Lean and imply: Mick Jagger was at all times a tightwad

This e-book obtained glowing opinions when it was printed within the US a number of months in the past: ‘Irresistible’ (New York Instances); ‘Riveting’ (Boston Globe); ‘Energetic and interesting’ (Washington Put up). I saved questioning if I used to be studying the identical e-book. You wouldn’t have thought it doable to make the Rolling Stones boring, however Bob Spitz one way or the other manages to. Let me rely the methods. By giving his personal programme notes on each Stones file; by paying far an excessive amount of consideration to the precise recording course of and crediting each new sound engineer; and by completely lacking the purpose that it’s the Stones themselves we’re keen on.

I’m pretty typical of diehard Stones followers in that I obtained hooked within the Nineteen Sixties and have stayed with them ever since. I’m now 82. My kids have barely heard of them and my grand-children in no way. Their final LA live performance in 2024 was sponsored by the American Affiliation of Retired Individuals. It had an prolonged interval as a result of the viewers took so lengthy to shuffle to the bathrooms. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have been 80; Invoice Wyman had retired; and Charlie Watts was lifeless. However nonetheless it attracted 65,000 individuals. Stones followers are nothing if not loyal. Again in 1969, Mick mentioned: ‘Clearly I can’t do that for-ever. I imply we’re so previous. We’ve been going for eight years and we are able to’t go on for one more eight.’

As a result of Stones followers are so previous we all know loads of stuff about them already. We learn about Keith and Mick assembly at Dartford station on 17 October 1961 and bonding over the American blues data Mick was carrying. We learn about them teaming up with Brian Jones and their early gigs on the Crawdaddy membership. We all know concerning the squalid flat in Edith Grove and Mick deciding to drop out of the LSE. We learn about Andrew Loog Oldham changing into their supervisor and having to take his mom to co-sign their Decca contract as a result of he was nonetheless a minor. We all know concerning the Redlands medicine bust, the dying of Brian Jones and the carnage at Altamont.

What we would like is new stuff – or not less than information of what the Stones have been as much as in, say, the previous 40 years. However this Spitz signally fails to supply. By web page 570 we’ve got solely reached 1989, and he gallops by the remainder of their profession. He has little to say about Keith’s fall from a coconut tree or the dying of Charlie, or Mick’s later relationships with L’Wren Scott, who dedicated suicide, or his present fiancée Melanie Hamrick. He barely even mentions their 2023 album Hackney Diamonds. And naturally not a touch of The Cockroaches.

So what did I study? That Mick couldn’t cease crying when he was despatched to jail after the Redlands bust; that he went off with Marsha Hunt reasonably than Marianne Faithfull after the Brian Jones memorial live performance however misplaced curiosity in her by the point she had their child, Karis, in order that she needed to sue for paternity funds. He was at all times a tightwad. He insisted on changing chocolate biscuits with plain ones at recording periods and he paid an artwork pupil solely £50 to design their outstretched tongue emblem. After Altamont, whereas the others fled house, Mick flew to Geneva to deposit the $1.8 million takings in a Swiss financial institution. Marianne mentioned of him that he was ‘infatuated with the aristocracy per se. He would attend dinners given by any foolish factor with a title and a fort.’ Keith was livid when Mick accepted a knighthood in 2003 and mentioned: ‘The concept of Sir Mick Jagger is grotesque.’

I discovered far more about Charlie: that he collected Arab stallions although he didn’t experience, and traditional automobiles although he didn’t drive. When the others stayed on the Playboy mansion throughout certainly one of their American excursions, he refused to affix them as a result of his spouse Shirley wouldn’t have appreciated it. He was at all times the straightest of the band, however even he succumbed to drink and medicines at one stage. Invoice was a ‘pussyhound’, who would search for women he fancied within the viewers and ship assistants to shepherd them to his mattress. Mick was disgusted when he began going out with Mandy Smith, who, at 13, was youthful than his daughters Jade and Karis. Not that Mick was ever a puritan; however he was not eager on underage groupies. Nonetheless, there’s a robust pressure of misogyny in all Mick’s lyrics, particularly ‘Some Ladies’.

There are many different, higher Stones books. The excellent one is Keith’s Life, brilliantly ghosted by James Fox. John Perry’s Exile on Principal Avenue is a gripping account of the Nellcote years, when the group lived in tax exile in France. Mick was given an advance for an autobiography again within the Nineteen Seventies however failed to jot down it and repaid the cash. He mentioned he had little interest in remembering the previous. I very a lot doubt he’ll be studying this e-book. I counsel you emulate him.