True Adventures of the Rolling Stones

by Stanley Booth

“I don’t know,” Mick said, “What can you play?”

  The hand Brian had broken on Anita’s head had not healed properly, and Brian had trouble playing guitar. He tried playing harmonica, but finally Mick told him, “You can’t play anymore, why don’t you go home?”

  Mick and Keith were looking for someone to replace Brian. In May they invited Mick Taylor to some sessions. On May 25 they over-dubbed saxophonist Bobby Keys on the rock and roll version of “Honky Tonk Women.” Sometime in the next week, Mick had a talk with Mick Taylor.

  At this time Mick was learning dialogue for his appearance with Marianne in a film about the bandit Ned Kelly, scheduled to start pro­duction in Australia early in July. The day the newspapers carried the story announcing the film, Mick and Marianne were arrested for possessing illegal drugs in the house Mick had bought the year before at 48 Cheyne Walk.

  On June 8, with “Honky Tonk Women” ready for release, Keith, Mick, and Charlie went to Cotchford Farm to talk to Brian. Years later Charlie would say, “It was the worst thing so far that I’ve ever had to do.” But he also said that when they told Brian what they wanted to do, he seemed relieved. “It was as if a whole weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and he said, ‘Yeah, I want to leave.’ ”

  Brian announced to the press that he had left the Stones. He called his father to say that it was only temporary, they wanted to play America, he would tour Europe with them next year.

  In London’s Hyde Park, starting in September 1968, a man named Peter Jenner, from the pop production firm Blackhill Enterprises, had been giving free concerts like the ones he had seen in California. “Honky Tonk Women” was scheduled for release on July 4, and the Stones planned a free concert in Hyde Park for July 5. Another letter from Jo Bergman:

  The Rolling Stones

  Telephone 01-629 5856

  Telex 266934

  46a Maddox Street

  London W1

  Dear People,

  Here is a rough guide-plan for this week’s events:

  TUES. 1st July

  1 o’clock. Granada Theatre, Wandsworth Road The evening is theoretically free, unless anyone feels able to do interviews for FM stations in America at that time—i.e. 5-6 o’clock. I will ask you about this later.

  WED. 2nd July

  12-2 o’clock. Music Scene introductions. These will be at the TRL Studio, 44/46 Whitfield Street W.1., and will be very quick. It is very important however that everyone make it by 12 o’clock because they must be finished in the studio by 2 o’clock.

  7 o’clock. Olympic-recording.

  THURS. 3rd July

  1.30/2 o’clock. Photo session with an American photographer to do pictures for posters in America and photograph for the September album cover. This should take, at most, two hours, probably less. Rest of the afternoon could be rehearsals.

  8-9.30 Top of the Pops taping at Studio G. Lime Grove.

  FRI. 4th July.

  Rehearsals all day I presume. (Mick only—meeting with Jane Nicholson and Rolling Stone staff. Meeting with Jo to be arranged before rehearsals)

  SAT. 5th July.

  The Battle of the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

  3.45 Albert Hall Car Park

  After Altamont, when I was living in London, I talked many times with Shirley Arnold, who was still running the fan club. She was one of the most decent people I had ever met, English in the best sense of the word. A few years later, when the Stones were living abroad and she never saw them anymore, she stopped working for them. She would spend a few years working for Rod Stewart and then one day she would call Jo Bergman in California, where Jo was working for Warner Bros. Records, and say, “I’ve left the business.” It was to her credit that she had never been in the business.

  “Brian was in a terrible state for ages after Anita,” Shirley said one day in her gentle but frank blue-eyed manner, “but then Brian was always in a terrible state, wasn’t he? He was always losin’ out, every way. He so wanted to be—not that they’re not normal, but he so wanted to have a normal happy life, every way, wiwout any hangups. But it never worked out. And he would never reach out for what he wanted. He was so easily led. I went round very early one morning in late ‘sixty-seven. He rang up, he’d had a bad night. Maybe he’d taken lots of things and hadn’t slept for days. He said, Tm starvin’. Get ten pounds from the accountant, get lots of food and bring it round. I’m starvin. He wanted a big ham on the bone and that costs about five. So I get round to the flat, which was in Courtfield Road, and there was Brian and two other girls, couple of other fellows, all hangers-on who weren’t really interested in Brian. The food arrived and everyone sort of dived in. There were eggs and bacon, and he’d asked for instant mashed potatoes. He said, ‘How do I cook sausages?’ I said, ‘Would you like me to cook it for you, Brian?’ He said, ‘Oh, yes, please.’ I was cookin’ his breakfast—and I was engaged then, I was engaged to be married—and he was sayin’, ‘You’re so normal, you’re gettin’ it all together.’ It was so easy, I mean anyone can cook a breakfast, and Brian was sayin’, ‘You’re so clever,’ and I could imagine Brian tryin’ to cook eggs and bacon. I’ll never forget, we had these big sausages, and I put the fork in them—lots of people do, you know, put the fork in a sausage to stop it from explodin’—and he was sayin’, ‘Aw, I never knew that.’ He said, ‘I’m really gonna get it together with a nice chick, it’s great to see you workin’ in the kitchen.’

  “By the time the breakfast was finished he was asleep. I woke him up and he ate his breakfast. He was so determined that morning to pull himself together and have a nice flat, and he was goin’ on about havin’ food in the fridge and havin’ milk delivered. Nothing was normal in Brian’s life, but he would never reach out and make it normal.

  “Then he was with Suki. She made him happy, I think. Maybe she was the next best thing to Anita, I think that’s what he was after. She looked like Anita in the earlier days. They looked like sisters. In the office we would see photographs of Suki and think that it was Anita. Suki was goin’ with Tara Browne, the Guinness heir, and she was in a car crash and Tara died, and he died in her arms. She was in a terrible state. Brian was a friend of Tara’s, and they went to the funeral together, and Brian had just lost Anita, so they started living together. Maybe it was because Suki really loved Tara and Brian really loved Anita that it never worked out for them. She was a nice girl to him. She looked after him. They seemed happy. But I think that was the thing with Brian, losin’ Anita.

  “Suki told me once that she went back to the flat and Brian was with Linda. I mean, that was wicked for a start, to do that, that was really terrible. She said he kicked her out of the flat. She was covered in bruises. And he also kicked the dog. So, you can’t understand Brian, because he loved the dog so much, and he even took it out on the dog that night. I don’t think anyone understands—understood him at all. I don’t think anyone could begin to understand him.

  “I remember when he lived in Windsor—I told you about the goat—they went away for a few days, someone looked after it, and it caught pneumonia and died. I told him on the telephone and it just broke his heart. There was Brian cryin’ and there was me cryin’ because he was cryin’. He was sayin’, ‘I want it stuffed, I’ve got to have it stuffed.’ I found out from the taxidermist’s how much it was gonna cost and rang Brian back and said, ‘They’ll do it. It’s gonna cost four hundred quid.’ He said, ‘No, I can’t do it, I can’t have its insides pulled out.’ I think they buried it in the garden at Redlands.

  “He loved animals. Sometimes he was so sweet and gentle. He had the face that beamed out. When he smiled everything was great, the sun was shining. I always loved him. I’ve always loved all the boys, but when the fans send me letters and say Please tell me what he was like, I can type four pages without thinkin’ at all about Brian. But then I think, I’m so lucky, at least I knew him, and it’s all there, no one else can have it. I’m glad I knew him. But I always used to worry about Brian. I never thought he
’d make it. He didn’t think he’d make it himself. Mrs. Jones has got a tape, an interview with Brian saying, ‘I don’t think I’ll be around when I’m thirty.’ And he was always sayin’ to Suki about makin’ a will, and Suki used to say, ‘When we’re old and grey,’ and he’d say, ‘No, I’ll never make it.’ He could never see a future for himself. The boys knew it as well, he used to say to everyone that he’d never live to be old.

  “It’s been so great workin’ for them, all the years I’ve been there, and I always knew that one day one of them would die, and I used to think that was the worst thing I could go through, but I knew it would be Brian. I could have expected it anytime, ’cause he went through so many changes, I knew it was comin’. But then when he left the group—I think Fred the accountant and I were the only two that spoke to him every day. He used to ring the office, and he was so happy. I don’t know, maybe he was tryin’ to convince us, or in tryin’ to convince us that he was goin’ to get it together he was tryin’ to convince himself. We were talkin’ about the Hyde Park concert the day before he died. He died on the Wednesday, I was talkin’ to him on the Monday. I’d already met Mick Taylor—the week before—and Brian said, ‘Have you met him?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘What’s he like?’ I said, ‘Oh, I don’t think I like him.’ He said, ‘Oh, you will,’ and he was ever so nice about it. He said, ‘I think I’ll come to the Hyde Park concert on Saturday, what do you think people would think about that, if I came?’ I said, ‘It would be a great idea, for you to go along and wish Mick Taylor luck.’

  “Then on the Tuesday I spoke to him. He rang up and said, ‘Can you send me down some photographs?’ So I said, ‘Yeah, and I’m still answering the letters for you.’ He said, ‘Oh, are you sure you don’t mind?’ He’d always put you in that position, are you sure you don’t mind doin’ it. I said, ‘No, I’ll answer the letters, I’ll always work for you, don’t be silly.’

  “Suki was in Morocco, they’d just split up. I knew Brian was livin’ with a girl, Anna, I’d never seen her. I was lookin’ after Matilda, Suki’s dog. Brian thought the world of that dog. I went home on this Tuesday evening, and I’d just had the telephone put on at home, it had just been installed. One person knew the number. I rang Tom Keylock’s wife, ’cause the boys were recording that night. Tom had gone down to Redlands. I rang Joan Keylock and gave her the number. So when the phone rang at one o’clock in the morning it could only have been Joan. That was the first time my phone at home had ever rung. I ran downstairs—Matilda was following me—picked up the phone. She said, ‘Are you awake?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’m downstairs, what’s wrong?’ She said, ‘I’ve got some bad news.’ I said, ‘Brian.’ She said, ‘He’s dead.’

  “She was in a state, she’d only just heard, she heard before anyone else. Frank Thorogood, who was down there with Brian, was a friend of Tom’s. As they pulled Brian from the pool, they realized he was dead. The first thing Frank did was to ring Joan and say, ‘Brian’s dead, quick, someone get Tom down,’ because Tom was great at getting everything sorted out. She rang me before she even rang the studio to tell Stu to tell the boys. She said, ‘Frank and Brian went for a swim, and Brian didn’t come out.’ I put the phone down, started to walk upstairs to the bedroom, and went hysterical. My parents got up and they said, ‘What’s wrong?’ I said, ‘Brian’s dead.’ Matilda was sittin’ on the bed howlin’, lookin’ out the window goin’ Owrr, owrr—it was as if she knew.

  “Joan rang the studio, and Stu answered. She said, ‘Is Tom there? Tom’s got to go down to Cotchford.’ I think Stu said, ‘Oh, what’s the silly bugger done now?’ She said, ‘He’s dead.’ Then he told the boys. I pulled myself together. I rang Jo about half-past one. I’d been ringin’ and ringin’ and there was no reply. I thought, I’ll keep ringin’ because obviously she’s not there so I’m not gonna wake her up, I’ll ring every five minutes until she comes in. She must have rushed in and got into the bath. I rang and said, ‘Jo? Were you asleep?’ She said, ‘No, I’m just having a bath.’ I said, ‘I’ve got some bad news. Brian’s dead.’ She said ‘No.’ Then she said, ‘Now why did he have to do this, we’ve got so much to do on Saturday with the Hyde Park concert, there’s the estate to take care of, and he never had a will, there’s the funeral—’

  “I’m sure all of us just sat up all night. I left home about half past six, got into a minicab. The driver was a young fellow, and it was on the six o’clock news that morning, he said, ‘Uh—Brian Jones is dead.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I heard.’ And there was me sittin’ there, I’d loved him for so long and worked for him so long, and there was Brian’s dog sitting next to me, and there was the minicab driver telling me he was dead. We got to the West End and all the newspaper clippings were up—Brian Jones Dies in Swimming Pool—and I was looking at all these newspaper things and thinking, ‘He’s really dead, he’s front-page news again.’ I got out of the minicab at the wrong place, so I had to walk down, and I hadn’t slept anyway, so I was really weird, and the lady in the cigaret kiosk, she knows me well, and I walked past her, I sort of walked out into the middle of the road, and she came out and got me, and I walked up into the office and opened it up. It was seven o’clock in the morning, and you can imagine the office, it was so quiet, and I just sat there. The first phone call—I think at half past eight—was Alexis Korner. He was in a state of shock, and he said, ‘Is anyone there, has anyone heard the news, who am I speakin’ to?’ I said, ‘You’re speakin’ to Shirley,’ and he said, ‘Well, then, you know how I feel.’ He was tryin’ to say I’m so sorry for you, because I knew Alexis when we first started, and I start crying when I hear anyone cry, and he just broke down like a baby. I could hardly see by the end of the day.

  “The boys all showed it in different ways, Charlie actually cried, whereas I think Mick was too shocked. Charlie came up early, Mick arrived, Keith came in and grabbed hold of me and said, ‘Are you all right?’ I don’t think anyone knew what was happening, ’cause even if they all had expected Brian to die young, when it happens it’s still a shock. Then they started saying about Hyde Park, and the first thing Mick said was, ‘We’ll cancel it,’ and then they said, ‘No, we’ll do it, we’ll do it for Brian.’ ”

  Over and over that day the flimsy record player in the Stones’ office played Tim Hardin’s Bird on a Wire. The Stones cancelled the photo session scheduled for the afternoon, but they went to the Top of the Pops taping that night. They rehearsed the next day, although Mick, ill with at least a sore throat and hay fever, didn’t sing. He was scheduled to start Ned Kelly in Australia on Monday, but he didn’t feel like going. The film production company’s lawyers said that if he was well enough to sing in Hyde Park on Saturday, he was well enough to fly to Australia on Sunday.

  In Australia, Marianne took an overdose of Tuinal after seeing not her face but Brian’s in the mirror and spent days in a coma, hovering between life and death. Later she would say that while unconscious, she was with Brian. They took a long walk, talking together, and then Marianne said, “I’ve got to go back.”

  “I’ve got to go on,” Brian said.

  Marianne was replaced in the film by another actress and went as soon as she was able into a Swiss hospital to recuperate.

  On July 21, for the first time, a man walked on the moon. On August 10 Marlon Richards was born. On August 18 Mick was injured while filming when a defective pistol exploded in his hand. On September 12, Mick was back in London by way of Tahiti. On September 29 he appeared in court and had his hearing postponed till December. A week later he would go to Bali for a few days, but he would be back to fly to Los Angeles with the other Stones on October 17.

  An audience of a quarter of a million had been expected for the Stones’ free concert in Hyde Park, but there may have been twice that many. Sam Cutler, who worked for Blackhill, was master of ceremonies. The English Hell’s Angels, younger and much gentler than their American counterparts, acted as security, as they had at other such concerts, receiving a note of thanks fr
om Jo Bergman for the Stones: “You really did good on Saturday, you helped make it possible for us to do our thing and it really knocked us out to see your pretty smiling faces.”

  The Stones started playing at Hyde Park as five thousand butterflies were released, after Mick read two stanzas from Shelley’s “Adonais”:

  Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep—

  He hath awakened from the dream of life—

  ’Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep

  With phantoms an unprofitable strife,

  And in mad trance, strike with our spirit’s knife

  Invulnerable nothings.—We decay

  Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief

  Convulse us and consume us day by day,

  And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.

  • • •

  The One remains, the many change and pass;

  Heaven’s light forever shines, Earth’s shadows fly;

  Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,

  Stains the white radiance of Eternity,

  Until Death tramples it to fragments.—Die,

  If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!

  Follow where all is fled!—Rome’s azure sky,

  Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak

  The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.

  “Mick read the poem,” Shirley Arnold told me, “and then the butterflies came off, and one landed on me. It was so pretty, and I was sitting with Shirley Watts, and when the boys came on, she said, ‘I miss his face.’ The butterfly that landed on my arm had a broken wing, so she said, ‘Oh, it’s got a broken wing,’ and she started to cry. I said, ‘Come on, we’ll go.’ We only listened to two numbers and went back and sat in the caravan. It was a strange day in the park, it was a great day if Brian had been there, if he had been watching. I’m sure he was. All you could see was thousands and thousands of people—quiet, calm, not moving. A couple got up and danced. But I think if Brian hadn’t died, there would have been a riot, because the music was fantastic. But they’d lost a Stone, and they just wanted to listen to the music. I think lots of the people were there to pay their respects.