It's Only Rock 'n' Roll

by Jo Wood

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, between kisses. ‘Concorde blew an engine over Ireland so we had to land in Shannon, get a flight to London and then another one here.’

  But I didn’t care. He hadn’t stood me up after all!

  Someone shoved past us into the room. Without saying a word, or even looking at me, this dark-haired bloke sat down on the tiny square of carpet and started rummaging in what looked like a doctor’s bag.

  ‘Don’t take any notice of Keith,’ said Ronnie. ‘It’s been a long flight.’

  I had seen Keith Richards once before, in Tramp when I was pregnant with Jamie. I had been sitting with Jan Gold, wife of the club’s owner, Johnny, when she nudged me and said, ‘Jo, look who’s on that table.’ And there he was: pale, scruffy, with black kohl smudged round his eyes. He looked high as a kite – and as if he’d rather be anywhere else than Tramp. How cool, I’d thought.

  And now, here he was, sitting on the floor of my tiny hotel room. Keith reached into his bag and took out a silver spoon, a bottle of pills and a lighter. In a matter of seconds, he’d crushed some of the pills with a bit of water, cooked them up, then filled a syringe and stabbed it straight through his shirt. A moment’s pause – then he looked up at me with a radiant smile. ‘Hello, my dear. I’ve heard so much about you!’

  8

  The three of us spent the next three days cooped up in my broom-cupboard of a hotel room, drinking and taking drugs, only occasionally venturing out in Keith’s Bentley to get a fix or a bite to eat. Food was not a priority: you don’t have much of an appetite on coke. We’d go to these fabulously posh restaurants like La Coupole or Fouquet’s and push sole Meunière around the plate. If we needed to sleep, Ronnie and I squeezed into the single bed and Keith slumped in the armchair, although sleeping wasn’t much of a concern either. I was having the time of my life, getting high on coke and drunk on Southern Comfort and lemonade (I guess we needed the sugar), and I’m proud to say that I kept up with the boys all the way, matching them drink for drink, line for line. I can’t even remember getting hangovers at the beginning. I must have built my system up by drinking every day, like an athlete in training for a marathon. Quite simply, I took to the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle like I’d been born to it.

  I adored Keith from the start – which was lucky, because he and Ronnie came as a pair. Keith and I have a special relationship to this day. One of the first things I loved about him most was his naughtiness. The three of us were dining in Fouquet’s one night; Keith loved the place, which I always found funny because he’s such a rocker and Fouquet’s is like somewhere you’d take your great-grandma: all white-coated waiters and starched linen napkins. Anyway, this old boy sitting a few tables from us at Fouquet’s kept looking at Keith and, after dinner, he came up to our table and said, ‘Monsieur Richards, may I please have your autograph?’ We’d already noticed him – it was difficult not to, as he had a very large brown growth on his head. Keith took his piece of paper and wrote with a flourish: ‘Where did you get that hat? Keith Richards.’

  I was so shocked. ‘Keith, you can’t write that!’

  ‘I just have, darling.’

  As much as I loved hanging out with Keith, though, I only had eyes for Ronnie. I was besotted with the guy – and longing to have some time alone with him. We’d been in Paris for three nights and we still hadn’t done it because of the ever-present Keith. We were lying cuddled up in bed together in the early hours one morning when I whispered to him, ‘Don’t you think this is all a bit, well, cramped?’

  I thought Keith was asleep, but no. ‘Quite right, Jo!’ I heard from the foot of the bed. ‘Why don’t we move to my apartment?’

  ‘What was that, Keith? You have a flat in Paris?’ So why the hell have we been squashed up in here?

  I got my answer later that day when we’d checked out of L’Hôtel and arrived at Keith’s place. From the outside it looked amazing. It was on an upper floor of one of those elegant old buildings, fringed with little balconies, just behind the Tuileries Gardens. Inside, however, it was a pit. Dishes piled up in the sink. A white plastic couch, torn and filthy, like something you’d find poking out of a tip. His desk – Keith always has to have a huge desk, wherever he lives – was covered with papers and ashtrays filled with the remains of joints. But at least there was a bedroom with a double bed, which Keith very kindly said we could take. Quick as a flash, I turned over the sheets (I didn’t hold out much hope of finding any clean ones), and Ronnie and I scrambled out of our clothes. Giddy with lust and desperate to get our hands on each other, we jumped onto the bed – and it collapsed beneath us with an almighty crash.

  Keith appeared at the door to find us sprawled half-naked on the floor. ‘Are you all right down there?’

  ‘Yes! Sorry! All fine!’

  While we were camping out at Keith’s, I tried to clean the place up a bit without stepping on his toes. ‘Keith, do you mind if I just wash the dishes?’ Or ‘Can I tidy the coffee table?’ It also gave me something to do while the boys spent endless hours listening to music and playing their guitars.

  My memories of those first days in Paris are a bit like my acid trip: the same crazy euphoria and laughter, but without the scary loss of control. Everything was new and exciting, passionate and rock ’n’ roll. I was madly in love: with Paris, with fun and most of all with Ronnie. We were spending almost every waking hour with each other – and, thanks to all the high-grade cocaine, there were many, many of those. He was never one for grand declarations of love, but he showed it in other ways. One day he presented me with a gorgeous Yves St Laurent scarf decorated with butterflies, and when he sat and played the guitar or took out his pencils to sketch me, there was such passion in his creativity it left me breathless. Plus, of course, we were at it like rabbits . . .

  After a few days chez Keith, Ronnie and I decamped to the new tower-block Novotel on the Left Bank. Shortly after we’d checked in, Ronnie announced, ‘Right, now we’re going visiting.’ He led me into the hallway, went a few doors down and knocked. The door swung open to reveal a balding, bearded little cherub of a guy. ‘Jo,’ said Ronnie. ‘Meet Chuch.’

  Chuch’s real name was Royden Walter Magee, though no one ever called him that. Detroit-born and fizzing with energy, he worked as Ronnie’s roadie. It would be months before I saw what went into a Stones tour and the role of the hundreds of roadies who got the massive production from one city to the next, but Chuch was one of the select few who helped run things even when the band wasn’t on the road. And for Ronnie – who had worked with him for years alongside Rod Stewart in Faces and would never have dreamt of joining the Stones without him – Chuch wasn’t just the key guy: he was family.

  Chuch and I hit it off immediately. He had such a great heart, the sort of guy who, after you’d worked hard and had a few beers, would get all emotional. ‘Jo, I love you, man, you’re my best buddy.’ I became his assistant roadie – and over the years he would become one of my dearest friends.

  Our stay at the Novotel lasted all of two days before Ronnie declared it ‘soulless’ and booked us into a hotel called the Château Frontenac just off the Champs-Élysées, which he promptly christened Château Front-and-Back. I turned our room there into a love-nest, draping scarves over lamps to soften the glare and lighting sticks of incense. So began a lifetime’s habit of redecorating hotel rooms. On tour I would always take our own pillows and pillowcases, scented candles and framed photos of the kids to make wherever we were staying feel like home.

  By the time I paid a brief visit back to the UK, after I’d been in Paris a couple of weeks, for a modelling job and, of course, to see Jamie, whom I missed like crazy (although he was having a lovely little life at the Old Vicarage), I felt completely settled in.

  The Stones were in Paris to work on a new album, Some Girls, the first for Ronnie as a fully fledged member of the band he had joined, in the place of the departed Mick Taylor, some 18 months earlier. On the first studio day, Chuch and Ronnie wer
e busy getting themselves ready to go while I sat on the bed watching them, wondering if I was expected to come along, too. Ronnie hadn’t invited me – but then he hadn’t said I shouldn’t come, either. I suddenly felt weirdly shy. I hadn’t met the other guys yet (Mick Jagger, drummer Charlie Watts and bass guitarist Bill Wyman) and wondered if they even knew about Ronnie’s new girlfriend – if that was what I was. Luckily, Chuch must have sensed I was feeling like a bit of a spare part because as they were walking out of the door he called to me, ‘Well, are you coming, Jo?’

  ‘Um, will there be anywhere for me to sit?’

  ‘Of course! Get your coat.’

  ‘But what shall I do when we get there?’

  He grinned. ‘Just stick with me, kid.’ So I did. In the early days in particular, Chuch proved a godsend. If there was anything I didn’t know – about music, touring or just dealing with Ronnie – I’d ask Chuch.

  The studio was nothing like I’d imagined. I’d thought it would be a cramped cupboard of a room, but it was huge – a soaring, cavernous space with high ceilings, little booths at the back and a large control room. Ronnie introduced me to Alan Dunn, Mick’s right-hand man, their engineer, Chris Kimsey, and then to the other guys from the band.

  ‘So you’re Broken Biscuit, then?’ said Mick Jagger, in that familiar voice. From then on, that was what he called me. Never Jo. It was funny at first – not so much a year later when he was still doing it. Bill greeted me politely, while Charlie sort of shrugged me off.

  Chuch showed me to a couch in the corner about 15 feet from where the boys were playing, and I sat there until gone five in the morning, greedily drinking in every moment of the whole magical experience.

  As they were packing their things away, Charlie wandered over to me. ‘You still ’ere, then?’ he said. I didn’t quite know how to react – but then he smiled and that was my introduction to his wonderfully dry sense of humour. I became good friends with Bill, too, and still am. But for me it was all about Ronnie and Keith, and it wasn’t long before we’d become a tight-knit trio of studio musketeers.

  From then on, the boys worked in the studio every day. Mick always wanted to get to work by early evening, but there was usually a dinner in town first and only afterwards did they go to the studio. They would often play on past dawn and into the following afternoon, sometimes even the next morning, depending on how many drugs had been consumed. At the end of the session we’d pile into Keith’s Bentley, despite the hours of boozing, and he’d drive us to the hotel or we’d go back to his apartment and play dominoes. Keith would never let anyone go to bed until he had won. In the end I refused to play: ‘You always have to bloody win, Keith, so what’s the point?’

  For me, the sessions were a real education. I loved seeing the way the boys created music. At first it was just one long jamming session, but then gradually a song would take shape. I’d hear them say, ‘Right, you come in on that bit, I’ll play this riff,’ and have no idea what they were on about. But as I was there night after night, I gradually started to understand how it worked, the way Ronnie would play a little bit that would then weave in with Keith. Nowadays when I listen to music I can hear all the different instruments and identify who’s playing what bit – especially in the Stones – but that’s only after years of experience.

  While the boys worked, I’d drink, listen to the music, sketch and write in my diary. I made myself a den in a far corner of the room, using sound-buffering panels and a couple of big blankets draped over the top. Once that got broken down, I took over one of the booths and put up a sign saying, ‘Josephine’s Club. Members Only!’ I had a little box for a table where I’d roll joints for Keith and put cushions on the floor for when Ronnie came in for a snog. This was also where I’d catch up on a bit of sleep at three in the morning if the boys were on a mad one. I woke up after one such nap at around 9 a.m., and as I lay there I noticed that it was eerily quiet. Sure enough, when I peeked out into the studio the band wasn’t even there: in their place was an entire classical orchestra in full evening dress. I had to tiptoe out, muttering, ‘Excusez-moi, excusez-moi,’ as I did the walk of shame between the strings and the woodwind. I eventually located the band in a smaller studio down the hallway. They all found it hilarious.

  As the days went on, an assortment of people came and went from the studio: dealers and hangers-on. Apart from Jane Rose, the Stones’ secretary, there weren’t many other girls apart from me; the groupies came later, on the tours. But one day this stunningly tall blonde girl strode in. I recognized her instantly because I’d actually worked with her on a job about six months previously, a TV commercial for French perfume. When I had got to the studio, the director had given me the low-down: ‘Jo, you’re walking along the road with your boyfriend when this beautiful girl walks past. Your boyfriend looks at her longingly and you give his arm an annoyed tug, but she’s wearing the perfume so she’s irresistible!’ Great, I thought. I get to be the jilted chick. Anyway, the irresistible perfume girl turned out to be Jerry Hall – who was at the time of the commercial was dating Bryan Ferry, my mate Sue’s ex – and the guy playing my boyfriend was none other than Chris Jagger, Mick’s brother. And now Jerry was dating Mick.

  The weeks sped past and all of a sudden it was mid-December. Ronnie and I abruptly found ourselves at a crossroads. He was going home to spend Christmas with his family and I was going back to mine. No matter how often he told me his marriage was over, I could no longer ignore the fact that my man was married. We’d been living in this magical bubble in Paris, but real life was waiting for us to come home.

  We had a very emotional night just before we left Paris. I was crazy in love with this guy – he had become my world – but he had a wife and a son, Jesse, who was barely a year old. I knew I wasn’t prepared to be his bit on the side for ever; I couldn’t do that to his family – or to my own. As we left each other at Heathrow airport I was crying and even Ronnie had tears in his eyes, but I knew I had to call a stop to what we had, at least to give him a chance to make things work with Krissy.

  That afternoon I remember getting back to Sue’s flat in Hammersmith, where I was staying before going to Essex for Christmas, and collapsing in tears.

  ‘Oh, Sue, it’s over!’ I howled.

  ‘It’s probably for the best,’ she said, gathering me up into a hug. ‘You did the right thing.’

  But I was inconsolable. ‘Oh, God, I love him so much, I can’t bear it . . .’

  She tucked me into her spare bed and I tried to get some sleep, but it was pointless. As soon as I closed my eyes, all I could see was Ronnie’s cheeky smile, and the tears started flowing all over again. I was a mess. The thought of not seeing him was so painful.

  Then, at around 2 a.m., there was a loud banging at the front door. A pause, then it started up again. What the hell?

  I heard Sue answer the door and muffled talking, then the sound of footsteps coming quickly along the corridor and finally the door to my room swinging open. Ronnie was silhouetted in the doorway.

  ‘Jo, are you awake?’

  He told me he had arrived at The Wick and had the most terrible argument with Krissy, then got back into the car and driven straight to me.

  ‘I’ve done it, Jo,’ he said. ‘I’ve left my wife.’

  9

  That Christmas I spent a blissful few days with Jamie and my family at the Old Vicarage. I always loved seeing how settled Jamie was in the country with Mum (who at the time was only 43), Dad and my sister, who was only 10 years older than him. I remember watching him chasing the chickens around and giggling like a little loony. So, although it was always painful to leave him, I knew my baby couldn’t have been happier. Then it was straight back to London and into the arms of my man. Now that we could be together officially, Ronnie and I were in giddy honeymoon mode – so we saw in the new year, 1978, by boarding a plane to the Bahamas with a Colombian drugs baron named Victor.

  We had met the sharp-suited Victor back in Paris, where h
e’d been one of the small army of pharmaceutical Stones hangers-on, and he had invited us for a holiday at his rented place in Nassau: all expenses paid, luxury accommodation, the finest champagne and coke on tap. Ringo Starr was coming, too. But, as the saying goes, there’s no such thing as a free lunch (or a free line) and in return for his largesse, Victor wanted Ronnie and Ringo to work on an album with him. Not that any of this was on my radar at the time: I was just thrilled at the prospect of a romantic holiday with my lover.

  Things didn’t start off too well. On the flight Victor was acting like a mad man as he was smoking ‘dirty cigarettes’ or DCs – little roll-ups containing smack – which he was intending to take in to the Bahamas. I didn’t touch them, as they had the most revolting smell – if I think about it even now I gag – but Ronnie went into the bathroom for a sneaky puff. Shortly after he stumbled back to his seat, a flight attendant came over and crouched next to me.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said to Ronnie, ‘but I think your friend has left this in the toilet.’

  She was holding out the bag of DCs. Ronnie must have got so stoned he’d left it in there.

  ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Thank you ever so much. I’ll get rid of them.’

  She smiled warmly. ‘Not to worry. Would you like another drink?’

  Can you imagine that happening on a flight today?

  As he was a drugs trafficker, I assumed that Victor would already have a plan in place to smuggle his stash through Customs, but as we started our descent he suddenly dumped the bag in my lap. It turned out that I was the plan.

  ‘You are taking this in your bag,’ he said.

  ‘What? No way!’

  But Ronnie thought it would be wiser to humour our host, so in the end we got a carton of duty-free cigarettes, removed all the cigarettes from the middle packet, stuffed Victor’s stash in there, then carefully packed it up again to look like new.