When Mick pointed his finger in the air and pulled the mike toward him, his weathered face dissolved, replaced by the one I had seen so many years ago. As I watched the band in front of me, I saw other, older pictures in my mind.
I sat inches from young Mick, at his side, by the console, watching his hands on the red faders. Usually, when a mix was in process, the mixer would become quite precious about the placement of these faders. Balancing the instruments could be a delicate affair, and when you got something you liked you were very careful to keep the slider in a very precise place. Before the advent of digital recording, it was my job to notate exactly where every knob in the studio was placed, so we could always get the magic back.
But Jagger, after playing with the mix for a while, got frustrated and knocked all the faders down to zero, ruining all that he had just built up. He got out of his seat, growling, “Ahh!” and signaled Ramone to take over.
Ramone, without hesitation, leapt behind the board to ride the faders like he was running a thoroughbred, swooning and tapping his foot, bringing his mystic vibe into the proceedings. But as amazing as he could be, this wasn’t his thing. He was more a jazz, folk and pop man, not a rocker.
As Ramone tweaked the timbre of Keith’s guitar, Mick looked at me, and without Phil seeing, he rolled his eyes and crinkled his nose, signaling he wasn’t happy with the sound Ramone was getting. Nodding back at Mick, I intuited that he wanted something tougher than the clean sound Phil was going for. Mick tilted his head, encouraging me to crank it. He wanted me to sharpen the tone, using what we called an “outboard equalizer” which sat behind and out of Ramone’s view. Behind Phil’s back, I twisted the “EQ” knob all the way up to boost the midrange, so Keith’s guitar would rub in your face. Jagger nodded his approval and smiled at me. I swooned. I never told Ramone that little secret; it was just between me and Mick.
This memory suffused me with a warm glow, as I watched Jagger on the stage circa 2005, his voice as strong as ever, albeit somewhat thicker with the decades. My smile broadened, as I remembered how, after the EQ moment, he had seemed to take a liking to me. Or maybe he was just a sweet guy who was nice to all the assistant engineers. He’d come into the studio and walk straight to me, gently punch me a few times, rub my long, curly red hair and say, “How ya doin’ Gin-jah?”
With that, I ascended to a realm somewhere between heaven and nirvana. I’m straight, but if he would’ve asked, I would’ve said yes to spilling some beans all night long.
It had been a crazy couple of weeks at the studio. When Mick had come in, we were finishing up Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks. At the end of our first day of working together, we told him that Dylan was going to be in the other studio. He asked to be brought over. Ramone gave me the assignment to make that happen. I was happy to be the go-between. They’d apparently met before but were not fast friends.
These two titans in the rock pantheon couldn’t have been more different. If Jagger was the most charming man on the planet, then Dylan, it seemed to me at the time, was the exact opposite. The two hung out together for a short while, but it was awkward, and their meeting ended with a thud.
These pictures played out in my mind as the current Stones moved through their set, hitting one peak and then taking it higher. During “Miss You,” I saw that my wife Sharon had left me a message on my cell phone. There was only one reason she could have been contacting me. Maybe this was why I’d been having such a deep emotional reaction.
The infant boy we were planning to adopt was being born right then in Wichita, Kansas. He would be entering this world just as the Stones were playing the final song of their main set, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”
I knew that the next day my life would be fundamentally transformed. But now there was nothing to do but watch the Stones do their encore.
When they finished, Duke and I waved goodbye to Mick and Keith, sweaty and exhausted, and followed the crowd out of the stadium onto Seventh Avenue. We hugged each other good night, knowing this was the last time we’d ever see the Stones together, and also sensing that our relationship was growing so distant that it could disappear as easily as the Stones leaving the stage and driving off in their respective limos. We lingered an extra moment. I didn’t tell him about the call I had received from Sharon. I was excited and scared in a way that I couldn’t put into words and didn’t think he’d understand anyway. So we parted silently.
As I sat in a cab on my way to Grand Central to catch a late commuter train to my suburban home, I returned yet again to 1974.
On our second day of mixing, Mick must have needed some inspiration. He called his dealer to deliver some stuff. An hour or two later, in walked Mick’s candyman, who turned out to be John Phillips.
John had found fame with The Mamas and the Papas. They recorded hits like “California Dreamin’,” which Phillips wrote along with some other classic songs, including “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” and the song that was played more often than any other by the Grateful Dead, “Me and My Uncle.”
Trouble was, by this time, Phillips had become a severe drug addict. Though Jagger was ready to promote Phillip’s solo album on the Rolling Stones Records label, he wasn’t above using Phillips as his dealer.
From that time in the ’70s, Phillips continued to spiral down. The solo project never manifested, and he was eventually convicted of trafficking in 1981. Most ignominiously, his daughter, Mackenzie, herself famous from having starred in the TV show “One Day at a Time,” claimed on “Oprah” that, after injecting her with heroin and coke, her father embarked with her upon a ten-year incestuous relationship.
But Phillips seemed pleasant enough to me at the time. In a big brown envelope, he delivered two large film canisters, one filled with pot, the other with cocaine.
Jagger had me roll a joint for him. This was part of the assistant’s job, and one I could do well. From what I could tell, Mick wasn’t much of a druggie; maybe he’d take a hit or two off the joint, then stamp the oversized roach out in the ashtray. Or a pinky fingernail’s-worth of coke up his nose once or twice, and that was about it.
Phillips hung out. He and Mick appeared to enjoy one another. Along with the hooch, he’d also brought along some tabloids with scurrilous reportage on the Glimmer Twin. Mick loved reading about himself and laughed. He said, “I remember what Elizabeth Taylor told me: ‘I don’t care what they write about me as long as it isn’t true!’”
With Jagger having barely touched the stuff, at the end of our mixing day the two containers were virtually full. Mick gave me his hug and tousle goodbye and, pointing at the canisters, said, “That’s for you, Ginger!”
I was jostled from my memories as the Metro-North conductor announced our arrival at my Westchester station. Having arrived home late from the concert, I knew I’d only be getting a few hours of sleep. I crawled into bed next to my blissfully sleeping wife, and kissed her delicately on the forehead so as not to wake her. Having adopted a child before, I knew what we were about to get into. Sharon would need all the rest she could get.
The next morning we moved into action. There are odd differences between adoption and biological birth. You don’t hop in the car and go to the hospital. Instead, we quickly packed our stuff and took a limo to the airport. We arranged to drop off our two-and-a-half year old daughter with Sharon’s sister in St. Louis and we were in Kansas before the ringing from the previous night’s concert went out of my ears.
My wife and I had developed a relationship with the birth mother over the previous several months and we had been following the pregnancy, so we were surprised when we got the news. The boy had been born three weeks early. We were told that the baby was in the hospital, but that everything was fine. When we arrived at the Wesley Medical Center, we were relieved to discover that the boy wasn’t in the NICU, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. They had just wanted to keep him there for a day or two to make sure he was eating sufficiently to gain weight.
St
ill, we were understandably anxious. One of the great lessons one gains from parenthood, whether biological or adoptive, is learning about the things you can and cannot control. So many things could go wrong with a birth. Suddenly, life felt so fragile. We prayed that our new son was going to be OK.
Once inside the hospital, having sufficiently killed all possible bacteria by scrubbing our hands, we walked into a room that held a few tiny beds. A nurse pointed to one holding the boy that would be ours. We padded over silently and looked at this vantz (as my Jewish mother would have called this “little thing”) smaller than a puppy. I squinted my eyes, moved in close, and scrutinized him like you would a used car, checking to see that all his parts were intact. He looked perfect, and, like all newborns, he had the glow of someone who had just shed his wings. You could still hear the heavenly choir in the background. He was very cute as his tiny chest moved up and down with each delicious breath.
I should’ve been relieved, and seeing his sweet little body did help. But my concern over his health and well-being was replaced with a new anxiety. Like the sadness I felt vaguely outside The Garden after the Stones concert the night before, this, too, was unexpected. I instantly felt a pang of love for our new son, but something made me clench inside. An awesome weight descended on me, a doubt that rose in my mind: he was fine — but what about me? Would I be the kind of father this beautiful boy deserved?
As I looked over at my wife, her blissful smile signaled that she was unburdened by such doubts. Of course there was the oxytocin factor, the natural love hormone that all mothers secrete in the presence of their baby. I could see that she was falling into that narcotic euphoria of infant motherhood. This anxiety was something I was suffering alone.
As we sat in the hospital by that little bed, Sharon saw the preoccupied expression on my face.
She asked, “What’s wrong? Our boy is healthy and beautiful.”
“It’s weird. I didn’t expect to feel this way,” I answered.
I could see her getting nervous. “What do you mean?”
“I just don’t know if I can do it.”
Now she started to show alarm. “Do what?”
“Be the great dad that I want to be for this guy.”
She visibly relaxed, and shook her head. “Don’t be silly. Of course you will be. You’re a great dad to your daughter.”
“Yeah, but this is different. She’s a … she’s a girl. He’s a boy. That’s different.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know. My dad died when I was young, and he wasn’t much of a father even when he was around. He didn’t teach me how to catch or throw a ball, fish, or defend myself in battle.”
“So what? That stuff isn’t so important. You’re a different kind of man, a better kind of man.”
“I know, but a boy needs that — I needed that — and I didn’t get it. It’s bigger than that. I want so much to be the kind of father to this kid that I never had. But if I never had it, how can I do it?”
“Honey,” she said solicitously, “you’re the best. I love you so much for worrying about this. And I get that you’d be nervous. But, hey, I’ll teach him how to play basketball. You’ll be fine.”
Looking deeply into my eyes, Sharon reached over and kissed me, and I remembered why I married her. But somehow, this didn’t soothe me. It only worried me more.
Soon enough, within a few days, we would sign the papers that would make this newborn our son forever. By the time he would be ready to leave the hospital, it would all be done. I felt like I had to find some wellspring of power within me, and fast.
Having had a long day, and with the infant resting peacefully on her chest, Sharon fell asleep. As I sat there in the quiet room, the songs from the previous night faded up in my mind’s ear. It was as if someone was turning up the inner volume knob in my brain. Again, I traveled back to the ‘70s.
My friends felt an intolerable envy that I was spending the week with “ol’ rubber lips.” When I told them that I couldn’t get them into the studio, at first, no one would speak to me. Then I put out the word that I had two film canisters filled with Mick’s drugs. Within hours, we were in Duke’s basement, all blasted to smithereens. Everyone loved me again.
Feeling profound under the chemical influence, my friend Messer had a revelation. He got in my face and pushed his long, stringy, blond hair behind one ear. “Berger! You’re hanging with fuckin’ Mick Jagger! You’ve GOT to talk to this guy, I mean, this could be your one and only chance in the history of the universe to have a one-on-one with Mick fucking Jagger!”
I squeezed my lips together. “You’re right, man, I know, I really should, but it’s just not the protocol. My job is to be invisible. And besides, what am I going to say? Why would he be interested in talking to me?”
Now everyone joined in. This was a critical moment for our entire group.
In his officious tone, Noel said, “Well, if what you said is true, the guy digs you. I mean, he calls you Ginger, for Christ’s sake! Of course he’d be open to talk to you.”
Duke chimed in, “Who cares if it’s not allowed? You’ve got to do it.” And then, opening his eyes imploringly, “You’ve got to do it — for us.”
I stewed in conflict as inspiration and trepidation battled inside of me. “OK, OK. But, I mean, what do I say?”
“Say anything!” Noel offered.
As he snorted another line, Messer got thoughtful. Then he began to pace. “No, you’ve got to be strategic. You’ll have Jagger’s ear. He wants you to talk to him. He wants you to ask him a question. If you could ask Mick Jagger one question — one question in the whole world — what would you ask?”
I thought carefully. The words that formed in my head scared the shit out of me.
Duke could see there was something behind my eyes. “What?”
Everyone sat in front of me, waiting for the words. “If I could say anything, anything at all, to Mick Jagger, if I could ask him one thing, I’d ask him …” I hesitated. “I’d ask him if he would take me on the road, with The Stones.”
Messer slammed his hand on the waterbed he was sitting on. “Yes! That is exactly the question you must ask!”
The fateful rightness of the question descended over the entire group. They all looked at me as if I was the hero who had been given the task of capturing the Golden Fleece. This was my destiny. I was the only one who could do it.
The import of the mission overwhelmed me. I sat there, nodding my head, all of us silent, feeling the moment.
In those first days in Wichita, waiting for the baby to get out of the hospital, as I struggled with my crisis of confidence, I discovered something surprising. I liked this little Midwestern city. Its people were nice. My blue-state, New York prejudices had led me to expect a congregation of gun and NASCAR loving, abortion-and-gay-hating fundamentalists. I was surprised to see copies of The Nation and The New Yorker in the hospital waiting room. The nurses were kind, open-minded, and seriously dedicated to doing good work and to getting food on their family’s table.
The city was a small grid. It was clean and easy to navigate. We were able to find healthy food and the best children’s museum I’d ever been to. In the middle of the next afternoon, I left the hospital to pick up some supplies. While I was out, I decided to explore our surroundings. I took a drive by myself to the edge of town, ten minutes from anywhere in the city. The grid ended abruptly. Suddenly, I found myself facing a flat prairie that went on for about a thousand miles till you hit the Rocky Mountains. I drove a few miles into Wizard of Oz country with only the occasional silo on the horizon. I felt a rising tension in my stomach. I stopped the car and got out.
The stillness was ominous. I found myself gripped with an existential terror. I was sure that I was plunging head first into the endless void. In a panic, I jumped back in the car, turned it around, and drove at eighty miles an hour back to civilization.
Our local adoption attorney came in to visit. I envied how
he picked up the boy with a joyous verve and beamed. He stated unequivocally that this guy was as precious and love-worthy as he appeared and we were blessed to have each other. Though this lawyer always liked to say that he operated from an “abundance of caution,” this apparent certainty did not convince me. Sure, we were blessed to have him, but him, me? Everyone else seemed to know something about me that I wasn’t privy to.
Returning to A&R that Friday, burdened with the charge from my posse, I waited for my chance to pop the question.
Mick had planned to do an interview that would be part of the radio show. He thought it would be fun if Peter Cook moderated.
Peter Cook was a brilliant English comedian. He was an extremely influential figure in British comedy in the 1960s. The actor and comedian Stephen Fry called him “the funniest man who ever drew breath.” For a while, he was famous for teaming up with Dudley Moore, another pretty funny guy who ended up a movie star.
Dixon Van Winkle — the aforementioned strange and brilliant engineer — Mick and I crammed our bodies in a cab with our remote recording gear to tape the interview at the Pierre Hotel. Though I touched thighs with Jagger, with Dixon there, I couldn’t complete my mission. The timing was not yet right.
We hung out in a suite at this posh New York hotel by Central Park with Mick and Peter, but nothing really came of the recording. Peter drank some of the hard stuff. We left after some chuckles, but with nothing usable on tape.
Never Say No To A Rock Star Page 27