The most persistent line of questioning about the Beatles, however, was directed at Jagger.
REPORTER: How do you compare your group with the Beatles?
MICK [smoking, smiling, and mugging for the camera]: I don’t know, how do you compare it the Beatles? I don’t compare it at all. You know, there’s no point.
REPORTER: Well, let’s get right down to brass tacks. Do you think you’re better than they are?
MICK: At what? You know, it’s not the same group, so we just do what we want and they do what they want, and there’s no point in going on comparing us. You can prefer us to them or them to us. This is diplomatic, you see!
REPORTER: Very diplomatic, and I don’t want to belabor it, but do you feel that you do what you want to do better than they do what they want to do?
MICK: Uh . . .
MYSTERIOUS OFF-CAMERA VOICE: Yes.
MICK: Probably, I don’t know! I don’t know what they want to do, you see? Very diplomatic!
Despite having practically invited questions about the Beatles, the Stones soon began to chafe at them. It’s not hard to see why. When the Stones hopped the Atlantic in June 1964, they had been preceded by only a few of their contemporaries: the Beatles, of course, as well as Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Searchers, and (just barely) the Dave Clark Five. All of those acts were rapturously received by teens, and the Stones didn’t disguise the fact that they hoped for the same treatment. “Obviously, we hope we are a success, at least as much as the other British groups that have gone to the US,” Jones told The Rolling Stones Book on the eve of their tour.
At first things looked promising. Thanks to a bit of advance publicity from London Records, about five hundred enthusiastic fans turned out to greet the Stones at the airport. Afterwards, the Stones did a press conference, posed for photos and (though they were on a tight budget) ostentatiously rode away in a great convoy of limousines—one car for each member. Later that night, they appeared on Murray the K’s Swinging Soiree, hosted by Murray Kaufman, the “happening” WINS-AM disc jockey that the Stones had recently met in London through the Beatles. Kaufman says that shortly after they were introduced, the Stones asked if he would promote them in America as ardently and successfully as he had Beatles.
Problem was, at the time of their arrival, there was only so much Murray the K could do for the Stones. Despite their popularity in England, the sallow-cheeked quintet didn’t yet have a hit song in the US. (“Not Fade Away” was only at number 88 on a popular chart.) The Stones had only just released their debut album (subtitled in America: England’s Newest Hit Makers). It featured a moody, beatnik-inspired cover photo (not all that different from the one the Beatles had just used on their second album), and it was a very good first record. Nothing else on the market resembled what the Stones were doing. But Capitol Records had spent $40,000 promoting the Beatles before they came to America, and the Stones did not get anywhere near that support. It’s not as if the Stones had a fleet of antic deejays saying, “It’s 6:30 a.m. Rolling Stones time! They’ve just left London. They’re flying over the Atlantic Ocean. It’s currently 49 Rolling Stones degrees,” and so on.
Nevertheless, the Stones figured that if Murray the K was good enough for the Beatles, he was good enough for them as well. The Stones smiled wanly as he went through his loony routine: “Whadja think of the Beatles, guys—are you pals or rivals?” “How long since you had a haircut? Just kiddin’, Murray luuuuvvves you.” “I can assure my listeners they are clean, the Stones are clean. They do wash—don’t you, guys?”
(“Oh, just play the fuckin’ record and announce the concert date so we can piss off,” Oldham remembers thinking.)
The next night, the Stones got another inkling of what they were in for in America when they made their first television appearance, on the locally broadcast Les Crane Show. It was a Wednesday and the program didn’t air until 1:00 a.m., when most of the Stones’ target audience was no doubt asleep. Furthermore, Crane did not “get” the Stones, not even remotely. He was pugnacious and (worse) phony. Instead of asking the Stones about their music, he pestered them with inane questions about their reputation and appearance. Oldham silently fumed. “What a dolt! Didn’t he know that this kind of banter was reserved for Mop Tops and Herman’s Hermits?” Oldham also remembered being surprised as it began dawning on him that the Stones all felt rather vulnerable in the US. Perhaps their collective hide was not as thick as they had thought.
The next morning they awoke early to catch a transcontinental flight in order to perform on ABC’s Hollywood Palace, a televised variety program that struck them as awfully square. Unlike its competitor, The Ed Sullivan Show, this program relied on various guest hosts, and when the Stones were on the master of ceremonies was the legendary Rat Packer Dean Martin. He wasn’t exactly a fuddy-duddy, but you only had to notice Brylcreemed hair, tuxedo, and Vegas-style shtick to know that he wasn’t likely to “get” the Stones either. The Stones were further deflated when they learned that the other acts that night included a group of singing bouffanted Mormons called the King Sisters, plus some performing elephants and a trampoline artist. To this day it’s not clear whether Dino was tipsy when he hosted the show, or just pretending to be half in the bag, but some of the jibes to which he subjected the Stones were not friendly.
“And nowwww,” he said, with mock apprehension, “something for the youngsters: five singin’ boys from England who’ve sold a lot of al-bee-ums, er, albums! They’re called the Rolling Stones. I’ve been rolled while I was stoned myself, so . . . I don’t know what they’re singing about, but here they are at.”
The Stones performed “I Just Want to Make Love to You,” the randy Willie Dixon cover from their first album. To most white Americans back then (and certainly to the network’s censors) the idea of “making love” had a different connotation than it does now. When Frank Sinatra sang “Mind If I Make Love to You?” to Grace Kelly in the 1956 film High Society, he was gallantly asking for permission to try to woo a woman, not necessarily to take her to bed. The Rolling Stones, it is safe to say, had a different idea. They played the song with gusto, but ABC wound up airing only about a minute of it. Then as soon as they were finished, Dino started heckling them.
“The Rolling Stones, aren’t they great?” he said, with a big sarcastic roll of the eyes.
“You know something about these singing groups today?” he continued. “You’re under the impression they have long hair. Nah! Not true at all! It’s an optical illusion. They just have low foreheads and high eyebrows.
“They’re going to leave right after the show for London. They’re challenging the Beatles to a hair-pulling contest.”
Then when Martin introduced the trampolinist, he said this: “That’s the father of the Rolling Stones; he’s been trying to kill himself ever since.”
Back home, the Stones didn’t mind if they upset narrow-minded prudes or dowdy old authorities. At least that meant they were being taken seriously. But they did not expect to be mocked and jeered during their American network television debut, to actually be laughed at, as if they were “some dumb circus act” (as Richards put it).
It also turned out that their tour had not been well planned. Comanager Eric Easton was responsible for arranging the Stones’ appearances, and the North American bookings agency he relied upon, GAC (General Artists Corporation), had done a terrible disservice to the Stones. In many cases, they arranged for the band to play at large auditoriums alongside a bunch of other acts that were obviously geared toward families, not plugged-in teens. The Stones were humiliated to be a part of these stupid variety bills. Making matters even worse, they now realized they had far too many days off in their schedule, and they found themselves in a foreboding mood. When they all fell into some petty squabbling and mickey taking, that only made things worse.
Their attitude briefly improved after their first public performance, at San Bernardino’s Swing Auditorium. Several thousand youths from across the Inland
Empire turned out to catch their first glimpse of the Stones, and somehow they knew the words to all the songs. The Stones beamed at the realization that they had a minor cult following around LA, and when some of the girls tried to climb on the stage, or when they threw stuff at the band—jelly babies, autograph books, mash notes, or whatever—they made it feel a bit like home. At the same time, many of differences between Southern California and London were pleasing to the Stones; they loved the sunny weather, the palm trees, the big muscle cars, and the whole beach mystique.
The next day, however, the Stones got a different kind of culture shock when they arrived in Texas. They had just had their first glimpse of America’s most enticing cities, New York and Los Angeles, but now they’d been sent to San Antonio. Oldham called it a “sawdust fiasco.” They were there to play at an outdoor fair where the main attraction was a rodeo, and they literally shared a bill with a bunch of performing monkeys. The Stones did two sets, one in the afternoon and another in the evening, and they were probably two of the most unsettling gigs in their entire career next to Altamont. Some in the audience sniggered and scoffed; others weren’t sure whether to take the Stones seriously or regard them as a comedy act. A few of the tough, beer-swilling cowboys in the audience fixed the Stones with flinty stares and made them feel afraid. It was a different order of hostility than they were accustomed to. “In America then, if you had long hair, you were a faggot as well as a freak,” Richards said. “They would shout across the street, ‘Hey, fairies.’ ”
Next up for the Stones was 2120 South Michigan Avenue—the home to Chess Records, in Chicago. Richards would later tell a story about how he walked into the building, came down a corridor, and encountered a slightly paunchy, middle-aged black man wearing speckled overalls and standing on a foot ladder: it was his all-time hero, McKinley “Muddy Waters” Morganfield. “I get to meet The Man—he’s my fucking god—and he’s out of work,” Richards marveled. “That throws you a curve, ’ere’s the king of the blues painting a wall.”
It was Richards’s way of admitting that his own good fortune was thick with irony. In the ’50s and ’60s, derivative white rock ’n’ rollers had such better professional opportunities than African American originators. It was a horribly unfair situation, and it was decent of Richards to acknowledge it. But the business about Muddy painting the interior of Chess Records never happened. If it had, the Stones surely would have mentioned it at the time. Richards seems not to have made the claim, however, until 1989: six years after Muddy had passed away. Besides, no one who worked at Chess could imagine such a scenario. Muddy Waters grew to have such a regal bearing that many people who knew him for years can’t recall ever seeing him in anything other than a custom-made suit, a silk shirt, and cufflinks.
Still, it was thrilling to spend two days working in the legendary studio where Muddy Waters recorded “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man,” and Howlin’ Wolf made “Moanin’ at Midnight”—the edifice of rock ’n’ roll. In addition to reveling in the atmosphere, the Stones were wowed by the studio’s technicians, who were so much more adept than their British counterparts. During their first session, Willie Dixon turned up and tried to hustle some of his songs. Buddy Guy came around, too, curious to know what a bunch of skinny young Brits were doing in such a tough neighborhood. The next day Muddy came by (this was the origin of the painting myth). So too did Chuck Berry, who—though he was not a friendly man—nevertheless peeked his head into the studio to say, “Swing on, gentlemen!”
And why shouldn’t he have been encouraging? The Stones impressed these blues and R&B pioneers. They dug the band’s vibrant, earthy sound, and if they were feeling magnanimous, they might also have been gratified to see these five white kids from England expressing such fanatical reverence for what was once marginalized as “race music.” Besides, people like Chuck Berry and Willie Dixon stood to make a good bit of money from the Stones.
The various highs on their US sojourn, however, were balanced out by low moments. An interview with a Chicago radio personality, Jack Eigen, proved reminiscent of the Dean Martin debacle. Irritated by the host’s pesky questions, the Stones were less than loquacious, and after they left the studio, Eigen took revenge by implying that they all had lice. A hastily organized show in Minneapolis produced a crowd of only about four hundred. Before another show, Keith says he stared down the barrel of a revolver for the first time: a macho cop had pulled it out after he’d refused to tip out the contents of his plastic cup while in a public area. Another night they played the Detroit Olympia (“The Old Red Barn”), the beloved home of the Red Wings hockey team. That would have been a huge thrill if the stadium had been full, but only about a thousand people showed up—less than 10 percent of its capacity.
No wonder the Stones were so relieved to get back to New York City. Their final two shows, on June 20, 1964, had a different flavor than most of the others. First, they were held at Carnegie Hall, arguably the world’s most prestigious music venue. That was no coincidence: the Beatles made headlines when they played there too, on their first American tour. Now just four months later, the controversial Stones were bringing their raucous act to same illustrious stage. Also, those last two shows on tour were barnburners. Fans surged up front and jammed themselves in front of the stage; others stood on their seats, screaming. Taken by surprise, the police first called for reinforcements, and then they made the Stones cut their second set short for fear of a riot. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” said Brian. “It’s marvelous, but it scares me a bit at the same time.”
It was an upbeat ending to a schizophrenic tour. On the one hand, the five Yankophiles all came back with some good stories. While in Texas, Bill reveled in the low-down allure of some authentic juke joints he found, while Charlie and road manager Ian Stewart bought pistols and roamed the countryside looking for rattlesnakes to shoot. Keith got a gun, too, and when he got back to England he told an amazed journalist, “You can buy them as easily as you can buy candy floss.” In Detroit, Mick and Brian hung out with boxing manager Jackie Kallen, tooling around Belle Isle in her ’64 Mustang convertible and taking turns driving “on the wrong side of the road.” They loved soaking in the California sunshine, and they all returned with stacks of new records. That first American tour also saved them from complacency. They had to work to win over their American audiences, and later they agreed that it made them an even sharper band.
And yet when it was all said and done, they were unhappy about how they had fared in America. It didn’t help that back home, London tabloids had gleefully kept everyone abreast concerning the indignities the Stones faced. A dispatch filed for the Daily Mirror said “Britain’s Rolling Stones got ‘the bird’ when they appeared at a show in San Antonio, Texas, last night.” The report went on to explain that although local acts drew cheers and applause, and even the trained monkeys were brought back to the stage for an encore, the Stones “were booed.” Sometimes, other men taunted the Stones with wolf-whistles. A girl was quoted asking if they also wore lipstick and carried purses, like transvestites.
Some thought that after their big success at Carnegie, the Stones should have extended their stay in New York. Oldham claimed that was impossible; they had to fly back to Heathrow in order to honor a contract they had made the previous year, when they were only semi-famous, to appear at Magdalen College, Oxford, for a mere £100. And they did do that gig (sullenly). But the more prosaic truth was that they were flat broke. “Oldham could not afford to keep them, or himself, in New York a minute longer.”
Even journalist Peter Jones, now the band’s official scribe, didn’t bother trying to put much of a positive gloss on the tour when he wrote about it for the Rolling Stones Book. Instead, he wondered whether the Stones were a good fit for America. It had taken “guts” for the band to crisscross the US before they even had a hit record there, he pointed out, yet the results were mixed. They had done well in New York and Southern California, but elsewhere they elicited derisiv
e, sniggering laughter. About all they could do was use the experience to try to shore up their identity as hip Londoners. The Stones were “not interested in the funny faces, red noses and all the guff that goes with the ordinary variety,” Jones said. “But one thing will always be true. The Stones are our boys, our group. Essentially British—and thoroughly loved by hundreds of thousands who accept them for what they are.”
• • •
It would only be about a year before “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” would become an international juggernaut, at which point the Stones began enjoying the success that at first eluded them in America. Ironically, during the same period that the Stones were fast rising, the Beatles began experiencing the downside to being so popular.
Recent findings in social psychology can help us understand how a group of young men with such stupendous good fortune as the Beatles could nevertheless be miserable a lot of the time. Part of the problem was that, like most humans, they weren’t very good at predicting what would make them happy in the first place. Surely they were euphoric when their career started taking off. (Joan Baez tells a charming story about meeting the Beatles relatively early in their career. “They had discovered that the Coke machine in their sitting room in the hotel was free. They were thrilled!”) Naturally, every time they reached a new milestone—when they first heard themselves on the radio, when they had the first number one hit, when they played Sunday Night at the Palladium, and so on—they beamed with justified pride.
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