrawn

  2. Rolling Stones #3 account overdrawn

  3. Telexes sent to Klein by us and Lawrence Myers

  4. Promise of £2000 to be sent Thursday

  5. Need £7000 to clear most pressing debts

  6. Money needed for studio & offices

  7. Summary

  (a) due to lack of funds in personal accounts, some bills paid out of Rolling Stones account #3

  (b) no funds for running of office

  (c) Rolling Stones accountant Mr. Trowbridge has been forced to find an alternative

  The Stones started rehearsing in February and by mid-March were recording songs for a new album. Brian, who felt he could no longer play with the Stones, was participating very little. In March he was in the office and left a note for Jo, whom he feared, thinking that she was Jagger’s enforcer.

  Dear Jo,

  I need the following dates for to do my recording thing in Morocco: 22nd→25th or 26th March. This is the only time I can get it done, and I honestly believe I can get something really worthwhile from this venture for us. If this means I have to miss a session or two, I can dub my scenes on after, while vocals are being done or whatever. Incidentally the Morocco thing is only part of my venture. I am confident I can come up with something really groovy. I will talk to you later about financing the thing, if that be possible. I don’t need that much. Hope it happens! Love Brian

  Talk to you later—

  Before Brian could get out of London, he was again in the news: STONES GIRL NAKED IN DRUG DRAMA, the News of the World headline said. Linda Keith, a disc jockey’s daughter who had once been Keith’s girlfriend and was now, at least part of the time, Brian’s, called her doctor, told him where she was and that she was going to overdose on drugs. The doctor called the police, who knocked down the door of the Chesham Place flat, rented to Brian’s chauffeur, where Brian stayed in London. Linda was inside, right in style, naked and unconscious. After she had been taken to the hospital, Brian arrived at the flat. “I had been at an all-night recording session,” he told reporters, “and when I came back just after twelve I found the police at the flat. I was absolutely shattered when the landlord of the flat asked the police to have me removed. He said, ‘It’s because you are trespassing. We don’t want your kind in this place.’ I explained to him that I rented the flat for my chauffeur and only lived here when I was in town. But he wouldn’t listen to me. I have paid six months rent in advance, but it didn’t make any difference to him. I can’t understand it.”

  The next day, Linda left the hospital and Brian moved to the Royal Avenue House in the King’s Road. And the day after that, Serafina Watts was born.

  Brian went to Marrakech to record some musicians called the G’naoua, Glyn Johns going along as engineer. Glyn and Brian didn’t get along, and the music was disappointing. Though he would return to Morocco in the summer to record in Joujouka with Brion Gysin, Brian was back in London by the end of April. The Stones had finished a new single, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” with an optimistic chorus:

  But it’s all right now

  In fact it’s a gas

  It was time. The Daily Express for May 9, in a story titled “Things Look Bad for Rolling Stones,” observed that the Stones had not had a number one single since “Paint It, Black” over two years ago.

  But three days after that story appeared the Stones gave a surprise performance at the New Musical Express Pollwinner’s Concert at Wembley Stadium—they had been named the top rhythm & blues group. It was just like the old days, girls screaming, cops with linked arms holding back hysterical fans. The Stones did “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Satisfaction,” and Mick threw his white shoes into the crowd.

  Nine days later, four days before “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” was released, Brian was again arrested for drugs. He had heard the screams for the last time.

  27

  Men have brought their powers of subduing the forces of nature to such a pitch that by using them they could now very easily exterminate one another to the last man. They know this—hence arises a great part of their current unrest, their dejection, their mood of apprehension. And now it may be expected that the other of the two heavenly forces, eternal Eros, will put forth his strength so as to maintain himself alongside of his equally immortal adversary.

  SIGMUND FREUD: Civilization and Its Discontents

  I SLEPT the sleep of the exhausted and overdosed but not for long because Gore called. Being like all speed freaks evangelistic, Gore wanted to take me to his doctor, and because I was crazy and going crazier I got up and dressed and went out to meet him on the corner in front of the shop Paranoia, I mean Paraphernalia. After about four hours’ sleep I was still anesthetized by the heroin, didn’t order any breakfast at the hotel, but arriving a few minutes early to meet Gore, I went into a small grocery, drank half a pint of milk and almost threw up on the spot.

  To distract myself and kill time, I went across the street to a drugstore and called a girl I’d known slightly in Memphis, where she went to the Art Academy. She now lived in Manhattan and knew Ronnie Schneider, whom she’d plied with an idea that had become all too common in the sixties; to film the old bluesmen with some of their rock and roll progeny, in this case the Rolling Stones. At least she didn’t want to float the Band down the Mississippi, as another jerk had suggested, hauling Furry and Bukka out to the boat for a little bottleneckin’ and hambonin’. Ronnie had told me she wanted to talk to me. My reaction against him had been so violent that he was trying to soothe me, and his way of changing face, from considering me as carrion to accepting me at least for the moment as a fellow bird, was to say, Gee, we’ve got a mutual friend, she said she’d like to talk to you—so I called her and she told me that she had her plan all together, she just needed me to help her get one last detail, the Rolling Stones. I told her I’d see what I could do, knowing what that would be.

  I crossed the street again and there was Gore, blond and tortoise-shelled and schoolboyish. He said his regular speed doctor was out of town, so we walked back over near the Plaza for a visit with one Adolf B. Wolfmann, M.D., D.D.S., D.M.D. He was not quite as bad as Peter Sellers in The Wrong Box, blotting his prescriptions with a kitten, but he gave you the feeling he had a lot to be surreptitious about. He let us in, a man with a grizzled red pompadour and a white hospital coat, throwing two bolts to open the street door, locking them again behind us, unlocking two more locks to let us into an inner office, opening another lock to let us into a small room with a padded examination table. Gore introduced us and said, “He wants to start taking the treatments.”

  “You want to start the treatments also? All right, wait here.”

  Maybe he went and pulled a tooth, but he came back with two horsecock needles full of I suppose Methedrine and egg yolk, Gore and I dropped our trousers, he shot us up, we paid him ten dollars American apiece, he threw the bolts to let us out, and we sailed away down Central Park South, hearing behind us the faint snapping of locks.

  I had felt faint and limp-wristed, but with the charge in my ass I decided we didn’t need a cab, we could walk across town to Madison Square Garden for the Stones’ afternoon concert. Out of an earnest desire not to rob this account of its true interest, I will confess that I was carrying the red carnation from my bedside table at the Plaza; so there I went, boots, jeans, and leather jacket, sniffing a long-stemmed red carnation, looking like some insane faggot ought to be kilt with a shovel, as we walked briskly through the streets, fatigue gone, feeling ardent.

  At the Garden Terry Reid was on. Not since “Bunch Up, Little Dogies” in Fort Collins had he seemed to be at one with an audience, but no other audience had seemed as gentle and peaceful as that one. I never heard him d
o that song again. Gore went out to make a phone call, checking on a delivery to his house for a party there tonight after the Stones’ evening concert, and never came back. Pete and Nicole were at the show, and I went up and watched B. B. King and Ike and Tina Turner with them. Then I shouldered and slid and elbowed and threw my weight around with the guards and made it back to the stage, where the lights were going down and Sam was coming out, more mad-eyed than ever, to the mike: “The greatest rock and roll band in the world, the Rolling Stones.” I kept wishing he would say, “The scaredest rock and roll band,” but he never did, not even later, when there was no doubt about it.

  The Stones came out, plugged in, the mushroom spines above began to reverberate with “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” The traditional esthetic of popular songs required that the singer’s life should be made desolate by the departure of his true love, who could make everything all right if only she would return. If such songs as Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me, Babe” and the Stones’ “Stupid Girl” and “Under My Thumb” defied that convention, they were not quite the same thing as songs about rape and murder. “Some of those early albums, like Between the Buttons, were so light” Mick had said one day at the Oriole house while we were listening to an acetate of Let It Bleed. This tour would lighten his approach for good. He would go on singing about death and destruction, but he would cut out the Prince of Darkness business. He was about to have more darkness than he ever wanted.