Legendary music producer and murderer Phil Spector is credited with playing maracas on the track Little by Little on the Rolling Stones first album, released in 1964.
Spector, more a spectator than participant at the recording sessions for the Stones first album, is infamous for the murder about 40 years later, in 1993, of much younger actress Lana Clarkson at his home in California from a gunshot wound through the mouth.
Spector was in 2009 during a second trial found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to 19 years in prison.
That was the message from a solicitor defending the Rolling Stones’ lead singer on driving offences.
“Put out of your mind this nonsense talked about these young men,” the solicitor said.
“They are not long-haired idiots but highly intelligent university men … the Duke of Marlborough had much longer hair than my client and he won some famous battles. His hair was powdered, I think because of fleas > my client has no fleas.”
Jagger was fined 16 British pounds. (November, 1964)
HARDLY A REASON TO LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS > IAN STEWART, THE SIXTH STONE
Boogie-woogie pianist Ian Stewart was an original Rolling Stones member but deemed unsuitable for the Stones rebel image by group manager Andrew Loog Oldham and shunted to the background. (What! Too ugly even by Stones standards?)
He continued to play with the Stones and was their road manager in the early years.
Stewart was with them right up to his death from a heart attack in December, 1985. As road manager he was reknown for affectations such as when they are due to go on stage: “Come on, you’re on, my little sacks of shit”.
1950s American crooner Dean Martin attacked the Rolling Stones when they appeared on his Hollywood Palace TV show.
Dean Martin said of the Stones: “Some people have the impression that some of these new groups have long hair. It’s an optical illusion, they just have low foreheads and high eyebrows.’’
BRIAN JONES LEADER OF THE PACK
Guitarist Brian Jones was the band’s founder and leader > not Mick Jagger or Keith Richards, both of whom later became the songwriters for the group. Jones was also their most accomplished and versatile musician.
“The Rolling Stones that I joined were led by Brian Jones. There was no doubt whatsoever who led the group in every way,” Bill Wyman wrote in his autobiography Stone Alone.
Bill Wyman on the cover of his solo album Monkey Grip, released in 1974
THREE STONES FOUND GUILTY OF ‘INSULTING BEHAVIOR’
Rolling Stones bass player Bill Wyman, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were each found guilty of “insulting behaviour” and fined the princely sum in 1965 of five British pounds after Wyman badly needed a pee while the Rolling Stones were driving back from a gig.
Such a long-haired lout was refused entry to a toilet at the East London service station.
The Stones trio let rip and Jagger led them into a chant of “We will piss anywhere, man”.
Wyman relieved himself against a nearby wall.
Keith Richards has in press interviews put the blame squarely at the feet of Bill’s big bladder > saying it takes him forever to piss. But hey, when you’ve gotta go > you gotta go!!
DOESN’T SOUND LIKE THE LIFE OF BRIAN
“I got quite a reputation a couple of years ago for being the youngest alcoholic in London. But I drink very little now.”
That’s Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones > who drowned several years later while heavily affected by drugs and alcohol > speaking to Melody Maker magazine about his supposedly clean-living lifestyle change in a 1966 interview.
He went on to say that his favourite drink was milk > YEAH RIGHT!!
Guitarist Brian Jones, pic from album Big Hits High Tide and Green Grass
MAYHEM THE NORM AT ROLLING STONES CONCERTS
RIOTS at concerts were an irregular, regular occurrence on early Rollings Stones tours, as were jibes from town officials, politicians and the like about their scruffy, unkept appearance.
There was even the media question at the time: “Would you let your daughter go out with a Rolling Stone”.
The group was often banned from hotels, partly because of trouble with fans, and had to flee fanatical, screaming fans after many concerts.
Female faintings and knickers wetting during shows were common.
POLICE PUT FANS IN STRAIGHTJACKETS
Rioting audience causes concert in Belfast, Ireland, to be called off after only 12 minutes. Hysterical girls carried out in straightjackets. (1964)
POLICE USE WATER CANNONS
5000 screaming fans dispersed by police with water cannons at Dusseldorf airport as the Rolling Stones begin a brief German tour. (September, 1965).
TEAR GAS
Police use tear gas to disperse a riot at a 15,000 fan show in Boston, USA, after audience members tried to storm the stage. (1966)
TWO POLICEWOMEN FAINT
> as well as 100 girls > and more than 40 police needed to control the crowd at a concert in Manchester, England. (1964)
Mick Jagger, pic from album Big Hits High Tide and Green Grass
IT’S SHORT BACK AND SIDES, FARNSWORTH
Almost a dozen boys suspended from a school in Coventry, England, for wearing *Mick Jagger* haircuts.
ANIMALS, CLOWNS AND MORONS
That was how a magistrate in Glasgow, Scotland, described the Rolling Stones after one of their fans was arrested for breaking a shop window.
ROLLING STONES GATHER NO LUNCH
The headline in one the British tabloids after the band were refused entry to a Bristol hotel for not wearing ties. (1964)
FANS SEE RED
Communist police, including on horses, use batons and tear gas to disperse 2000 fans outside the Rolling Stones concert venue > the Palace of Culture > in Polish capitol Warsaw. The Communist Party chiefs had kept the tickets for themselves and their families and cronies, leaving the real Rolling Stones fans seething outside.
TV SHOW RIOT
An audience riot on US variety show The Ed Sullian Show, with the host vowing he would never let rock and roll bands back on his high-rating show. But he did, the Stones among them. (October, 1964)
Bass player Bill Wyman, pic from album Big Hits High Tide and Green Grass
TAKING IT TO THE STREETS
150 people arrested, the theatre damaged during street riots at the show at the Olympia in Paris.
AUSSIE, AUSSIE, AUSSIE
A 3000 fan riot upon arrival at the airport in Sydney for the Rolling Stones first Australian tour. (January, 1965). The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper said of the group: “They’re shockers. Ugly looks, ugly speech, ugly manners”.
THE INJURY LIST
ELECTRIC BLUES
Keith Richards survived being knocked unconscious by an electric shock during a performance in Sacramento, USA. (1965)
ALL STITCHED UP
Mick Jagger had to get eight stitches to his head after being decked by a chair thrown on stage.
*Some source material from books The Rolling Stones Story by George Tremlett and Rolling With The Stones by Bill Wyman.
WRESTLERS BEAT UP FANS, KEITH RICHARDS COPS CUT EYE
Picture from the back cover of album Got Live If You Want it
WRESTLERS EMPLOYED AS BOUNCERS GIVE FANS A WHOOPING
Mick Jagger tells of a concert in Montreal, Canada. With police not allowed to interfere with the crowd, wrestlers were employed “to beat the wild fans up and those toughs really seem to enjoy it.”
“They hauled some little bloke out from the front row and about five of them were smashing him in the face. We stopped playing and booed them. Then the organiser came on stage and told me to get off”. A heated, foul-mouthed argument ensued
> from New Musical Express, July 1966.
CONCERT RIOT IN NEW ZEALAND > KEITH RICHARDS SUFFERS CUT EYE
“There was a riot in the theatre where we played tonight > the kids rushed the stage and tore us up. I’m all right but Keith had to go to hospital to have a cut eye treated after four girls jumped on him.”
AMERICAN SHOWBIZ STAR ED SULLIVAN TAKES EXCEPTION TO ‘LET’S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER’
American television variety show host Ed Sullivan took exception to the band singing supposedly sex-laden Let’s Spend The Night Together on his show in January 1967.
After a furious argument between Sullivan and band manager Andrew Loog Oldham, it was agreed the words would be changed to “Let’s spend some together”.
Sullivan said: “I’ve hundreds of thousands of kids watching my show. I won’t stand for anything like that with a double meaning. Either the song goes, or the Stones go.”
SWINGS BUT NO ROUNDABOUTS > STONES REFUSE TO PLAY HAPPY FAMILIES
Win some, lose some. The Rolling Stones may have reluctantly agreed to sing “Let’s spend some time together” > instead of Let’s Spend The Night Together > on the Ed Sullivan Show in the US, but back on their home turf it was a different story.
The Stones appeared on variety show Sunday Night at the London Palladium, also in January 1967, singing three songs, but refused to join in the show’s finale of guests joining together on a roundabout > all waving their happy goodbyes.
A media furore ensued and Mick Jagger told rock magazine New Musical Express: “Anyone who thought we were changing our image to suit a family audience was mistaken”.
Mick Jagger’s girlfriend at the time Marianne Faithfull as she appeared in the film Girl On A Motorcycle. Faithfull had a hit with the Stones penned As Tears Go By.
ROLLING STONES POLICE TARGETS > WE’LL SHOW YOU LONG-HAIRED UPSTARTS A THING OR TWO
“We are not old men and we’re not worried about petty morals” > A defiant Keith Richards in court on drug charges
“The (prison) food is awful. The wine list is terribly limited and the library is abysmal.” > Keith Richards, 1967
ABOUT 20 police officers descended on Keith Richards’ recently purchased Redlands country estate in Sussex late afternoon on February 12, 1967.
Among his guests were Mick Jagger, Jagger’s girlfriend singer Marianne Faithful, hip art dealer Robert Fraser and one David Schneidermann > known as the Acid King because he carried around an attache case of illegal substances, including LSD, the rock stars’ drug of choice in this the flower power era.
The Beatles’ George Harrison and his partner Patti Boyd were also there, but had left before the police arrived.
Jagger and Richards faced drug charges as a result, but probably nowhere near the severity the police had hoped for > Jagger for possessing four amphetamine tablets and Richards for allowing marijuana to be smoked on his property. It was art dealer Fraser who faced the more serious charge of heroin possession.
The raid made headlines around the world, including revelations later in court about Marianne Faithfull being wrapped naked in a fur rug.
The raid was of particular interest to London’s News of the World newspaper, which was being sued by Jagger after it published a story accusing him of taking LSD.
The newspaper mysteriously published details of the Redlands arrests before a police public announcement was made.
THE LEGEND OF THE VAGINA AND MICK MUNCHING ON A MARS BAR
AFTER the police drugs raid on the Rolling Stones at Keith Richards’ Redlands mansion, rumours circulated that police had interrupted Mick Jagger chewing on a Mars Bar inserted in girlfriend Marianna Faithfull’s vagina.
But police reported no sexual activity apart from Faithfull being wrapped nude underneath a blanket.
Marianne Faithfull writes in her biography: “The Mars Bar is a very effective piece of demonizing. It was so overdone > with such malicious twisting of the facts. Mick retrieving a Mars Bar from my vagina, indeed! It’s a dirty old man’s fantasy – some old fart who goes to a dominatrix every Thursday. A cop’s idea of what people do on acid.”
WHAT A COINCIDENCE > ANOTHER STONES DRUG BUST SAME DAY AS JAGGER/RICHARDS COURT APPEAL
Jagger, Richards and Fraser faced a court hearing on May 10 and a trial date was set.
That evening 12 police executed a raid on Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones’ flat in London’s South Kensington.
He and friend Prince Stanislaus Klossowski, of Switzerland, faced cannabis charges.
ON TRIAL > THE STONES ARE BAD – DRUGS ARE BAD
WHO CARES > YES THEY DO: The Who, from left, maniacal drummer Keith Moon, singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist Pete Townshend and bass player John Entwistle.
Jagger, Richards and Fraser arrived in a plush Bentley at Chichester Court on Tuesday, June 27, for their date with drug destiny.
Fraser was the first to stand trial, pleaded guilty and was remanded in custody. Jagger was next up and it took a jury just a few minutes to find him guilty. He was also remanded in custody. His defence team had argued that the tablets in his possession were little more than prescription drugs used for tiredness.
The next day Jagger and Fraser arrived at court handcuffed and waited in a cell as Richards faced the wrath of the British chattering classes.
Surprise, surprise … he was also found guilty > after a day and half of evidence and testimony which included claims News of the World had organised a person as a plant at the Redlands party and that police were given a tip-off through News of the World.
The chief suspect is Acid King Schneidermann, who despite his bag of illegal drugs and presence at Redlands during the police raid, failed to face charges. He made himself scarce soon after.
Judge Leslie Block sentenced Richards to 12 months jail > his case not helped by Richards telling the court: “We are not old men and we are not worried about petty morals”.
Jagger copped three months jail and Fraser six months. Jagger was that night sent to Brixton prison and the other two to Wormwood Scrubs prison.
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVILS > PUSH TO FREE THE STONED
The harsh sentences caused a storm of protest > including 200 people outside Fleet Street newspaper offices chanting “free the Stones’’.
British rock band The Who recorded Rolling Stones songs The Last Time and Under My Thumb as a show of support and vowed to continue to record Stones songs as they languished in jail.
Of more importance in swaying opinion was an editorial in the ultra-conservative London newspaper The Times by editor William Rees-Mogg. He argued the case that Jagger > despite “the new hedonism” that was in conflict with “the sound traditional values” of Britain > should be treated the same as everyone else when it came to justice. Poor Keith failed to get a mention!!
BACK IN COURT
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were granted bail and released on appeal. On July 31 a court quashed Keith’s conviction and upheld Jagger’s > but quashed his sentence. No such luck for art dealer Fraser, who had to serve his sentence.
Guitarist Brian Jones faced court several months later and pleaded guilty to possessing cannabis and permitting his premises to be used for smoking of said drug. He was sentenced to three months jail on the first charge and nine months for the second.
Jones was refused bail and sent to Wormwood Scrubs prison where he spent the next 24 hours > before being freed on bail in a High Court appeal.
In December Jones had his sentence reduced to three years probation and was ordered to seek drug treatment.
KEITH RICHARDS ON THE ROLLING STONES DRUG BUSTS
“There was a realisation that the powers that be actually looked upon us as important enough to make a big statement and to wield the hammer. But they’d also made us more important than we every blood well were in the first place”
“Up until then it had been as though London existed in a beautiful space where you could do anything you wanted.’’
> quotes from the book According to the Rolling Stones.
* Some source material from the book Rolling with the Stones by bass player Bill Wyman.
Anita Pallenberg with Mick Jagger, from the movie Performance.
ACTRESS/MODEL ANITA PALLENBERG SETTLES ON KEITH RICHARDS AS STONE TO BE WITH
Guitarist Keith Richards’ girlfriend > stunning blonde German actress/model Anita Pallenberg > was starring in the film Performance with Mick Jagger, making his big screen debut.
Nudity and sex scenes were involved > with Richards reportedly furiously waiting in his car outside the film studio. Rumours flew that Pallenberg and Jagger were getting it off.
Richards confirmed more than 30 years later in his autobiography Life that Pallenberg did have an affair with Jagger > but she denies this.
Keef himself was hardly squeaky clean, having “stolen” Pallenberg from bandmate Brian Jones while on a trip to Morocco a year or so earlier. Pallenberg, Richards and Jones were on a road trip when Jones become ill and went to hospital.
The other two continued on in the back of Richard’s chauffeur-driven Bentley > with the idea of Jones catching up later. The two got on like a house on fire.
GUITARIST BRIAN JONES ON CANNABIS CHARGE AFTER POLICE RAID
Guitarist Brian Jones faced a drug possession charge after an early morning police raid on a flat he was staying at in Chelsea, London, on May 20, 1968.
Jones failed to answer the door and one officer climbed in through a refuse hatch and let the others in. Jones was found in a bedroom about to dial his solicitor.
A thorough search of the premises uncovered a small amount of marijuana and Jones was escorted to Chelsea police station.
He faced court on September 26 charged with possessing “144 grains” of cannabis. The jury found him guilty and Jones was fined 50 pounds.
HALF A DOZEN POLICE IN DRUGS RAID ON MICK JAGGER’S LONDON FLAT
Marianne Faithfull’s morphine overdose is front-page news in Sydney, Australia
MICK Jagger and girlfriend/singer Marianne Faithfull’s flat in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, London, was raided by half a dozen police and they appeared in Marlborough Street [one of the cream brown set in Monopoly] Magistrates Court on May 23, 1969, charged with possessing cannabis and released on bail.
Jagger was later fined 200 pounds and Faithfull acquitted.
Forty years later, secret police files revealed Mick Jagger claimed that during the police search one officer planted “white powder” in the apartment and then sought a 1000 pound bribe. But Jagger only faced the cannabis charge.
JAGGER’S PARTNER MARIANNE FAITHFULL IN COMA AFTER DRUG OVERDOSE
WHILE with Mick Jagger in Australia > who was there for the lead role in film Ned Kelly > girlfriend Marianne Faithfull lapsed into a coma in their Sydney hotel suite as Jagger was giving an interview. She was rushed to hospital and spent several days in a coma in intensive care.
Mick Jagger in the hanging scene from film Ned Kelly
Their relationship would soon end > and it’s a pity Jagger’s film career didn’t at the same time.
The film Ned Kelly is about a notorious 1850s Australian bushranger of Irish stock > and many in the Aussie press were unimpressed with this oh-so-English long-haired lout portraying one of their heroes.
They and the international press in general were even more unflattering when the movie hit the big screen.
Jagger’s best acting performance > apart from when doing press interviews > is in the cult British move Performance > filmed before Ned Kelly but released after.
