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Toppermost of the Poppermost - UK Number Ones : part 2 - The 1960s

Started by daf, June 12, 2019, 01:55:00 PM

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kalowski

Bloody amazing stuff, daf.

This
QuoteAnd when he joined The Beatles we said, "Ah, what about drum solos then?", thinking he might say, "Yeah, I'll have a five-hour one in the middle of your set," and he said, "I hate 'em!" We said, "Great! We love you!"
is such a bloody Paul type thing to say.


daf


Artie Fufkin


gilbertharding

Seconded. I'll bet you're glad to see the back of the Fabs, eh?

The Rolling Stones only have one Number 1 left, am I right? I know there are a few acts with long careers who have multiple number ones but I can only think of Cliff who's going to give you this much work going forward.

daf

Quote from: gilbertharding on March 26, 2021, 01:26:54 PM
Seconded. I'll bet you're glad to see the back of the Fabs, eh?

Haha - you're not wrong! 

Quote from: gilbertharding on March 26, 2021, 01:26:54 PM
The Rolling Stones only have one Number 1 left, am I right?

Yes, one more from the Stones - so plenty of stuff to pack in there - if I do leave anything out, I can pop it in when Jagger turns up with Dave Bowie [from the Dave Bowie Band feat. Dave Bowie] Dancing in the Street in 1985.

QuoteI know there are a few acts with long careers who have multiple number ones but I can only think of Cliff who's going to give you this much work going forward.

I've not looked into 70's/80s Cliff, so I don't know what's out there yet, but hopefully I can dig out some juicy interviews to tickle up the raw anal data!

gilbertharding

Quote from: daf on March 26, 2021, 02:12:22 PM
Yes, one more from the Stones - so plenty of stuff to pack in there.

Really looking forward to that ;)

daf

Oops - two more Stones to go - they also had a bonus NME number one - so a little more wriggle room there!

kalowski



daf

Ka-BOOOOOM!!, it's . . .

273.  Thunderclap Newman - Something In The Air



From : 29 June – 19 July 1969
Weeks : 3
Flip side : Wilhelmina
Bonus 1 : Beat Club
Bonus 2 : Promo film
Bonus 3 : How Late It Is (Wilhelmina)

The Story So Far : 
QuoteThunderclap Newman was a British rock band that Pete Townshend of The Who and Kit Lambert formed in 1969 in a bid to showcase the talents of John "Speedy" Keen, Jimmy McCulloch, and Andy "Thunderclap" Newman.

In 1963, Pete Townshend was in art school, and Andy Newman was a telephone engineer. They had a mutual friend named Rick Seaman.

Andy Newman : "He went to the same art college as Pete. I think they were on a different art course – I think Rick Seaman was doing fine art, and I think Pete might've been doing graphic design.  But apparently they eventually sort of came into contact with one another through various other people including early members of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah band.  Rick and myself had been playing a bit of music together and doing a bit of recording onto an old Grundig tape recorder and Rick played the recordings to Pete, and for some reason he liked them. Anyway, what happened was that I actually did a performance at the college one lunchtime – I just played piano solo for about an hour in front of the audience – it was just to fill some time in because they'd had some very important artist, I think it was Shake Keane and his band, but they'd had to drop out at the last minute and so I came in and took over.  I just played, as I say, solo piano, and apparently Pete was in the audience."



In his 1982 book Maximum R&B, Richard Barnes recalls Newman's lunchtime performance at Ealing Art School and the influence it had on Townshend:

Richard Barnes : "A student friend of Pete's called Dick Seaman used to go on about this mysterious person that he knew who was a post office engineer by day and some sort of lonely undiscovered genius musician at night.  Dick arranged for him to play at the Art School in the lecture theatre on lunchtime.  The resulting concert by Thunderclap Newman (real name Andy Newman) on piano and kazoo was an incredible experience.  He was a very strange and mysterious person who had never played to an audience before and he played and sung mostly his own weird compositions.  He set a metronome going on top of the grand piano and just played for over an hour until he was stopped.  He never looked at the audience once.  The students went wild at the end."

It wasn't until several years later that Townshend and Newman would cross paths again.

Andy Newman : "I got a message from him saying that he wanted me to do some film music, and so we went to his flat in Eccleston Square, and he sort of told me roughly what he wanted.  At the time he was gluing a guitar back together which he'd broken...  Anyway, he gave me a Nagra reel to reel portable tape recorder which at that time I think was considered the best portable tape recorder money could buy.  I think they've still got them in the film industry now.  So what happened was I went away on the basis of what he'd said he wanted and I recorded some stuff and sent it back to him with the tape recorder."

A little more than a year later, Newman received a letter from Pete, "asking me if I would like to record some songs with two guys who he was working with.  And this was ostensibly for another film."

The first of this unlikely trio to enter Townshend's life was John 'Speedy' Keen, an old Acton County Grammar School classmate of Pete's, a drummer and songwriter who went on to become Townshend's driver for a time, shuttling him to and from gigs in the late '60s, and even writing a song which was recorded by the Who, 'Armenia City In The Sky'.

Andy Newman : "Speedy used to basically go to the gigs with Pete and then drive him back because after the gig he'd be very tired.  They say one of the reasons why Speedy did that was 'cause one night Pete did this thing somewhere up in the North of England, he wanted to drive all the way back and he's going down the motorway and he fell asleep.  Now in those days the motorways didn't have crash barriers on them.  Fortunately, where he went to sleep, the ground next to the motorway was flat, he went straight through a fence and into a farmer's field. After that, he always had Speedy along to drive for him.  Particularly on the way home, you know."

 

In the early '70s, Townshend told Zigzag that it was Who manager Kit Lambert's idea to put the trio together, but Newman remembers things differently.

Andy Newman : "I don't think it was Kit Lambert's idea, I think it was Pete's idea, and he persuaded Kit Lambert, and then Kit Lambert said it was his idea.  'Cause it took a heck of a lot of effort on Pete's part to persuade Kit.  But anyway, what happened was that Speedy, as I say, had been working with Pete, he'd also written a lot of songs which Pete was aware of, and of course he obviously was very keen to do something in the business.  But of course at that stage, Pete either wasn't in a position or didn't see his way clear to sort of giving him a shove.  But then the Who did a performance in Scotland, I'm not sure where, and their support band was a Scottish band called the One in a Million.  And Jimmy McCullough was the lead guitarist.  And when Pete saw him he was really knocked out by the little – 'cause he was only fourteen years old – and he was playing like Eric Clapton, so Pete thought "Christ, he's great," you know.  Anyway, it turned out that this little lad was coming down to London with his family, and he soon got together with Pete, and Pete introduced him to Speedy, and they thought about working together, but then Pete then decided to introduce me into the thing to see if it would work, and we made these three demos, and that's how the thing got started."

At the time, Jimmy McCulloch was 15 years old, roughly a decade younger than his bandmates. The three unlikely bandmates converged at Townshend's riverside home in Twickenham and recorded three songs in his home studio.

Andy Newman : "And so we went in there, he had a little studio upstairs, one of the bedrooms converted, he just had a couple of Revox tape recorders, a Bechstein upright piano, and we knocked out three... I think we did what later became 'Something in the Air', but then it was called 'Revolution', then we did 'Accidents', and I also think we did another song but I can't remember the name of it.  It was some other song which I think was later on sort of revamped and changed around on a later record."

 

"Something in the Air", which Keen wrote, was number one on the UK Singles Chart for three weeks, replacing the Beatles' "Ballad of John and Yoko" and holding off Elvis Presley.  "Something in the Air" captured post-flower power rebellion, marrying McCulloch's electric rhythm and lead guitars, Keen's drumming and falsetto, Newman's piano solo  Townshend's role was producer and he also played bass under the pseudonym Bijou Drains.

   

Andy Newman : "He produced it, though, and he was a very good producer.  I have to say that, I mean I didn't realise it at the time, but listening back to the recordings that were made, the whole virtue of them is down really to the hand of Pete producing them. He was managing the recording, and he made suggestions on the arrangement and the instrumentation that was going to be used and how the instrumentation was done, so I think he also arguably had a strong input on arrangement which was conceptual rather than written out, but as far as I know, as far as the composition of the songs were concerned, I've no idea whether he had any input on that at all.  He certainly didn't claim any input in terms of credit.  So as far as I know, the songs were written by the people who wrote them and Pete merely sort of finished them off and produced them.  And injected a little bit of arrangement suggestion."

By December 1969, the single was awarded a gold disc for world sales of more than a million.

   

Thunderclap Newman had not planned to undertake live performances, but the band relented when, to their collective surprise, "Something in the Air" became a chart success. Early on in the tour, Speedy Keen realised he couldn't play the drums and sing at the same time so he had to move to rhythm guitar.

Andy Newman : "Yes – the problem was, the first two gigs, Speedy led on the drums, which was difficult 'cause he was at the back and, you know, flailing away on the drum kit is not conducive to singing.  I mean, before that, he either sung, or he played the drums.  So they decided to get [Jimmy's brother] Jack in on the drums, and put him at the front on lead guitar to front the band up.  And then it worked a lot better after that."

   

The trio, augmented by Jim Pitman-Avery  on bass guitar and Jimmy's elder brother Jack McCulloch on drums, undertook a 26-date tour of England and Scotland in support of Deep Purple from July 1969 to August 1969.

Andy Newman : "I must admit that playing in front of very, very big audiences – I mean I'd never had more than about 20 or 30 in an audience before that – the first two or three were a bit sort of a surprise, but in the end we just got used to it.  But certainly it was a sort of a traumatic thing.  And I look at the tour schedules and everything we did in that very, very short period of time, and I think well, how did I manage it?  I mean, it was amazing, I'm not sure I could go through that again."



On 8 August 1969, Pitman-Avery and McCulloch announced their intention to leave the band. Within weeks, they had formed the country-rock band Wild Country with Terry Keyworth (guitar) and Stuart Whitcombe (keyboards).

 

In the UK and US, a follow-up single, "Accidents" (b/w "I See It All"), came out in May 1970. It peaked at #46 in the UK, but failed to chart at all in the US.

   

The next single "The Reason" (b/w "Stormy Petrel") was released in August 1970, but failed to chart.

   

In October 1970, Thunderclap Newman released its critically acclaimed album, Hollywood Dream. Produced by Townshend, the album peaked at #163 on the Billboard 200.  As well as producing, Townshend was also credited with playing pedal steel guitar on the album...

 

Andy Newman : "That's right – Hollywood Dream.  He played the pedal steel, which was very, very good, I was quite impressed by that.  I'd never – I'd heard these on records but I'd never actually seen one.  It's an instrument that I think in America was very common on the country and western circuit but we'd hardly ever... we'd seen Hawaiian guitars, which are different, but we'd never seen these pedal steels. I think he'd been over to America and he'd seen it, and he'd bought one, and he'd learned how to play it, and thought he'd put this nice sort of West coast sound on the recording, you know."



Their final single, "Wild Country" (b/w "Hollywood"), was released in November 1970, but again failed to dent the hit-parade.

Andy Newman : "It was going so fast, you didn't really have a chance to sort of enjoy it or not enjoy it.  You just got it done, and then got on with the next one.  It's rather like the stories you get from people in war zones where they had so much happening that they just had to get on with it, and hope that they would not be the one that would stop the bullets.  And as I say, at the time, it was... I must admit, when it was all finished, you know, I felt the effects of it, when we finally sort of stopped working and had a bit of a break, you know.  I must admit that when I was approached about five years ago with the band that I'm doing now, which is a resuscitation of Thunderclap Newman, I really didn't want to go in for it again, but I got sort of sucked in."

 

On 6 March 1971, the New Musical Express reported the band's personnel change with Ronnie Peel joining on bass, and Roger Felice on drums : "Thunderclap Newman has finally settled down into a five-piece group, with two new members being brought in—although on certain dates, the outfit may be augmented by a brass section. Permanent line-up now comprises Newman (piano), Speedy Keen (rhythm guitar and vocals), Jimmy McCulloch (lead guitar), Ronnie Peel (bass) and Roger Felice (drums). Dates include University of Sussex (tomorrow, Saturday), Sheffield University (March 12) and Nelson Imperial (14). A Scottish tour is being set for the end of April."

With its new line-up, from January 1971 to April 1971 Thunderclap Newman supported Deep Purple during a 19-date tour of England and Scotland. At some time during those months, the band supported Leon Russell during a tour of the Netherlands. That year, Thunderclap Newman made a cameo appearance in the British movie Not Tonight, Darling.

Thunderclap Newman broke up around 10 April 1971, days before they were scheduled to start a tour of Scotland and weeks before they were scheduled to be part of a package tour with Marsha Hunt and others during the The Who's 12-week tour of the US. The members of the band had little in common. In a 1972 NME interview, Newman said that he got on with Keen's music but not with Keen personally, while the exact opposite was true with regard to McCulloch.

In 1972 Newman released his debut solo album Rainbow, with Pete Townshend as executive producer, and Rick Seaman as producer.

   

Andy Newman : "Well basically what happened was that Pete didn't actually directly produce it.  What he did was he sort of made the arrangements for it to be done, and he put Rick Seaman in charge of producing it – directing the sessions.  And basically what I did – it was purely myself on my own, multi-tracking, but being able to multi-track on eight and sixteen-track recording machines, which were available in the studios by then.  The problem was that we were working on the thing and we'd got about three quarters of the way through but it needed finishing off.  And then I don't quite know what happened – they suddenly decided to stick the thing out as it was.  So it was half-finished.  A selection of the numbers that we'd done were made, and I'm not entirely sure that all the ones I would've preferred to have gone on actually went on.  And some that I probably would've thought twice about went on, but that's the way it ended up, and I don't think it sold a hell of a lot! [laughs]  In fact I remember the only critical acclaim we got was one of the music newspapers – I can't remember which one it was – said 'If only the album was as good as the sleeve'!"

Jimmy McCulloch had stints with a dozen or more bands, including John Mayall, Stone the Crows, and Paul McCartney's Wings but, at the age of 26, he died in his home of heroin-induced cardiac arrest on 25 September 1979.

 

In 1973, Speedy Keen released a solo album for Track, entitled Previous Convictions, which featured McCulloch and Roger Felice on some tracks. He began recording a double album as a follow-up. Frustrated by his lack of progress at Track, he took the demos to Island Records, which pared it down to the single album Y'know Wot I Mean? and released it in 1975.



Andy Newman died on 29 March 2016, at the age of 73.

The Single :
Quote"Something in the Air", recorded by Thunderclap Newman, was written by Speedy Keen who also sang the song.



Originally titled "Revolution" but later renamed to avoid confusion with the Beatles' 1968 song of the same name, "Something in the Air" captured post-flower power rebellion, marrying Jimmy McCulloch's sweeping acoustic and glowing electric guitars, Keen's powerful drumming and yearning falsetto, and Andy Newman's felicitous piano solo.

The single reached No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart just three weeks after release, holding off Elvis Presley in the process.

 

The scale of the song's success surprised everyone and there were no plans to promote Thunderclap Newman with live performances. Eventually a line-up played a handful of gigs.

Andy Newman : "The first tour we did before 'Something In The Air' was released in the UK.  I think it was the Kirklevington Country Club on 21  June... wait – when I say before the single had been released, it had in fact been released on 14 May, but it took about three weeks before it got into the shops.  So what happened was the first gig we did was about a couple of weeks after people were able to buy it.  What was ridiculous was we were doing this place up in Durham or wherever it was, the Kirklevington Country Club, and our record was at number 27.  It was quite amazing.  And the next week, we were at number 17, and we appeared on Top of the Pops – no, it was number seven – God.  That was the BBC charts, you know.  I'm trying to remember the whole thing now.  And that was the beginning of a tour which went through the UK.  And it ended up at the Bath Pavilion, and they pulled us off because all the gigs after that had been negotiated when they thought we weren't going to do any good.  And so they were like, literally for peanuts.  And so effectively, what they did, they told these people, if they paid more money they'd get us, if they didn't they wouldn't, so they wouldn't so they didn't!"

"Something in the Air" appeared on the soundtracks of several films, such as The Magic Christian (1969), which helped the single reach No. 37 in the United States.

     

Andy Newman : "Actually I'm quite surprised at the number of versions of Something In The Air there are knocking around.  Even one I think, done by Herbie Mann, who's a modern jazz guy.  We're trying to compile all the versions of Something In The Air so that we have them on record.  Very few of them follow the original arrangement, though.  They usually put them in different keys, and rearrange them in a different way, but then I suppose that that's the license that people would normally do – they feel the song a different way, so they adapt it, you see."

Other Versions include :   "Non ti dirò mai più di si" by I Punti Cardinali (1969)  /  The Mandrake Memorial (1970)  /  Sandy Nelson (1972)  /  Simon Park (1974)  /  Herbie Mann (1974)  /  Gamma (1980)  /  The Promise (1986)  /  Promised Land (1990)  /  Fish (1991)  /  The Lightning Seeds (1992)  /  Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (1993)  /  Wayne Rogers (1999)  /  UK Subs (2000)  /  Elbow (2002)  /  Wellwater Conspiracy (2003)  /  Eurythmics (2005)  /  Hayley Sanderson (2006)  /  Aslan (2009)  /  The Luck of Eden Hall (2011)  /  Danny McEvoy (2011)  /  Tony Silvestri (2012)  /  Jogo (2012)  /  Christopher Cross (2014)  /  Cherie Currie & Brie Darling (2019)  /  The Watters (2019)  /  Julia Othmer (2020)  /  The Bigness  (2020)

On This Day  :
Quote1 July : John Lennon and Yoko Ono are admitted to hospital after a car crash
1 July : Investiture of Prince Charles as the Prince of Wales is watched by large crowds in Caernarfon, Wales and by millions on television
3 July : 78,000 attend Newport Jazz Festival, Newport, Rhode Island
3 July : Soviet N1 rocket explodes just after launch off at Baikonur Cosmodrome
3 July : Kevin Hearn, (Barenaked Ladies), born Kevin Neil Hearn in Grimsby, Ontario, Canada
3 July : Brian Jones, (Rolling Stones), drowns in his swimming pool age 27
4 July : "Give Peace a Chance" by Plastic Ono Band is released in UK
4 July : 140,000 attend Atlanta Pop Festival featuring Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, and Spud from The Brumbeats
4 July : Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Britain's Ann Jones beats Billie Jean King 3-6, 6-3, 6-2
5 July : Walter Gropius, architect (Bauhaus school of design), dies at 86
5 July : Leo McCarey, American film director (Laurel & Hardy, Marx bros. Duck Soup), dies at 70
5 July : Wimbledon Men's Tennis: In an all-Australian final Rod Laver beats John Newcombe 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4
5 July : Rolling Stones play a free concert in London's Hyde Park
6 July : Michael Grant, keyboardist and singer (Musical Youth), born in Birmingham, England
7 July : French joins English as one of the two official languages of Canada
8 July : US troop withdrawal begins in Vietnam
11 July : Dave Bowie from Dave Bowie & The Dave Bowie Band (feat. Dave Bowie) releases the single "Space Oddity"
12 July : Four months after its cancellation NBC, Star Trek makes it's debut on British television.
13 July : Russia launches unmanned Luna 15 to Moon
14 July : Clarence "the Cross-Eyed Lion" (Daktari) dies age 7
14 July : The United States $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills are officially withdrawn from circulation.
14 July : A 67-year-old Catholic civilian dies after being attacked by RUC officers in Dungiven; many consider this the first death of 'the Troubles'
16 July : Apollo 11 launched, carrying 1st men to land on Moon
19 July : Apollo 11 goes into Moon orbit

Extra! Extra!  Read all about it! :
Quote       

Johnboy


daf

Ooh, you are awful, but I like you, it's . . .

274.  The Rolling Stones - Honky Tonk Women



From : 20 July – 23 August 1969
Weeks : 5
Flip side : You Can't Always Get What You Want
Bonus 1 : Top of The Pops
Bonus 2 : Hits A Go Go
Bonus 3 : Hyde Park Live 1969

The Story So Far : 
QuoteBy the middle of 1969, Brian Jones' legal troubles, estrangement from his bandmates, substance abuse, and mood swings became too much of an obstacle to his active participation in the band. The Rolling Stones wanted to tour the United States in 1969, for the first time in three years, but Jones was not in a fit condition to tour, and his second arrest exacerbated problems with acquiring a US work visa. In addition, Jones' attendance at rehearsals and recording sessions had become erratic. When he did appear he either rarely contributed anything musically or, when he did, his bandmates would switch off his amplifier, leaving Richards to play nearly all the guitars.

Mick Jagger : "We felt like we had a wooden leg. We wanted to go out and play but Brian couldn't. I don't think that he really wanted to and it was this that really pissed me off. He didn't have any desire to go onstage and play... It was difficult (firing him). Not as difficult as I thought. It's terrible to think about, but when you get there although it's pretty awful, it's not that bad. I wasn't used to kicking people out of the band. But we had to have more than two people. I think Charlie believed in what we did. We had to. It was either stand up or fall over. I elected to stand up."

Jones admitted that he was unable to go on the road again, and left the band saying, "I've left, and if I want to I can come back."

On 8 June 1969, Mick, Keith and Charlie Watts visited Brian Jones at his home in Cotchford Farm to tell him he had to leave the group.

 

To the public it appeared as if Jones had left voluntarily; the other band members told him that although he was being dismissed, it was his choice how to break it to the public. Jones released a statement on 9 June 1969, announcing his departure. In this statement he said, among other things, that, "I no longer see eye-to-eye with the others over the discs we are cutting".

Ian Stewart : "I don't think Brian was all that upset about leaving. He was past being bothered. They were very fair to Brian. He had all the time in the world to get himself together. When the break was made a lot of people rallied round him."

Mick Jagger : "I do feel that I behaved in a very childish way, but we were very young, and in some ways we picked on him. But, unfortunately, he made himself a target for it; he was very, very jealous, very difficult, very manipulative, and if you do that in this kind of a group of people you get back as good as you give, to be honest. I wasn't understanding enough about his drug addiction. No one seemed to know much about drug addiction. Things like LSD were all new. No one knew the harm. People thought cocaine was good for you."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In June 1969, Mick Jagger was looking for a replacement for the recently sacked Brian Jones, and asked John Mayall for advice. Mayall recommended Mick Taylor. John Mayall's Bluesbreakers had been Mick Taylor's first professional gig in 1966, when the 17-year-old replaced the Fleetwood Mac-bound Peter Green. Taylor developed into a formidable guitarist under Mayall's tutelage.

Mick Taylor : "It was quite a nerve-wracking experience when I was really young, following in the footsteps of Eric Clapton and Peter Green, but after a month or two I fitted in really well. It was basically all down to John Mayall's stewardship and everything I learned from him about the blues. Travelling around with him in America made me become a good blues player and I developed my own style. We were playing in lots of iconic places like Winterland [in San Francisco] and the Fillmore East and West. One night at Winterland, Jimi Hendrix was top of the bill, John Mayall and myself and the Bluesbreakers opened the show, and Albert King was in the middle. It was incredible, especially when you consider the fact I was only about 18 years old."

Taylor believed he was being called in to be a session musician at his first studio session with the Rolling Stones. An impressed Jagger and Keith Richards invited Taylor back the following day to continue rehearsing and recording with the band.

Mick Taylor : "When they asked me to come to the studio in 1969, I thought they just wanted me to play a session. I sort of liked them, but was never passionate about the Stones. In some ways I liked The Beatles more. At the first session, I overdubbed the guitar on Honky Tonk Women, but I thought they were all a little bit vain and full of themselves. After doing guitar parts on three songs, I said to Mick and Keith, "If you guys are just going to sit and mess around, I'm going home. I've got things to do." I told them to give me a call if they wanted me to do anything else. The next day, Mick called and asked if I wanted to join. He came and picked me up in his Bentley. I wasn't impressed by all that and I think they kind of liked that attitude. Part of the charm of the Rolling Stones, as far as I could see, was that they were not technically very good but were very raw and had great ideas."



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

At around midnight on the night of 23 July 1969, Brian Jones was discovered motionless at the bottom of his swimming pool at Cotchford Farm. His Swedish girlfriend, Anna Wohlin, was convinced he was alive when he was taken out of the pool, insisting he still had a pulse. However, by the time the doctors arrived, it was too late and he was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital, at the age of 27. The coroner's report stated it was a drowning, later clarified as "death by misadventure", and noted his liver and heart were heavily enlarged by past drug and alcohol abuse.

   

Mick Jagger (1969) : "I am just so unhappy. I am so shocked and worldless and so sad. Something has gone. I have really lost something. We were like a pack, one family in a way. I just say my prayers for him. I hope he becomes blessed, I hope he is finding peace... and I really want him to."

   

Bill Wyman : "He formed the band. He chose the members. He named the band. He chose the music we played. He got us gigs. ... he was very influential, very important, and then slowly lost it – highly intelligent – and just kind of wasted it and blew it all away."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Mick Taylor's onstage debut as a Rolling Stone, at the age of 20, was the free concert in Hyde Park, London on 5 July 1969. It was planned as an introduction of new guitarist, though circumstances inevitably changed following the death of former member Brian Jones two days earlier. As they had barely had any time to rehearse with him, he was understandably nervous. Jagger, too, was nervous, unsure whether Jones's fans would take to Taylor and indeed whether they would boycott the concert. In addition, the hot summer had sent the pollen levels soaring and Jagger suffered from hay-fever and laryngitis in the days leading up to the concert.

Mick Jagger (1969) : "Brian will be at the concert. I mean, he'll be there! But it all depends on what you believe in. If you're agnostic, he's just dead, and that's it. When we get there this afternoon, he's gonna be there. I don't believe in Western bereavement. You know, I can't suddenly drape a long black veil and walk the hills. But it is still very upsetting. I want to make it so that Brian's send-off from the world is filled with as much happiness as possible."

On 4 July 1969, fans started to arrive at the park with candles in tribute to Jones, and the police allowed the park to be opened late so they could stay. By the following morning, there were already 7,000 people. The Hells Angels were hired as stewards to protect the stage and equipment, something suggested by the Grateful Dead's improbably named manager Rock Scully, who was used to the Angels performing this service at free festivals in California. At Hyde Park, fifty Angels patrolled the vicinity of the stage, though there was little resemblance other than a superficial one to their American counterparts. They performed their duties in exchange for a cup of tea. [Aw, bless!]

     

The band met at the Londonderry Hotel on Park Lane, overlooking the park, where they had booked a tenth-floor suite, and proceeded to the park in the armoured personnel carrier. They alighted from the carrier into a caravan-trailer behind the stage. Jagger, his face heavily made up and with a studded leather collar around his neck, was clad in a white dress. He had borrowed the dress, which had been made for Sammy Davis Jr. at the Mr. Fish boutique, and wore it to Prince Rupert Lowenstein's white ball, where he had shown it to Princess Margaret. Jagger was only to wear it for half-an-hour at the Hyde Park concert, after which he tore it off to reveal a violet T-shirt and white loon pants.

Keith Richard : "We played pretty bad until near the end, because we hadn't played for years ... Nobody minded, because they just wanted to hear us play again."

Before the Stones opened their set, Jagger addressed the crowd, asking them to be quiet so he could read something as a tribute to Jones. He then read two stanzas of Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem on John Keats's death, Adonaïs, from a calf-bound book. After this recital, several hundred cabbage white butterflies were released, despite the Royal Parks authority having stipulated before the concert that any butterflies released by the Stones should be sterilised and should certainly not be of the voracious cabbage white genus. 2,500 butterflies were due to be released, but due to the hot weather, many of them died from lack of air in storage.

Keith Richard : "The all-important thing for us was it was our first appearance for a long time, and with a change of personnel. It was Mick Taylor's first gig. We were going to do it anyway. Obviously a statement had to be made of one kind or another, so we turned it into a memorial for Brian. We wanted to see him off in grand style. The ups and downs with the guy are one thing, but when his time's over, release the doves, or in this case the sackfuls of white butterflies."



Mick Taylor : "They certainly never made any comparisons between me and Brian. As far as they were concerned it was a new phase in their career. I was aware of being tested as a personality, but I never felt intimidated as a player. I was a bit overawed by it. I was very tense, very nervous and probably very introverted. They did what they could to make me feel relaxed. On a social level I was very much the new boy of the group. But I always felt we shared a musical rapport. I had to find my own level to become a part of their situation. It took me a long time to find myself within the group. It was a gradual process of fitting in with the band, playing in a way which contributed not only to the sound but to everything."

 

Charlie Watts : "The Mick Taylor period was a creative peak for us. A tremendous jump in musical credibility."

Mick Jagger : "He was a very fluent, melodic player, which we never had, and we don't have now... Some people think that's the best version of the band that existed."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

On 5 July 1969, the Rolling Stones released Honky Tonk Women - which would go on to reach Number 1 on the UK and US charts.

     

On 7 July 1969 Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull leave London for Sydney, Australia. On 10 July 1969 Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman attend Brian Jones' funeral in Cheltenham, England.

Between 13 July and 10 September 1969, Mick Jagger films his part for the film Ned Kelly in Australia. The making of the film was dogged by problems; even before production began, the Actors' Equity and some of Kelly's descendants protested strongly about the casting of Jagger in the lead role, and about the film's proposed shooting location in country New South Wales, rather than in Victoria, where the Kellys had lived. Jagger's girlfriend, Marianne Faithfull, had come to Australia to play the lead female role (Ned's sister, Maggie), but their relationship was breaking up, and she took an overdose of sleeping tablets soon after arrival in Sydney. She was hospitalised in a coma, but recovered and was sent home.

Shooting began on 12 July 1969 and took ten weeks. During production, Jagger was slightly injured by a backfiring pistol, the cast and crew were dogged by illness, a number of costumes were destroyed by fire, and Jagger's co-star, Mark McManus, narrowly escaped serious injury when a horse-drawn cart in which he was riding overturned during filming.

Mick Jagger : "I wrote Brown Sugar in Australia in the middle of a field. They were really odd circumstances. I was doing this movie, Ned Kelly, and my hand had got really damaged in this action sequence. So stupid. I was trying to rehabilitate my hand and I had this new kind of electric guitar, and I was playing in the middle of the outback and wrote this tune. God knows what I'm on about on that song. It's such a mishmash. All the nasty subjects in one go... I never would write that song now. I would probably censor myself. I'd think, Oh God, I can't. I've got to stop. I can't just write raw like that."

 

On 10 August 1969  Anita Pallenberg gives birth to her and Keith Richard's first child, Marlon. 


On 17 August 1969 Marianne Faithfull leaves Australia to continue convalescing in Switzerland. 


At the end of August 1969 Keith Richard and friends attend the Isle of Wight Festival in Great Britain, starring Bob Dylan.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

On 12 September 1969 The Rolling Stones' second greatest hits compilation album, 'Through the Past, Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2)', was released. The album resulted from three coinciding events – the need to acknowledge the death of band co-founder Brian Jones; the need to get 'Honky Tonk Women', then a huge hit single, onto an LP; and to fill the ten-month gap since the release of Beggars Banquet and get an album into the shops ahead of the Stones' first American tour in three years.

The name of the album is a rib-tickling play on a line from the King James Bible translation of 1 Corinthians 13: "For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face..."

The LP was packaged in an octagonal die-cut gatefold sleeve, featuring an epitaph for Brian Jones: "With this you see, remember me and bear me in your mind. Let all the world say what they may, speak of me as you find."

 

Because the Stones' first Big Hits compilation had been released in separate formats, with the Aftermath-era material appearing only on its UK edition, the American edition of Big Hits Vol. 2 included hit singles from the Aftermath period, while the British track listing included the more obscure "You Better Move On", from The Rolling Stones' self-titled 1964 debut EP and "Sittin' on a Fence", an Aftermath outtake originally released in 1967 on the US-compiled Flowers album.

In addition to those songs, many tracks, notably single-only releases, were collected for the first time on a UK Rolling Stones album: "Jumpin' Jack Flash" (May 1968 single)  /  "Let's Spend the Night Together" & "Ruby Tuesday" (January 1967 single)  /  "We Love You"  & "Dandelion" (August 1967 single) & "Honky Tonk Women" (July 1969 single)

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In early October 1969, Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman contribute to recording sessions for Leon Russell at Olympic Sound Studios, including an early version of Shine a Light, entitled Get a Line on You.

On 14 October 1969, Prince Rupert Loewenstein advises Mick Jagger the Rolling Stones should move to France for two years to escape heavy taxes.

On 17 October 1969, The Rolling Stones fly from London to Los Angeles to prepare for their U.S. tour.

Keith Richard : "It's always been the Stones' thing to get up on stage and kick the crap out of everything. We were only just getting it together when we became famous. We've still got plenty to do on stage, and that's why the tour should be such a groove for us."

George Harrison : "I don't know how much they're doing it, ah... how much they're doing it to the idea of wanting to go on the road and how for, you know, to make a little bread. And again for the Stones it's a whole new scene again for them with their new guitarist who's a fantastic guitarist. And so that would have to put a lot of life back in the band."

Mick Jagger : "We aren't doing this tour for money, but because we want to play America and have a lot of fun. We're really not into that sort of economic scene. I mean, either you're gonna sing and all that crap or you're gonna be a fucking economist. We're sorry people can't afford to come. We don't know that this tour is more expensive. You'll have to tell us."

   

Keith Richard : "I think we need it. You know a lot of people want to see us. But we really need to do a tour 'cause we haven't played - a tour's the ONLY thing that really knocks you into shape, you know. And especially that we've got Mick Taylor now. We really need to go through the pieces again, you know - sort of really get the band together. I really miss it after three years, man, yeah! And it's been three years exactly now since we finished touring so of course we think so. It's a long time to - you know, when you've been doing every night for four or five years and then just to stop suddenly and then pick up again - it's gonna be strange."

Mick Taylor : "Mick's always been a very ambitious person. And basically he wanted to get back out with a new guitarist, a new band and make lots of albums, you know, REACTIVE the whole thing. Because he felt they'd become... sort of a bit out of touch with the times and a bit stagnant, you know. And that's exactly what they did."

   

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

On 7 November 1969, The Rolling Stones perform their first ever concert in Fort Collins, Colorado, performing for the first time in North America in over three years, and opening their 1969 U.S. Tour.

Charlie Watts: "People didn't scream anymore. The music was taken seriously. In '69 you had proper amplification. Suddenly you could hear everbody. Nobody had heard DRUMS before. We must have sounded a joke before. But in '69 you really had to be on top of it to play. That's how Hendrix and bands like Led Zeppelin came about. I call that tour the Led Zeppelin tour, because it was the first time we had to go on and play for an hour-and-a-half. I blame it on Jimmy Page. Led Zeppelin had come to the States, and they would do a twenty-minute drum solo and endless guitar solos."

Between 8 and 10 November 1969, the band perform five arena concerts in Los Angeles, Oakland and San Diego, California.

Mick Jagger : "Well, it was a very rough, very violent era. The Vietnam War. Violence on the screens, pillage and burning... I think the war influenced the album. Even though I was living in America only part time, I was influenced. All those images were on television. Plus, the spill out onto campuses."

Keith Richard : "Before, America was a real fantasy land. It was still Walt Disney and hamburger dates and when you came back in 1969, it wasn't anymore. Kids were really into what was going on in their country. I remember watching Goldwater-Johnson in '64 and it was a complete little sham. But by the time it came Nixon's turn in 1968, people were concerned in a really different way."

Between 11 and 16 November 1969, they perform eight concerts in Phoenix; Dallas; Auburn, Alabama; Champaign, Illinois; and Chicago.

Mick Jagger : "In Chicago, it was just like last time [1966]: a lot of screamers, a lot of young girls, really young, like 12 or 14. And other places there were some who don't listen to the music AT ALL; it's just a fantasy experience for them. Like in Boston, that crowd had almost an identical response to what they gave us last time. But on the Coast, and a lot of other places, there was a very large cross section of people, all kinds of people, and they LISTENED. A lot of them did. That was new in some ways."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

On 13 November 1969, newspapers report that Marianne Faithfull has left Mick Jagger for painter-director Mario Schifano in Italy. On 24 and 25 November 1969, the Stones perform concerts in Detroit and Philadelphia.

Mick Jagger : "Compared to the way we sounded later along, we were terrible in San Francisco. Ragged. By the time we got to Detroit, I'd say, it was like a one hundred per cent improvement. The band got better. The sound system improved, and we got better accustomed to performing again. It's really a matter of confidence. It takes a while to get that up. [With Mick Taylor] it's more of a BAND now. It's definitely a different band. It's fucking incredibly HARD now... And, with Mick - Mick's really GOOD - and it means Keith can sort of lay out and tune up in the middle of a tune. There's more time to think. And sometimes they'll get to tossing solos back and forth between the guitars, like on Sympathy for the Devil, and it's just great! It's beautiful to hear, and it's something we've never gotten into just that way before."

Mick Taylor : "They were very creative days with the Stones. And then there was the twin-guitar thing, with me and Keith not playing strictly lead or rhythm, but floating around each other. There wasn't too much talking about who should play what, it was a very instinctive kind of relationship."
 
On 27 November 1969, In New York City, Mick Jagger attends a birthday party for Jimi Hendrix. During the party, Jagger pricks his finger and Hendrix's girlfriend, Devon Wilson, sucks the blood from his finger [blork!], which will lead Hendrix to write the song Dolly Dagger, featuring the lyric : "She drinks her blood from a jagged edge".

   

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

On 29 November 1969, The Rolling Stones' 10th U.S. and 8th UK studio album, Let It Bleed, was released in the U.S. and on 5 December 1969 in the UK. Jagger originally asked artist M. C. Escher to design a cover for the album, but Escher declined.

The album cover displays a surreal sculpture designed by Robert Brownjohn. The image consists of the Let It Bleed record being played by the tone-arm of an antique phonograph, and a record-changer spindle supporting several items stacked on a plate in place of a stack of records: a film canister labelled Stones – Let It Bleed, a clock dial, a pizza, a bicycle tyre and a cake with elaborate icing topped by figurines representing the band.

The cake parts of the construction were prepared by then-unknown cookery writer Delia Smith. The reverse of the LP sleeve shows the same "record-stack" melange in a state of disarray. The artwork was inspired by the working title of the album, which was Automatic Changer.

 

The Stones' last album of the sixties reached No. 1 in the UK and No. 3 in the US. It featured "Gimme Shelter" with guest lead female vocals by Merry Clayton (sister of Sam Clayton, of the American rock band Little Feat). Other tracks include "You Can't Always Get What You Want", with accompaniment by the London Bach Choir, who initially asked that their name be removed from the album's credits after apparently being "horrified" by the content of some of its other material;  as well as a cover of Robert Johnson's "Love in Vain".

Brian Jones, the band's original leader and founder, had, over the course of the recording of the previous two albums, become increasingly detached from the group. Though present in the studio, he was frequently too intoxicated to contribute meaningfully, and after a motorcycle accident in May 1969, missed several recording sessions whilst recovering. Always a talented multi-instrumentalist, Jones had previously contributed extensively on guitar, forming an integral part of the dual-guitar sound that was central to the band's chemistry. He was fired from the band during the recording of Let It Bleed, having performed on only two tracks: playing autoharp on "You Got the Silver", Keith Richard's first solo lead vocal on a Rolling Stones recording, and percussion on "Midnight Rambler".

As with the previous album, most of the guitar parts were recorded instead by the band's other guitarist, Keith Richard, during the period of principal recording. Jones's replacement, Mick Taylor, appears on just two tracks, "Live with Me" and "Country Honk".

Keith : "On Let It Bleed, we put that other version of Honky Tonk Women on because that's how the song was originally written, as a real Hank Williams/Jimmie Rodgers, '30s country song."

Byron Berline played the fiddle on the track, and has said that Gram Parsons was responsible for him being chosen for the job, as Berline had previously recorded with Parsons' band the Flying Burrito Brothers. Producer Glyn Johns suggested that Berline should record his part on the pavement outside the studio to add ambiance to the number. Sam Cutler, the Rolling Stones' tour manager, performed the car horn at the beginning of the track. Nanette Workman performs backing vocals on this version, though the album sleeve credits toothsome actress Nanette Newman in error - the soppy sods!

Mick Taylor : "Live With Me was the very first track I ever played on, when they were putting the finishing touches to Let It Bleed. We actually recorded that the night I went for my audition at Olympic Studios, or maybe the night after. Then I overdubbed guitar on Honky Tonk Women. But Live With Me was special, because it was the first Stones song I ever played on. I remember Jimmy Miller jumping up and down in the control room and getting all excited about how good it sounded, having two guitars playing off each other. Because I think they'd missed that with Brian Jones in the two-year hiatus since their last live performance. The Stones actually hadn't played together for a long time, so when I joined them it was like a new beginning. It was a new phase in their career, a new chapter."

   

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Following his death, the album, Brian Jones Plays With The Pipes Of Pan At Joujouka, recorded in July 1968, was released in October 1971.

Painter/novelist Brion Gysin first heard music from the area with American writer Paul Bowles at a festival in Sidi-Kacem in 1950. Entranced with the music's sound, he later was led to the village to hear the music in person by Moroccan painter Mohamed Hamri. In 1968, Gysin and Hamri brought Brian Jones, along with recording engineer George Chkiantz, and Jones' girlfriend Suki Potier to record the musicians using a portable Uher recorder.

The album's music included songs meant for the village's most important religious holiday festival, Aid el Kbir. The festival's ritual of dressing a young boy dressed as Bou Jeloud, the Goat God, wearing the skin of a freshly slaughtered goat, involved the child's running to spread panic through the darkened village as the musicians played with abandon. Gysin connected the ritual, performed to protect the village's health in the coming year, to the fertility festival of Lupercalia and the ancient Roman rites of Pan; he referred to the 'Bou Jeloud' dancer as 'Pan' and "the Father of Skins". This name stuck, leading to the reference to Pan in the album's title.

Brian Jones worked on the two-track recordings in London, adding stereo phasing, echo, and other effects. Jones edited the full-band selection to 14 minutes by cross-phasing fragments of a work that runs to some ninety minutes in uncut form. The album included three types of music : repetitive vocal chants; flute and drum music featuring several distinct melodic motifs and improvisations over a drone played by two flutists and several drummers; and the full village orchestra's drum and horn music played to accompany the "frenzied dance of Bou Jeloud, a Moroccan Pan".

The cover illustration on the 1971 album was originally a painting by Mohamed Hamri depicting the master musicians with Brian Jones in the center.

   

Jones edited the album and prepared the art work together with designer/illustrator, Dave Field, who also designed the 'Joujouka' logo and painted a depiction of a carpet design on the inside cover. Jones finished producing the LP several months before his death in July 1969.

The Single :
Quote"Honky Tonk Women" was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richard, and recorded by the Rolling Stones. The song was written while Jagger and Richard were on holiday in Brazil from late December 1968 to early January 1969, inspired by Brazilian "caipiras" (inhabitants of rural, remote areas of parts of Brazil) at the ranch where they were staying in Matão, São Paulo.



The band initially recorded the track called "Country Honk," in London in early March 1969. Brian Jones was present during these sessions and may have played on the first handful of takes and demos. It was his last recording session with the band.

Keith Richard : "The song was originally written as a real Hank Williams/Jimmie Rodgers/1930s country song. And it got turned around to this other thing by Mick Taylor, who got into a completely different feel, throwing it off the wall another way."

The song was transformed into the familiar electric, riff-based hit single "Honky Tonk Women" sometime in the spring of 1969, prior to Mick Taylor's joining the group. The Rolling Stones' producer Jimmy Miller played the cowbell for the recording.

Thematically, a "honky tonk woman" refers to a dancing girl in a western bar who may work as a prostitute; the setting for the narrative in the first verse of the rock-and-roll version is Memphis, Tennessee, while "Country Honk" sets the first verse in Jackson, Mississippi.

Mick Taylor : "I definitely added something to Honky Tonk Women, but it was more or less complete by the time I arrived and did my overdubs."

The single was released in the UK on 4 July 1969, the day after the death of founding member Brian Jones. It remained on the charts for seventeen weeks, peaking at number one for five weeks. Although it remains the band's last single to officially reach number one in the UK, they would score one further chart topper a couple of years later, thanks to the NME chart.

   

While the song was topping the charts, on Monday 4 August 1969, lovely CaB poster gilbertharding was born in a gin soaked bar in Memphis.

Other Versions includeThe Ventures (1969)  /  "Die Mädchen zu haus'" by Jack White (1969)  /  Charlie Walker (1969)  /  Ike & Tina Turner (1970)  /  Waylon Jennings (1970)  /  Joe Cocker (1970)  /  Leon Russell (1970)  /  Elton John (1970)  /  PJ Colt (1970)  /  Albert King (1971)  /  Rick Nelson and The Stone Canyon Band (1971)  /  The Flying Burrito Brothers (1973)  /  Humble Pie (1973)  /  "C'est une Honky Tonk Woman" by Johnny Hallyday (1974)  /  Leslie West (1975)  /  The Shadows (1977)  /  Alexis Korner (1979)  /  Willie Nelson with Leon Russell (1985)  /  Big Country (1986)  /  Hank Williams, Jr. (1987)  /  The Pogues (1988)  /  Prince (1993)  /  Billy Joel (1999)  /  Jerry Lee Lewis with Kid Rock (2006)  /  Ali Campbell (2010)  /  themaninthetrilby 8-bit (2011)  /  Danny McEvoy (2011)  /  Brain Bags (2013)  /  Kelly Valleau (2013)  /  Jacques Stotzem (2014)  /  Playing For Change (2015)  /  Josh Turner Guitar (2016)  /  a robot (2019)

On This Day  :
Quote20 July : Apollo 11 lunar module carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin lands on the surface of the Moon; Aldrin and Armstrong walk on the moon seven hours later; Michael Collins remains in orbit in the lunar module
20 July : 56th Tour de France: Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx wins
21 July : Neil Armstrong becomes the first person to step on the Moon at 2:56:15 AM (GMT)
21 July : Russia's Luna 15 crashes into moon after 52 lunar orbits - Losers!!
24 July : Jennifer Lopez, pop singer, born Jennifer Lynn Lopez, in The Bronx, New York
24 July : Apollo 11 returns to Earth
25 July : Otto Dix, German artist, dies age 77
25 July : 70,000 attend Seattle Pop Festival
26 July : Sharon Sites Adams, becomes 1st woman to sail the Pacific solo
28 July : Frank H. Loesser, American songwriter (Guys & Dolls), dies at 59
29 July : Mariner 6 begins transmitting far-encounter photos of Mars
1 August : 110,000 attend Atlantic City Pop Festival
4 August : Lovely CaB poster gilbertharding born at the age of 0, and in the nude.
5 August : Mariner 7 flies past Mars
6 August : Elliott Smith, American singer songwriter, born Steven Paul Smith in Omaha, Nebraska
8 August : The Beatles are photographed by Iain MacMillan crossing the street for the cover of their "Abbey Road" album.
9 August : "Zorba" closes at Imperial Theater NYC after 305 performances
9 August : Sharon Tate, actress (Valley of Dolls), celebrity hair stylist Jay Sebring, heiress Abigail Folger, her boyfriend Wojciech "Voyteck" Frykowski, and Steven Parent, murdered by Charles Manson's gang
10 August : Los Angeles grocery store owner Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, were murdered in their home on orders of Charles Manson.
14 August : Irish nationalists hold protests throughout Northern Ireland, some of these became violent
14 August : British Army deploys on the streets of Northern Ireland, marking the beginning of Operation Banner
15 August : Woodstock Music & Art Fair opens in New York State on Max Yasgur's Dairy Farm
16 August : V.V. Giri is elected the fourth President of India
17 August : Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, German-American architect, dies at 83
17 August : Donnie Wahlberg, singer (New Kids On The Block), born Donald Edmond Wahlberg Jr.​​ in Dorchester, Massachusetts
18 August : Mick Jagger accidentally shot while filming "Ned Kelly"
18 August : Woodstock festival closes with Jimi Hendrix as the final act
18 August : Christian Slater, actor, born Christian Michael Leonard Slater in New York City, New York
18 August : Edward Norton, actor, born Edward Harrison Norton in Boston, Massachusetts
18 August : Mildred Davis, American silent film actress and co-star and wife of comedian Harold Lloyd dies age 68
19 August : Matthew Perry, Canadian-American actor (Friends), born Matthew Langford Perry in Williamstown, Massachusetts
19 August : Nate Dogg, rapper ("Regulate"), born Nathaniel Dwayne Hale in Clarksdale, Mississippi

Extra! Extra!  Read all about it! :
Quote           

The Culture Bunker

One of those Stones songs (and I'm not much of a fan of them) that I can enjoy, though Jagger always seem so insincere in ones like this - too much of "posh English kid thinking he's Muddy Waters" or whatever.

I never really understood the whole thing about Brian Jones either - I get he put the band together and was the driving force in the early days, but if they'd sacked him off in 1964, would things have gone any different for them?

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Jones contributed loads of great, colourful musical flourishes to their mid-60s output, those records wouldn't have sounded so striking without his marimba, sitar, piano, harpsichord, recorder, Mellotron etc.

The Culture Bunker

Like I said, I'm not a fan and didn't see much that the likes of Nicky Hopkins didn't do when Jones was marginalised/fed up with it all. Happy to be corrected.

famethrowa

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on April 10, 2021, 03:54:51 PM
Jones contributed loads of great, colourful musical flourishes to their mid-60s output, those records wouldn't have sounded so striking without his marimba, sitar, piano, harpsichord, recorder, Mellotron etc.

That's a great point, and I guess it's debatable that Ver Stones may not have commercially survived the Sgt Peppers era if not for Brian's input? He put the mask on their bluesy dinosaur faces long enough to weather the storm, after which it was fine to throw out the effects pedals, go back to 2-chord jams and put an actual Bluesbreaker in your band.

kalowski

Wasn't there a bit of a to-do with Ry Cooder claiming Keith nicked his tuning or riff for Honky Tonk Women?

kalowski

From The New Yorker
QuoteHe was playing by himself in the studio, goofing around with some changes, when Mick Jagger danced over and said, How do you do that? You tune the E string down to D, place your fingers there, and pull them off quickly. That's very good. Keith, perhaps you should see this. And before long, the Rolling Stones were collecting royalties for "Honky Tonk Women," which sounds precisely like a Ry Cooder song and absolutely nothing like any other song ever produced by the Rolling Stones in more than forty years. According to Richards in his recent autobiography, Cooder showed him the open G tuning which became his mainstay and accounts for the full-bodied chordal declarations that characterize songs such as "Gimme Shelter," "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Start Me Up," and "Brown Sugar."

The Culture Bunker

I don't really see a problem there - the article says it's sounds "like a Ry Cooder song" but doesn't mention any particular one, so presumably just means the vibe of it, though the journalist has written it to make it sound like some terrible copyright theft.

If you want Mick and Keef being a bit dodgy, then there's ripping off Bill Wyman for 'Jumping Jack Flash' and I think Mick Taylor saw some of his ideas mysteriously wind up with a Jagger/Richards credit.

kalowski

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on April 11, 2021, 10:04:14 AM
I don't really see a problem there - the article says it's sounds "like a Ry Cooder song" but doesn't mention any particular one, so presumably just means the vibe of it, though the journalist has written it to make it sound like some terrible copyright theft.
Fair enough. This is the best I got
QuoteIn 1970 Cooder said in Rolling Stone Magazine:
"the Rolling Stones brought me to England under totally false pretences. They weren't playing well and were just messing around the studio. When there'd be a lull in the so-called rehearsals, I'd start to play my guitar. Keith Richard would leave the room immediately and never return. I thought he didn't like me! But as I found out later the tapes would keep rolling......in the four or five weeks I was there I must have played everything I know. They got it all down on these tapes. Everything". Cooder also alleged that the riff of "Honky Tonk Women" was based on one of his progressions.
"I heard those things he said – I was amazed", Richards later said. "I learned a lot of things off a lot of people". However, he did acknowledge that his decision to switch from a six-string to a five-string guitar style was picked up from Cooder.

I think Brian Jones is the key contributor in the studio to what made Paint It Black such a terrific record, starting with the sitar but then laying out the melody that underpins the song. Ruby Tuesday is even more of a Jones composition (essentially Jones-Richards with no Jagger input at all).

Both of these were before Sgt Pepper, and more in response to what The Beatles and American folk-rock acts had been doing in 1965-66.

daf

Honky Tonk Women - Part 2



The Story So Far & Further : 
QuoteOn 6 December 1969 The Rolling Stones headline a free concert at the Altamont Speedway in Livermore, California, in front of a crowd of 300 000. The Flying Burrito Brothers, the Jefferson Airplane, Santana and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young also perform. 


The Hells Angels had agreed to provide security for $500 worth of beer. They stood directly in front of the bands in an effort to keep people off the unusually low stage. As the Hells Angels became intoxicated and the crowd became restless and unpredictable, the drunken Hells Angels began hurling full cans of beer from their stockpile and striking concertgoers with motorcycle chains and sawed-off, weighted pool cues to drive the crowd back from the stage and the Angels' motorcycles.

By the time the Rolling Stones took the stage in the early evening, the mood had taken a decidedly ugly turn, as numerous fights began to erupt between Angels and crowd members. Jagger (who had been punched by a concertgoer within seconds of emerging from the Stones' helicopter) urged the audience to "just be cool down in the front there, don't push around."

 

Mick Taylor : "Altamont all happened so quickly, It was very surreal, a nightmare actually. The whole idea of doing a show at Altamont Speedway was an afterthought. We'd finished the tour and were at Muscle Shoals in Alabama, recording Wild Horses and Brown Sugar. I've never been able to discover why we actually did that show. We didn't have any hands-on input into the organisation of it; it was all done based on trust. It didn't feel right from the moment I arrived there. Some guy jumped out and threw a punch at Mick Jagger. It was chaos. And the fact that it was policed by the Hells Angels didn't help. They took the law into their own hands and started throwing people off the stage. It was a relief to get out, but that was terrifying too. People wanted to get away so badly there were too many on the helicopter."

Within the first minute of the Stones' third song, "Sympathy for the Devil", a fight erupted in the front of the crowd at the foot of the stage. After another appeal for calm, the band restarted the song and continued their set with fewer incidents until the start of "Under My Thumb". At this point, unlucky punter, Meredith Hunter climbed on top of a speaker box next to the stage, and two of the Hells Angels got into a scuffle with him. One of the Hells Angels grabbed Hunter's head, punched him, and chased him back into the crowd, where four Angels descended upon him. An eyewitness also reported that Hunter was stabbed by one of the Angels at this point, prior to the stabbing that was later caught on film.

After a few seconds, Hunter angrily returned to the front of the stage where Hunter's girlfriend Patty Bredehoft found him and tearfully begged him to calm down and move farther back in the crowd with her. Grateful Dead associate Rock Scully noticed Hunter in the crowd, concluding that "I saw what he was looking at, that he was crazy, he was on drugs, and that he had murderous intent. There was no doubt in my mind that he intended to do terrible harm to Mick or somebody in the Rolling Stones, or somebody on that stage." Another witness reported Hunter as looking "pretty straight", though visibly upset about the violence inflicted upon him.

Ian Stewart : "Keith was a bit prophetic about it, 'cause when the site was being moved from one place to another, Keith said, For Christ's sake forget it. But the band had gone so far with it they more or less HAD to do it. We were down in Muscle Shoals doing Brown Sugar when these things were going on. We kept getting phone calls. It was a disaster right from the fuckin' start... Altamont has to be one of the few things the Stones did where they had no say. The Angels were in charge that day and there was no way gettin' round that. But the band didn't blame themselves. Although a lot of people would blame them, you really couldn't. That would be unfair because they made a geniune attempt to have a free concert. In many ways it represented the spirit of Haight Ashbury and all that, but it didn't work. It SHOULD have worked. The day after Altamont they couldn't get out of America quick enough."

   

Footage from the documentary shows Hunter, in a lime-green suit, drawing what appears to be a long-barreled black .22 caliber revolver from his jacket and pointing it in the air. The film then shows Hells Angel Alan Passaro, armed with a knife, running at Hunter from the side, parrying the gun with his left hand and stabbing him with his right. A six-foot opening in the crowd appears, leaving Patty Bredehoft in the center. Hunter enters the opening from the left, his hand rises and the silhouette of a revolver is clearly seen against Bredehoft's bright crocheted vest. Passaro is seen entering from the right and delivering two stabs as he pushes Hunter off screen. The opening closes around Bredehoft. Passaro was reported to have stabbed Hunter five times in the upper back. Witnesses also reported that Hunter was stomped on by several Hells Angels while he was on the ground. The gun was recovered and turned over to police. Hunter's autopsy later confirmed his girlfriend's report that he did have methamphetamine in his bloodstream at the time of his death.

Mick Jagger : "You feel a responsibility. How could it all have been so silly and wrong? But I didn't think of these things that you guys thought of, you in the press: this great loss of innocence, this cathartic end of the era ... I didn't think of any of that. That particular burden didn't weigh on my mind. It was more how awful it was to have had this experience and how awful it was for someone to get killed."

The Rolling Stones have stated that they were unaware that a killing had taken place during their set; in the Gimme Shelter documentary, Jagger notices the commotion in the crowd and threatens to end the performance until a stagehand pulls him aside and informs him about someone with a gun.

Mick Jagger : "Of course some people wanted to say that Altamont was the end of an era. People like that are fashion writers. Perhaps it was the end of THEIR era, the end of their naïveté. I would have thought it would have ended long before Altamont."

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On 7 December 1969, the group flies back home to England. Bill Wyman and Astrid Lundstrom holiday in Sweden. Between 9 and 18 December 1969, The Rolling Stones hold recording and mixing sessions at Olympic Sound Studios in London, recording a new version of Brown Sugar with Eric Clapton, and starting work on Dead Flowers. 
  


Mick Jagger : "I love country music, but I find it very hard to take it seriously. I also think a lot of country music is sung with the tongue in cheek, so I do it tongue in cheek. The harmonic thing is very different from the blues. It doesn't bend notes in the same way, so I suppose it's very English, really. Even though it's been very Americanized, it feels very close to me, to my roots, so to speak."

On 14 December 1969, The Rolling Stones perform two concerts at the Saville Theatre in London. 
  


Mick Jagger : "The first show was a bore; the second show was much better. The first house was full of fucking journalists... Don't feel sorry for me. It was just another gig for me. I felt sorry for them. The most blasé audiences in the world are in our own country, which is why we don't play here."



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On 19 December 1969, Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull appear in court in London and plead not guilty to cannabis possession. The case is adjourned until January. Marianne Faithfull returns to Italy. Later that month, Jagger flies to Rome where he and Marianne Faithfull get back together shortly, before breaking up. 
  


Marianne Faithfull : "Mick's affairs DID bother me. But that wasn't as bad as the feeling of being pinned against the wall by the whole superstar thing. I sometimes think it might have helped if there had been more drink around instead of just dope. If Mick and I had got drunk together a few times, we might have stood a chance."

On 26 January 1970, Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull return to court in London. Jagger is found guilty of possession of cannabis and fined, Marianne Faithfull is acquitted.

Marianne Faithfull : "I truly didn't want to damage Mick anymore than I had. People always assume I became a junkie while I was still with him but I didn't. It was still an experiment I was making with my eyes open... I did love Mick very much, and he loved me. But I felt that an era was over and nothing could ever be the same again."

Meanwhile, Jagger was having an affair with actress-singer Marsha Hunt, which would result in the birth of his daughter Karis in 1971.



Marsha Hunt : "I fell in love with Mick because I thought he was shy and awkward. I never went out very much with him and his friends because mostly they weren't my scene. He would come to my apartment or I would go to his... We knew exactly what we were doing when we had Karis. She was absolutely planned. He was very insecure, and he needed the stability of a child. For a long time afterwards we were friends. I became his kind of confidante, if you like... I never married Mick because I knew it wouldn't work. I just couldn't be married to someone who didn't get up till two in the afternoon."

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On 4 February 1970, a business meeting held on behalf of the Rolling Stones concludes they must leave England for France in 1971 to escape heavy taxes.

Mick Jagger : "I just didn't think about [taxes]. And no manager I ever had thought about it, even though they said they were going to make sure my taxes were paid. So, after working for seven years, I discovered nothing had been paid and I owed a fortune..."

On 19 February 1970 The Rolling Stones are informed they do not own the publishing rights and recording masters of the songs produced so far. 


Between 4 and 7 May 1970, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman and Ian Stewart participate in recording sessions for Howlin' Wolf with Eric Clapton and other artists at Olympic Sound Studios in London. 


On 24 June 1970, Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor attend the opening of the film Ned Kelly starring Mick Jagger in London. The Ned Kelly soundtrack album, released on this day, features Mick Jagger singing the traditional "The Wild Colonial Boy". 

 
     

On 20 July 1970, The Rolling Stones advise Decca Records they will no longer remain under contract with them and sever ties with Allen Klein. They start plans to form their own label, with Atlantic Records. 


In August 1970, Performance, starring Mick Jagger and filmed in 1968, is released in the US. 
  


Mick Jagger : "I think Turner is a projection of Donald Cammell's fantasy or idea of what I imagine how I am. The thing is that it's very easy for people to believe that's what I'm like. It was easy to do in a way because it's just another facet of me if I felt inclined to go that way... I found his intellectual posturing very ridiculous - that's what sort of fucked him up... It isn't me really. You just get in the part - that's acting isn't it?"

 

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On 30 August 1970, The Rolling Stones started their European tour, including concerts in Malmo, Stockholm and Gothenburg in Sweden, and Copenhagen in Denmark; as well as first time appearances in Helsinki, Finland and Aarhus [in the middle of our street!!], Denmark. This was their first tour with a horn section, including saxophonist Bobby Keys

Bobby Keys : "I'd never played gigs on that large a scale before. That was the first tour I did on the A-scale which is a whole different level of show biz. It established a whole new set of standards in my head."

   

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On 4 September 1970, The Rolling Stones' second live album, 'Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! The Rolling Stones in Concert', was released in the UK.   
  
  


The Rolling Stones 1969 American Tour's trek during November into December, with Terry Reid, B.B. King (plus Chuck Berry on some dates) and Ike and Tina Turner as supporting acts, played to packed houses. The tour was the first for Mick Taylor with the Stones, having replaced Brian Jones shortly before Jones's death in July; this was also the first album where he appeared fully and prominently, having only featured on two songs on Let It Bleed. It was also the last tour to feature just the Stones – the band proper, along with co-founder, road manager and pianist Ian Stewart – without additional backing musicians.

The performances captured for this release were recorded on 27 and 28 November 1969 at New York City's Madison Square Garden, except for "Love in Vain", which was recorded in Baltimore, Maryland on 26 November 1969. Overdubbing sessions were undertaken during January 1970 in London's Olympic Studios. The finished product featured an overdubbed lead vocal on all tracks except for "Love In Vain" and "Midnight Rambler".

 

The title Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! is taken from a Blind Boy Fuller song, "Get Your Yas Yas Out". The lyric in Fuller's song was "Now you got to leave my house this morning, don't I'll throw your yas yas out o' door". In the context of Fuller's original song, "yas yas" appears as a folksy euphemism for "bum", however, Charlie Watts' t-shirt worn on the album's front cover shows a picture of a woman's unfettered knockers, suggesting an alternate explanation.

Some of the performances, as well as one of the two photography sessions for the album cover featuring Charlie Watts and a donkey, are depicted in the documentary film Gimme Shelter, and shows Watts and Mick Jagger on a section of the M6 motorway adjacent to Bescot Rail Depot in Birmingham, England, posing with a donkey. The cover photo, however, was taken in early February 1970 in London, and does not originate from the 1969 session. The photo by David Bailey, featuring Watts with guitars and bass drums hanging from the neck of a donkey, was inspired by a line in Bob Dylan's song "Visions of Johanna": "Jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule". The band would later say "we originally wanted an elephant but settled for a donkey".

Jagger commissioned the back cover, featuring song titles and credits with photographs of the group in performance, from British artist Steve Thomas, who has said he produced the design in 48 hours.

 

Pete Townshend (1970) : "I think the Stones have really, as as far as I'm concerned, they're really way back on top, and I'm so knocked out! Because I know they probably lost two years of development which would make them just GIANTS by now. But it's so incredible that they can come bouncing back. You know their live sound like on that live album, it's got all that kind of... it's not a GREAT sound and it's not a GREAT band playing on it or anything but there's all those dynamics, those kind of little rough edges and those things - I don't know how to put it - the friction and the whole thing is all there, you just get the shiver up your spine. And it's incredible... Let It Bleed is a MASTERPIECE - beats Beggars Banquet which I thought would've been very difficult to do."

       

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On 19 September 1970, Mick Jagger's version of "Memo From Turner" is released on the soundtrack album to Performance. 


On 23 September 1970, at a party after a concert in Paris, Mick Jagger is introduced to his future wife, Bianca Rose Perez Moreno de Macias. Bianca follows the group for the rest of their tour. 
  


Donald Cammell : "(Bianca) was an old style courtesan, the sort who was always basically saying to herself, Well, who's going to be paying the rent five years from now? But she had set her cap at him, and was determined, so I engineered a meeting. I procured Mick for Bianca. As I introduced them, I said, You two are going to have a great romance, you were made for each other."

 

[Stones' secretary] Shirley Arnold : "They could hardly get any work done, with Mick the way he was about Bianca. She'd come into the studio and give him the eye... he'd leave the other Stones and follow her upstairs."

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Between 5 and 9 October 1970, The Rolling Stones conclude their European Tour with more concerts in West Germany - Frankfurt and Essen, and their first performance in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 


Mick Jagger : "We've got to start cutting down, you know, because it just gets so expensive. I mean, it's like we've really worked and worked and worked and then, at the end of it, you've got people saying, Well, I paid too much to get it, and then I'm saying, Well, we spent it all in transportation. Do you know what I mean? That's what happens. And people get angry. Especially that European tour, the ticket prices were rather high. We actually had nothing at the end of it because... we had a bigger crew and like it was a much bigger presentation than anything we'd done in America, and the places weren't as big and the tickets weren't as expensive. So we came out with nothing. Which we knew before we started but you can't do that all the time."

Between 17 and 30 October 1970, The Rolling Stones resume recording sessions at Mick Jagger's home
 Stargroves in Newbury, working on 'Bitch',  'Moonlight Mile' and 'Sway', among others. 
  


Mick Jagger : "We made (tracks) with just Mick Taylor, which are very good and everyone loves, where Keith wasn't there for whatever reasons... People don't know that Keith wasn't there making it. All the stuff like Moonlight Mile, Sway. These tracks are a bit obscure, but they are liked by people that like the Rolling Stones. It's me and (Mick Taylor) playing off each other - another feeling completely, because he's following my vocal lines and then extemporizing on them during the solos."

Mick Taylor : "Unlike Exile On Main St, we didn't labour over it day and night, month after month. Most of it was done in the studio, though some of it was done at Jagger's house, Stargroves in Berkshire. I had an influence on them. I mean, would Sway have existed without my contribution? Probably, but not the way it does. And the same goes for Moonlight Mile. I remember Mick writing that one in a train carriage on the way from Paddington to Bath. Touring in those days, even with the Stones, was often like that. We didn't have private planes or trains. I remember it vividly. He started playing the song on acoustic guitar. Sway was done very quickly. Mick actually played rhythm guitar on that; Keith wasn't even around when we did that. I don't think Keith is on Moonlight Mile either. I started playing the solo in an open tuning, which is why it sounds off the wall. And Paul Buckmaster did the string arrangement based on the riff I came up with."



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On 4 November 1970, Marsha Hunt gives birth to Mick Jagger's first child, a daughter, Karis. 


On 6 December 1970, 'Gimme Shelter', the documentary/concert movie filmed by the Maysles Brothers of the Stones' 1969 tour and Altamont, is premiered in New York City. 


On 4 January 1971, Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg attend the British premiere of Performance in London.

On 6 January 1971, Rose Miller, Mick Taylor's girlfriend, gives birth to their daughter Chloe.

On 9 February 1971, Bill Wyman and Astrid Lundstrom fly to Nice, France, to purchase a house.

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In late February 1971, Keith Richard undergoes a short-lived heroin withdrawal cure with Gram Parsons at his his home in Cheyne Walk, London, using Apomorphine "anti-heroin aversion therapy".
 
Keith Richard : "I once took that apomorphine cure that Burroughs swears by. Dr. Dent was dead, but his assistant whom he trained, this lovely old dear called Smitty, who's like mother hen, still runs the clinic. I had her down to my place for five days, and she just sort of comes in and says, Here's your shot, dear, there's a good boy, or You've been a naughty boy, you've taken something, yes you have, I can tell. But it's a pretty medieval cure. You just vomit all the time. In 72 hours, if you can get through it, you're clean. But that's never the problem. The problem is when you go back to your social circle - who are all drug pushers and junkies. In five minutes you can be on the stuff again."

[Stones' assistant] Jo Bergman : "I never noticed anything about Keith particularly till 1970, and then not so much Keith as with Anita. Anita was violently ill. It was quite noticeable. By '72 it was VERY noticeable. I didn't think Keith was going to live through the '70 tour of Europe."

In on 4 March 1971, the Rolling Stones kick off their Farewell Tour of Great Britain, their first British tour in four and a half years, in northern England, at Newcastle's City Hall. On 26 March 1971, the Rolling Stones perform again in London at the Marquee Club, where the group had performed for the first time ever. During the concert, Keith Richard swings his guitar at owner Harold Pendleton's head, the mad bastard!

 

On 30 March 1971, the Rolling Stones hold a farewell to England party at a hotel in Maidenhead, Berkshire, with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, Roger Daltrey and others in attendance. Mick Jagger allegedly throws a table through a glass window when a village ordinance forces the music to be shut off.

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On 1 April 1971, Rolling Stones Records is launched, along with the now-infamous lip-and-tongue logo. The same day, to dodge the taxman, Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor and their families leave England for Nice, France.
 
Bill Wyman : "I didn't want to go but we were advised it was the only way to sort out our financial affairs. Which were disastrous at that time. We'd been a top band for eight years and none had seen any money. If we were going to earn the kind of money to get ourselves out of trouble we'd be paying like 93% tax and there was no way we could've earned enough to pay back what we owed. So it was essential that we went. And I remember the drive to the airport before leaving England and I was looking at - and it was spring and the flowers were coming out and all that and I was looking and I said, Jesus, that's the last time we're going to see this road for two years and Wow, I'm not going to see any English roses... you know, really silly things but it was really horrible. We didn't start making decent money till '71. And we'd been together for eight years then. Everybody thought we were millionaires, but we were far from it."

Mick Taylor : "When I left John Mayall I was a London musician with London friends. But because the band wanted to live in France to be tax exiles, I was forced to go along with them. I didn't need to be a tax exile, I didn't have financial problems to hide. It was all very well being with the Stones and apparently making all this money – although no one really knew how much because it was all on paper – but I was losing my friends and missing the scene in London."



On 3 April 1971, Keith Richard and Charlie Watts and their families also fly to Nice. Richard sets up in his rented villa Nellcote, in Villefranche-sur-mer. Mick Jagger and Bianca Moreno de Macias fly to Paris.

Mick Jagger : "Stoned is the word that might describe the band at the time.  It was a difficult period, because we had all these lawsuits going with Allen Klein. We had to leave England because of tax problems. We had no money and went to live in the South of France - Exile On Main Street was the first album we made where we weren't based in England, thus the title. In retrospect I think moving out of England was a very good thing because England was very dull. Having a home base was really becoming a load of old rubbish. Everyone was living in the country with their families. I think the band would have broken up otherwise. When the band moved out of England, then we only had the band. If we had lived in England I probably would have quit and retired to live in the country. I agree you need a base of some kind though."

Mick Taylor : "It was like being on tour all the time. It got to a stage where we all began to live the pressures of the lifestyles. Becoming non-residents, living abroad and uprooting ourselves was quite a big thing. We never really had enough time to settle down into a familiar situation. There were always dramas going on. My wife had just had a baby, so on a personal level it completely turned my whole world upside down. So many things happened in a short space of time. After a couple of years I realized I'd become a gypsy."

On 6 April 1971, the group holds a party in Cannes with Atlantic Records to celebrate the launching of Rolling Stones Records.

 

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The tongue and lips logo of Rolling Stones Records was originally designed by John Pasche in 1970. Pasche was first tasked with designing a new poster for the European leg of the Stones' current tour. After Jagger was satisfied with that work, he gave Pasche the job of creating what he was originally told would be a letterhead or cover page graphic. Jagger suggested to Pasche that he copy the outstuck tongue of the Hindu goddess Kali, and while Pasche first felt it would date the image back to the Indian culture craze of the 1960s, seeing Kali made him change his mind.

Mick Jagger : "That was designed by John Pasche. It became very identifiable with us. I don't think bands really had logos before then. (It was based on me a) bit. I got the idea from this corner shop. It was run by an Indian guy and he had a calendar with the goddess Kali on it. Kali has a disembodied tongue and I thought it was a very striking image. I said to John, Can you do a modernised version of the disembodied tongue?, and that's what he did."

John Pasche : "When I saw that pointed tongue, it just clicked! You know how kids stick out their tongues if they want to be nasty? A way of being anti-authority and rebellious. At the time, they were the bad boys of rock 'n' roll so I thought it was a great idea. People ask me all the time if Mick Jagger's mouth was the starting point – well it was not, but it kind of fell into place."

   

Before the end of that year his basic version was faxed to Craig Braun by Marshall Chess. The black & white copy was then modified by Braun and his team, resulting in today's most popular red version, the slim one with the two white stripes on the tongue.

Craig Braun : "He (Pasche) had only completed some sketches, rough sketches of it. And Marshall Chess, the newly-named president of Rolling Stones Records, was in London said, All I have is a rubber stamp from the sketch, so I said for him to stamp it a few times, put it on a fax which, on a thermal fax machine, the quality is just shit, but I could see the silhouette of it, where the art student was going, very fuzzy, and about ¾ of an inch, so I blew that up to about 12″ and I had an illustrator working for me and I said, 'I want you to re-draft this for me'. After many a back-and-forth, trial-and-error fleshing-out with the illustrator, the Rolling Stones' tongue and lip logo as we now know it was being hatched. Pasche hadn't finished his logo, so I told them to use his on the English album. Ultimately, it ended up being my version, not his, they use everywhere. They use mine for the tours, merchandising, licensing. Ironically, the V&A Museum paid Pasche almost £100,000 for his original logo art, but it's not the official Stones version."

The original 'one stripe' version, designed by Pasche, only appeared on the inner sleeve of the Sticky Fingers album that was released in the UK and Europe. The Braun version appeared on the same album pressed in the US, and this second design would become the standard version used on all their records from this point onwards.

 

Confusingly, a third designer, Ernie Cefalu, who worked with Craig Braun, claims that Braun asked to adapt a design he had previously drawn for the 1969 'Dolls Alive' album by Skip Redwine . . .

Ernie Cefalu : "Braun looked at me and asked, "can you go upstairs to the art department and take the lips that you did on this label, add a tongue outside and over the bottom lip like this, and finish it in less than an hour? Once upstairs, it took me about 40 minutes to do a felt marker sketch complete with lips and a tongue, and I even added some teeth because it just didn't look right without them."



Ernie Cefalu : "Craig stood up and quickly reached out for the sketch, saying "that's exactly what I was seeing and I really think – no, I am certain – that I can sell it to Marshall. Tony [the manager] passed him [Braun] the joint. He took a hit and then came right up to me, put one hand on my shoulder, gave me the joint with the other and said "well, my good man, you have earned a job with us. And, by the way, you just designed the new logo for the Rolling Stones!" The room busted out in cheers and congratulations were given all around."

The version allegedly designed by Cefalu, however, never ended up on the records, but was used briefly on tour merchandise in 1971 . . .

Ernie Cefalu : "That's a whole other story, and it got really political. I was introduced to Marshall Chess, the guy who was managing the Stones. Mick Jagger and those guys really didn't like Marshall. His dad owned Chess Records and sold it to Atlantic. They made his dad president, and he put his son in charge of managing the Stones. They didn't really like him, so they took what I had done and gave it to a guy named John Pasche in England, who did a version of it. So, right from the beginning, there were two versions. Mine was used on all the merchandise and marketing stuff, and his was used on the record cover, on the back, and on the sleeve."



Adding one further wrinkle to this messy origin story, was that while the Stones were touring the US in 1969, a book had been published called 'The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics', featuring illustrations by the artist Alan Aldrige. His illustration for 'Day Tripper' bears a striking resemblance to the Rolling Stones logo, designed the following year . . .

 

. . . so this image may have been actual inspiration for John Pasche's lips and tongue logo, rather than the often quoted story about Kali.

[Critic] Sean Egan: "Without using the Stones' name, it instantly conjures them, or at least Jagger, as well as a certain lasciviousness that is the Stones' own ... It quickly and deservedly became the most famous logo in the history of popular music."

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On 23 April 1971, The Rolling Stones' 11th U.S. and 9th UK studio album, Sticky Fingers, was released in the UK.

The album's artwork emphasises the suggestive innuendo of the Sticky Fingers title, showing a close-up of a jeans-clad male with the visible outline of his knob. The cover of the original vinyl LP release featured a working zipper and perforations around the belt buckle that opened to reveal a sub-cover image of cotton briefs rubber stamped in gold with the stylized name of American pop artist Andy Warhol.

While the artwork was conceived by Warhol, photography was by Billy Name and design was by Craig Braun. Braun and his team had other ideas, such as wrapping the album in rolling paper, but Jagger was enthused by Warhol's cover with a zipper. After retailers complained that the zipper was causing damage to the vinyl, the zipper was "unzipped" slightly to the middle of the record, where damage would be minimised.

 

The cover photo of a male model's 'block and tackle' clad in tight blue jeans was assumed by many fans to be an image of Mick Jagger, but the people actually involved at the time of the photo shoot claim that Warhol had several different men photographed (Jagger was not among them) and never revealed which shots he used. Among the candidates, Jed Johnson, Warhol's lover at the time, denied it was his likeness, although his twin brother Jay is a possibility. Those closest to the shoot, and subsequent design, name Factory artist and designer Corey Tippin as the likeliest candidate. Warhol "superstar" Joe Dallesandro also claimed to have been the model.

In Spain, the original cover was censored by the uptight Franco regime and replaced with a "Can of fingers" cover, designed by John Pasche and Phil Jude, and "Sister Morphine" was replaced by a live version of Chuck Berry's "Let It Rock".

 

Although sessions for Sticky Fingers began in earnest in March 1970, The Rolling Stones had been recording at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama in December 1969, where they cut "You Gotta Move", "Brown Sugar" and "Wild Horses". "Sister Morphine" cut during Let It Bleed's sessions earlier in March of that year, had been held over from this release.

Mick Taylor : "It's interesting because a lot of the songs they did before Beggars Banquet were singles geared more towards pop – things like Ruby Tuesday or Let's Spend The Night Together. But really, the Stones had always been a blues band. So in one sense, I was on very familiar ground, but in another way it was a real departure for me. Once I'd joined and we'd recorded Let It Bleed and Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out, I was a part of the band. Being an improviser, I noticed there would always be a space for a guitar solo, which had not always been the case on Stones records."

[engineer] Andy Johns : "The whole thing with the Stones is the groove. They might settle into a groove, they might start to get a groove going but what they're looking for the whole time is that fuckin' ROLLING STONES groove. It drives you fuckin' nutty 'cause they are SO good but they can sound like the WORST fuckin' band in the world. Keith can be out of tune, Charlie will miss a beat, everyone will play too loud, and Wyman will give up in frustration. But when they do get a take, everything converges into one."

[engineer] Glyn Johns : "Keith's whole idea is that it doesn't matter who's in the control room because if the Rolling Stones are in the studio it will be great. The Stones always produce themselves; they know what they want."

When Decca informed The Rolling Stones that they were owed one more single, they cheekily submitted a track called "Cocksucker Blues", which was guaranteed to be refused. Instead, Decca released the two-year-old Beggars Banquet track "Street Fighting Man".

   

Sticky Fingers hit the number one spot on the British charts in May 1971, remaining there for four weeks before returning at number one for a further week in mid June. In the US, the album hit number one within days of release, and stayed there for four weeks. The album spent a total of 69 weeks on the Billboard 200.

   

With the end of their Decca contract, The Rolling Stones were finally free to release their albums as they pleased. However, their departing manager Allen Klein dealt the group a major blow when they discovered that they had inadvertently signed over their entire 1960s American copyrights to Klein and his company ABKCO.

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Previously :
173.   It's All Over Now
182.   Little Red Rooster
190.   The Last Time
202.   (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
205.   Get Off Of My Cloud
210b. 19th Nervous Breakdown
215.   Paint It, Black
251.   Jumpin' Jack Flash   |  Part 2
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kalowski


gilbertharding

On This Day
Quote4 August : Lovely CaB poster gilbertharding born at the age of 0, and in the nude.

:)

gilbertharding

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on April 10, 2021, 03:54:51 PM
Jones contributed loads of great, colourful musical flourishes to their mid-60s output, those records wouldn't have sounded so striking without his marimba, sitar, piano, harpsichord, recorder, Mellotron etc.

He was also the best looking Rolling Stone (ok - that's a 'toughest in the infants' situation, but still...)

gilbertharding

Interesting all this:

QuoteMick Taylor : "They were very creative days with the Stones. And then there was the twin-guitar thing, with me and Keith not playing strictly lead or rhythm, but floating around each other. There wasn't too much talking about who should play what, it was a very instinctive kind of relationship."

Because Keith says now that he never liked Mick Taylor's playing. Apparently he was too loud, and not good enough at 'weaving'.

Some might say he had too many ideas. Probably too friendly with Mick Jagger.

I remember reading this in the diary section of the Guardian back around the time when Keith Richards' autobiography was out:

QuoteFinally, we get older. If lucky we get wiser. Mark Ellen, editor of the Word, has spent 30 years tending to music magazines in one capacity or another. Above all else he has learned one thing. "Keith Richards sells, Mick Jagger doesn't. Both are equally inspired and enthralling – I've interviewed them – but the public has somehow decided that one is an impulsive firebrand freewheeling dangerously along what he'd laughingly call 'the arc of his career', and the other is a cold, calculating fraudster desperately craving our love and respect. In fact the former is more calculating than the latter, but if you put Keith on the cover of your magazine you'll have to cut swathes of virgin pine forest to feed the presses. Go for Mick, on the other hand, and great wobbling piles of your unsold copies will threaten to block out the sun." It ain't right, it ain't fair. But that's life.

daf

Eating Gateaux, it's . . .

274b. (MM 221.)  Elvis Presley - In The Ghetto
        (NME 271.)  Elvis Presley - In The Ghetto




From :  19-25 July 1969 (1) : Melody Maker
            26 July - 2 Aug 1969 (1) : NME
Weeks : 2
Flip side : Any Day Now

The Story So Far : The 1965-1968 singles
QuoteWe last met Elvis way back in the Summer of 1965 with the Number 1 Crying in the Chapel. The follow-up, "Tell Me Why" (b/w "Puppet On A String"), peaked at #15 in the UK in November 1965. The A-side was originally recorded in 1957, but had been shelved because it was judged to be too close melodically to the spiritual, "Just A Closer Walk With Thee."



His next single featured a song that was originally recorded in May 1963, intended for his scrapped 'Lost Album' : "Blue River" (b/w "Do Not Disturb") - which reached #22 in February 1966. The follow-up, the title song of his current film : "Frankie And Johnny" (b/w "Please Don't Stop Loving Me"), reached #21 in April 1966. A rare non-soundtrack single "Love Letters" (b/w "Come What May") reached #6 in July 1966.

 

His next release saw him back to the film soundtracks : "All That I Am" (b/w "Spinout") - which peaked at #18 in October 1966.

Around August 1965, Presley's friend and bodyguard Red West wrote 'If Every Day Was Like Christmas'. He recorded it and released it the same year under his own label for the 1965 Christmas season, with little success. The following year, he gave the song to Presley to record, as Presley had been wanting to record a Christmas song. The backing track was recorded on 10 June 1966 at RCA Studio B in Nashville. Two days later, Presley's vocals were added. According to West, the vocals were sung and recorded in a hotel room after an enthusiastic Presley heard a copy of the just-recorded backing track on a two-track tape recorder.

"If Every Day Was Like Christmas" (b/w "How Would You Like To Be") reached #9 in December 1966. The B-side was an old track from the 1963 film 'It Happened at the Words Fair'.

 

His next single, "Indescribably Blue" (b/w "Fools Fall In Love"), reached #21 in the UK in February 1967.

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In the UK, two songs from the film 'Easy Come, Easy Go' : "The Love Machine" (b/w "You Gotta Stop"), were released as a single and reached #38 in May 1967. In the US, these two songs were included on a 6-track EP. The remaining tracks : 'Easy Come, Easy Go' / 'Yoga Is As Yoga' / 'Sing You Children' / and 'I'll Take Love' were released in the UK on a 4-track EP in June 1967, topping the EP charts.

 

In July 1967 Elvis finally started releasing songs that didn't sound five years out of date, unfortunately the new direction heralded by "Long Legged Girl (With The Short Dress On)" just seemed to confuse the fans and critics alike, with even Lulu giving it a roasting. It tanked at #63 in the US, and #49 in the UK chart.

 

Continuing his musical revival, the superb "Big Boss Man" released in November 1967 peaked at #38 in the US, but failed to chart at all in the UK!

 

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He finally got back into the UK charts with his next single - "Guitar Man" (b/w "Hi Heel Sneakers") - which reached #19 in February 1968.

"Guitar Man" was written by Jerry Reed, who took his version of it to number 53 on the Billboard country music charts in 1967.

 

Soon after Reed's single appeared, Elvis Presley recorded the song with Reed playing the guitar part. Presley had been trying unsuccessfully to record the tune, but wasn't happy with the groove. He said something to the effect of: "Get me that redneck picker who's on the original tune", and his staff brought Reed into the studio - who nailed it on the first take.

 

Another Jerry Reed cover, "U.S. Male" (b/w "Stay Away") peaked at #15 in the UK in May 1968.

     

"Your Time Hasn't Come Yet Baby" (b/w "Let Yourself Go") from the film Speedway, peaked #22, but his next single, "You'll Never Walk Alone" (b/w "We Call On Him") bombed at #44.

   

The 1968 Films :
Quote'Stay Away Joe', Elvis' twenty-sixth film, was a rollicking comedy, directed by Peter Tewksbury. Presley played a Native American for the second time in his career. This time, however, instead of being a relevant commentary on prejudice -- as was the superior Flaming Star -- the film stereotypes American Indians as shiftless and irresponsible.

Elvis stars as rodeo rider Joe Lightcloud, a Navajo whose family still lives on the reservation. Joe persuades his congressman to give him 20 heifers and a prize bull so he and his father, played by Burgess Meredith, can prove that the Navajos can successfully raise cattle on the reservation. If their experiment is successful, then the government will help all the Navajo people. But Joe's buddy accidentally barbecues the prize bull, the dozy twat, while Joe sells the heifers to buy plumbing and other home improvements for his stepmother, portrayed by Katy Jurado. Former leading lady Joan Blondell appears as tavern owner Glenda Callahan, whose daughter, played by Quentin Dean, can't seem to stay away from the girl-chasing Joe.



The movie was based on the best-selling novel by award winning author Dan Cushman, who based his book on his own native Montana where, after graduating from college, he first became a prospector and geologist before becoming a writer of over thirty novels and winning a number of writing awards.

The cast for 'Stay Away Joe' was anchored by several longtime actors including Burgess Meredith, who played Charlie Lightcloud, the Native American father to Elvis' character Joe Lightcloud. Mexican actress Katy Jurado played Annie Lightcloud. She gained over 20 pounds for her role of Annie and just before filming she broke her foot. She had her cast removed prematurely and thus she walked with a limp in the movie. Young Quentin Dean played Mamie Callahan. She had debuted in the 1967 film 'In The Heat of The Night', winning a Golden Globe nomination for her supporting role.



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For the first time since Wild in the Country, neither an LP record nor an extended-play single was planned for a Presley film soundtrack. Three songs were written for the film by the stalwart team of Sid Wayne and Ben Weisman, who had already contributed close to 50 songs for various Presley movies in the decade.

On 1 October 1967, Elvis recorded the songs 'Stay Away, Joe', 'All I Needed Was The Rain' and 'Dominic', which he was to sing to a bull. Elvis hated the song, and made producer Felton Jarvis promise that it would never appear on a record. MGM and Elvis' manager Colonel Tom Parker decided to have Elvis record another song that could be played over the opening credits and released as a single. The song 'Stay Away' was written by Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett and based on the melody of the song 'Greensleeves'. Elvis recorded it on 16 January 1968 and it was released on 28 February 1968 as the B-side of 'U.S. Male'.



'Stay Away, Joe' was one of the rare times that Elvis' wife Priscilla and the wives of his entourage attended a location shoot. Filming began in Sedona and Cottonwood, Arizona on 9 October 1967. Location filming continued until 22 November 1967 when the production company moved back to the studio to finish the production. The movie wrapped on 27 November 1967 with a lunch Elvis had catered for the cast and crew. It opened nationally on 8 March 1968.

Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film : "... could scarcely seem more embarrassingly tasteless or ill-timed than right now. In an unintentionally patronizing way it projects an image of the Indian as happy-go-lucky, immoral and irresponsible just when the public is becoming aware of how truly tragic his plight is. No amount of good-naturedness—and 'Stay Away, Joe!' undeniably has plenty of that—can compensate for humor based on stereotypes so offensive to minority-group sensitivities." However, Thomas suggested that if it had been made in a different time, "... it would seem a pretty good picture. It has plenty of bounce, a strong cast ... some spunky songs and good color photography of natural locales."

A review in Variety reported : "generally flat comedy" with "many forced slapstick situations", and echoed Thomas's review by stating that the story was "... out of touch with latterday appreciation of some basic dignity in all human beings ... At best, film is a dim artistic accomplishment; at worst, it caters to outdated prejudice. Custer himself might be embarrassed — for the Indians."

The Monthly Film Bulletin reported : "Meandering Elvis Presley comedy, rather short on invention except for an amiably hectic finale ... The musical offerings are if anything even less memorable than usual."

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'Speedway', Elvis' twenty-seventh movie, was a car racing musical comedy that features Elvis as stock-car champion Steve Grayson, a generous soul who is always sharing his winnings with people in need. Partly due to his generosity and partly because of his manager's love of gambling, Steve finds himself owing the government back taxes. The movie was about stock car racing at the famed Charolotte Speedway in Charlotte, North Carolina, where location race scenes were filmed. Participating in the movie were several champion professional NASCAR racers.

On 19 June 1967 Elvis reported to MGM to begin work. The day began with a music meeting at 10:00 AM and at 2:00 PM he had wardrobe fittings. Elvis and his manager Colonel Tom Parker then gave the leading lady, Elvis' friend, Nancy Sinatra a car that had 'Speedway' painted on one door and 'Starring Nancy & Elvis' on the other. Sinatra co-stars as IRS agent Susan Jacks, while Bill Bixby plays his bumbling manager, Kenny Donford. Sinatra's part had first been offered to English singer Petula Clark

Sometimes Elvis' movies were released out of sequence with the order in which they were filmed. Such was the case with 'Speedway'. It was actually filmed in June of 1967 prior to filming 'Stay Away Joe'. However, 'Stay Away Joe' beat 'Speedway' to release by three months.

   

Released on 25 June 1968, 'Speedway' was the seventeenth soundtrack album by Elvis Presley. Recording sessions took place at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios in Hollywood, California, on 20 and 21 June 1967. Eight tracks for the film were recorded at the sessions, with "Suppose", the only song that held interest for Elvis, dropped from the movie. Two tracks were pulled for a single, "Your Time Hasn't Come Yet Baby" with "Let Yourself Go" on its flipside, and both sides made the lower reaches of the Billboard Hot 100 (respectively numbers 72 and 71).

"There Ain't Nothing Like A Song", rejected from the soundtrack for Spinout, was one of two songs that feature the lead vocals of Nancy Sinatra, here in duet with Presley. All her vocals, including the solo "Your Groovy Self", the only time a track without Elvis featured on any of his releases, were recorded at a separate session on 26 June 1967, produced by Lee Hazlewood.

Other songs featured on the album included the title song "Speedway"  /  "Who Are You (Who Am I?)"  /  "He's Your Uncle, Not Your Dad"  /  "Five Sleepy Heads"  /  "Western Union", from the May 1963 "lost album" sessions  /  "Mine"  /  and  "Goin' Home"

Peaking at number 82 on the Billboard 200, 'Speedway' took over the new low for chart position and album sales by Presley, shifting units numbered in five figures, jeopardizing his recording career. Much to his relief, it killed the soundtrack formula, this being the final Presley dramatic feature film to have a full soundtrack album. His last five movies of the decade concentrated on Presley the actor, not Presley the singer, with minimal song requirements. It was also the last Presley album to be released in both stereo and mono editions as mono was being phased out by the industry.

 

'Speedway' premiered in Charlotte, North Carolina on 12 June 1968. It was #40 on Variety's movie list for the year of 1968.

By 1968, Presley films had long become formulaic. Renata Adler of The New York Times wrote that Speedway was : "just another Presley movie — which makes no great use at all of one of the most talented, important and durable performers of our time. Music, youth and customs were much changed by Elvis Presley 12 years ago; from the 26 movies he has made since he sang "Heartbreak Hotel" you would never guess it."

A review in Variety declared : "Under Norman Taurog's know-how comedy direction even some of the silliness in the Phillip Shuken script gets by as entertainment, but the story lacks the legitimacy of the better Presley starrers. However, with Presley in there swinging in his usual style and his own particular brand of lightness the feature stacks up as an okay entry."

Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film : "has a script that ran out of gas before Elvis Presley was born. Presley pictures can be unpretentious fun, but this one is both uninspired and too much of an imitation of too many of his previous movies ... There aren't even very many songs to break up developments too predictable to outline here." He thought Nancy Sinatra's one song was "the high point of the picture."

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Elvis Presley's twenty-eighth movie was the 1968 MGM film 'Live A Little, Love A Little'. It was directed by Norman Taurog, and adapted from a novel 'Kiss My Firm But Pliant Lips' by Dan Greenburg. Other titles also considered included 'Bumblebee Oh Bumblebee' and 'Born Rich'. Greenburg went on to write other productions including 'Oh! Calcutta!'.



Principal photography began on 13 March 1968. Unlike many previous films which involved 'location scenes' shot against a backdrop, Presley was able to do more scenes on location than usual. Locations included the Pacific Coast Highway near Malibu, Marineland, the Hollywood Citizen News building, the Los Angeles Music Center and the streets of the Hollywood Hills.

Elvis Presley plays Greg Nolan, a newspaper photographer who lives a carefree life - that is, until he encounters an eccentric, lovelorn woman named Bernice (Michele Carey) on the beach. Nolan must also must deal with Bernice and her eccentric ways. Bernice assumes different names and personalities whenever the mood hits her. After having her Great Dane dog, Albert, chase Greg into the water when he insults her after a kiss, Bernice invites him to stay at her beachfront home. She later manages to make him lose his job and apartment after drugging him, which leaves him in a deep sleep for days. Bernice manages to get him a new apartment, but it is so expensive that he has to take on two full-time jobs to make the payments: one for a Playboy-like magazine owned by Mike Lansdown (Don Porter), the other for a very conservative advertising firm co-owned by Mr. Penlow (Rudy Vallee).



On 4 April 1968, while Elvis was making this movie, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Elvis took the news very hard. He was known to commit famous speeches to memory and would often quote from or recite them thereafter. Martin Luther King's 'I Have A Dream' speech was one of Elvis' favorites to recite. Just two months later in June, while working on his 1968 TV special, Elvis expressed his deep feelings about the loss of the Kennedy brothers and Dr. King to producer Steve Binder. It was then that Binder resolved to have a song written expressly for Elvis to close his TV Special with.

Celeste Yarnall, who played Ellen, recalled the making of the film and her impressions of Elvis Presley : "I adored Elvis. When I met him for the first time he immediately put me at ease. We had to film our kissing first and neither of us heard the director say, 'Cut!' For me, it was love at first kiss! We became very good friends. He was warm and kind and full of love. He had this tremendous desire to please people. We watched the funeral of Martin Luther King, Jr. together over lunch in his trailer. He cried. He really cared deeply. He was far more handsome in person with deep blue eyes and a Roman profile. He held jam sessions on the set and would play cars with George Barris or play football with the 'boys' who traveled with him everywhere. He was truly 'The King'."

During this film Elvis' father Vernon drove Elvis' Lincoln out to California for him. He was given a small nonspeaking part in the movie as part of the scene in which Elvis' character Greg is shooting a photograph of a man sitting in an ornate chair at a table.



The recording session of the four songs written for the film took place at Western Recorders in Hollywood, California on 7 March 1968. The producer in nominal charge of the session, Billy Strange, brought in a group of musicians outside of Elvis' usual stable and written arrangements that was foreign to Elvis' more casual style of recording.

'Almost in Love' was given a late-night cocktail-jazz quality, 'Edge of Reality' was a piece of pseudo-acid rock, and 'A Little Less Conversation' written by Strange and his new discovery who would write several more songs for Elvis Presley, Mac Davis, bordered on funk.

 

First recorded on 7 March 1968 at Western Recorders in Hollywood, California, the single version of "A Little Less Conversation", released on 3 September 1968 and peaking at #69, used Take 16 [which can be identified by Elvis' introductory 'Hey!'], while the version released on the Almost in Love album is Take 10. The musicians on the recording session included Hal Blaine, drums; Al Casey, guitar; Larry Knechtel, bass; and Don Randi, piano, plus vocalists BJ Baker (Betty Jane Baker), Sally Stevens, Bob Tebo, and John Bahler.

It was thought Presley re-recorded the song in June 1968 for the soundtrack of his 1968 comeback special, with the intent of performing it during the program. Ultimately, it was decided not to use this recording, and the song was dropped from the planned special. The newer version transposed the key of A major recording of three months earlier into E major and featured a vocal and heavy reverb with backup vocals from The Blossoms . . . However, all that speculation turned out to be bollocks - as after the tapes from the original session were unearthed in the mid-1990s, it was discovered that this supposedly new June version was actually Take 2 - from the original session on 7 March 1968.

"Edge of Reality" appeared on 5 November 1968 as the US B-side of RCA single "If I Can Dream," the song Presley used to close out his 1968 Christmas Special. "Wonderful World" which played over the opening credits to the film, appeared on the compilation Elvis Sings Flaming Star.

 

'Live A Little, Love A Little' was released on 23 October 1968, the film failed to impress most critics. With a very poor performance on its American release, the film was not released in many regions, including in the U.K.

Variety called the film one of Presley's : "dimmest vehicles," writing that Taurog's direction "tried to give some lilt to the proceedings. Nothing, however, can buck that writing. Songs are dull, physical values are standard, and mediocrity prevails."

Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called the film : "a pleasant Elvis Presley picture that's rather more sophisticated than the durable singing star's 27 prior efforts."

The '68 Comeback Special :
QuoteSinger Presents...Elvis (commonly referred to as the '68 Comeback Special) was a television special starring singer Elvis Presley, aired by NBC on 3 December 1968. It marked Presley's return to live performance after seven years during which his career was centered in the movie business. Presley was unhappy with his distance from musical trends of the time, and the low-quality movie productions he was involved in.

   

In October 1967, Manager Colonel Tom Parker approached West Coast vice president of NBC, Tom Sarnoff. Parker proposed a deal for a Christmas television special. Presley's initial reaction to the special was negative. He felt it was another scheme by Parker and was angered by the idea of singing Christmas carols on national television. His opinion started to change after he began talks with the special's producer, Bob Finkel. Finkel was able to persuade the sponsor Singer, NBC and Parker to alter the show's original concept. He obtained Parker's approval on agreeing to his terms: the show was to be centered only on Presley, while enough material for a soundtrack album and a Christmas single was to be recorded. Presley's enthusiasm for the project grew, and he assured Finkel he was ready to perform new material, different than anything he had previously done.

To reflect the new direction Presley's career was intended to take, Finkel thought of director Steve Binder, who had directed the concert film T.A.M.I. Show and worked for NBC on Hullabaloo. Initially reluctant to direct the special, Binder was convinced by his associate, Bones Howe. A meeting was arranged with Parker, during which Presley's manager assured the team they would be given full creative control. Howe and Binder met with Presley later that week, and told the singer they would prepare all the details of the special, and have them ready by the time he returned from his vacation in Hawaii.

Binder and Howe then hired the production crew. Billy Goldenberg was assigned as the musical director, while the Presley camp chose Billy Strange as the arranger. Chris Bearde and Allan Blye were hired as the writers, and Bill Belew for the costume design. Bearde and Blye proposed an idea based on Maurice Maeterlinck's The Blue Bird - intended to portray Presley's career through his songs, with its climax coming together in the special. The snippets of the story were connected by a number covering Jerry Reed's "Guitar Man".

An informal segment was planned featuring Presley talking to members of his entourage in a scripted conversation that was to show him as self-deprecating while discussing his movie performances. A gospel number would be added, as well as a live stand-up performance. Then the Christmas song, requested by Parker, would be played; the special would close with a spoken statement by Presley.

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On 17 June 1968 the team moved to the NBC studios in Burbank, California. Binder and Howe developed the concept of the informal section of the show after seeing Presley interacting with his entourage while playing music during breaks. Binder planned to shoot the segment in the locker room to give the public a sense of how Presley's music was developed in an intimate setting. Parker opposed this concept. Binder settled for a sit-down concert, set in a small stage that resembled a boxing ring.

He called Presley's first backup musicians, Scotty Moore and DJ Fontana, to accentuate the nature of the singer's musical origins. They were also joined by members of Presley's entourage Charlie Hodge and Alan Fortas. The scripted part was cancelled, but the writers gave Presley a list of topics to discuss between songs. The topics included mentions of his early career, his Hollywood years and the current music business.



On 20 June 1968 Presley started the recording process at United Western Recorders. Howe arranged for rhythm section, session musicians from Los Angeles. The band was composed of drummer Hal Blaine and guitarists Mike Deasy and Tommy Tedesco. Part of the string and brass sections of the NBC orchestra were also enlisted. All the material, except the live sections of the show, was pre-recorded by Presley.

Mike Deasy : "My wife was at the rehearsal, and Elvis came in and walked up behind her. I said, 'Kathie, I want you to meet Elvis'. And she turns around and elbows him right in the chest, and of course, he fell back and acted like it really hurt. We all got a good laugh. That's how cool he was'."

Hal Blaine : "From the moment he walked in the studio, it was almost like all the guys there were bowing down to him, but he didn't care whatsoever. Once in a while, he'd say something like, 'I'm a little bit thirsty', and 15 guys would run at him with Coke bottles. And because he was studying karate, all those guys were doing the same thing. Elvis would come into the studio and one guy would leap out at him, like he was going to kill him, and Elvis would go into his stance. It was really hysterical. The demagoguery was just unbelievable, but Elvis was truly a gentleman and a sweetheart of a guy. He just acted the way a country boy would act."

 

On 27 June 1968, Elvis spent the early part of the day rehearsing a planned gospel medley and shooting the show's amusement-park production number. Colonel Parker had told the NBC team he would take care of the ticket distribution. He assured them he would fly fans from different parts of the country to fill the studio. By the day of the show, however, Parker, the lazy bastard, had not distributed the tickets, and only a few people were in line to see the taping. Binder and Finkel invited people from a restaurant across the street and put an announcement on a local radio station to round up an audience for the taping.

Presley was nervous at the beginning of the first hour-long set. Binder had to convince him to take the stage, but once there, Presley was comfortable. He performed his songs and traded jokes with his companions as the session progressed. "This is supposed to be the informal section of the show, where we faint or do whatever we want to do, especially me", Elvis said jokingly. "I first started out in 1912". And then they played loose versions of 'That's All Right', 'Heartbreak Hotel', 'Love Me' and a dozen other classics, including a howling rendition of 'Lawdy Miss Clawdy'..

In the middle of 'Baby, What You Want Me to Do', Elvis stopped the music to show off that his lip could still twitch the way it used to. And after announcing that 'One Night' would be his last song, he quelled the boos in the audience by slyly saying, "Man, I just work here!" with a twinkle in his eye. He also showed his tender side, singing the ballad 'Memories' surrounded by two young women.

By the end of the first show, Belew had to carefully peel off the sweat-soaked leather suit that was now stuck to Presley's skin. To get it ready for the next show, he had to hand wash it. He was helped by the rest of the costume crew who used hairdryers to hasten the process.

 

The second show found Presley relaxed and running through the set list with ease. DJ Fontana beat his drumsticks against a guitar case rather than a drum kit : "We'd done that from time to time. We didn't really rehearse. We'd just go out there and wing it and do the best we could. That's all me and Scotty and Elvis really needed. We picked the songs right off the top of the head. It was just about how we did it in the early days."

At one point, Elvis proclaimed that "rock & roll music is basically gospel or rhythm and blues", which, in the final broadcast, segued to a medley of gospel songs he especially enjoyed.

Darlene Love : "Elvis knew the old, old hymns of the church. Whenever we had a break, he would go, 'Darlene! Do you know this one?' He'd go get his guitar, and I'd say, 'Yeah. Come on, let's sing it', and we'd go off in the corner to sing it'."

The gospel sequence, filmed the day after the sit-down set, also fulfilled another mission for Steve Binder : "I wanted to let the world know that here was a guy who was not prejudiced, who was raised in the heart of prejudice, but who was really above all that."

Darlene Love : "The choir was originally all white, so they took the Blossoms with three black girls and put them in with the mix to make it sound more gospel. We thought that was going to be the end of it, but at the sessions, Elvis and the Blossoms got to talking – me mainly, because I had a big gospel background. Eventually he decided the Blossoms should be in the 1968 special."

 

Darlene Love : "He was very nervous because he hadn't performed in years. When you talked gospel with him, though, he was just like a friend sitting down talking. But he was very nervous because he had become a movie star and hoped the performance would be all right. He was very concerned about, 'How do I look? Do I look all right?' He was just like a normal person, but he was Elvis Presley. So how could you be normal?'"

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On 29 June 1968, Presley recorded both stand-up sessions. The arrangements of the songs for the stand-up shows were fast-paced — Presley accompanied them with shakes, gyrations and facial expressions that he emphasized with fist gestures and knee-drops.

For the show's closer, Binder decided to replace the spoken statement with a song. He instructed Billy Goldenberg and lyricist Walter Earl Brown to write a song that reflected Presley and his beliefs. Brown wrote "If I Can Dream" the same night. Binder sent it to Parker, who still thought the show closer was "I'll Be Home for Christmas". After Parker's negative response to the song, Binder bypassed him, and played the song for Presley. After hearing it three times, Presley was convinced to record it. For this number, Presley wore a three-piece white suit designed by Belew. A large sign in red letters that read E L V I S was placed on the black background, while Presley performed the song with a hand-held microphone. After finishing the song, Presley closed the special by saying "Thank you, Good night."

     

The special's final running time was 50 minutes, edited from four hours of taping. Presley was satisfied with the result. Singer Presents...Elvis aired on 3 December 1968, at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time. It placed first in the Nielsen television ratings for the week, displacing Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In which dropped to the second position. 42 percent of the total television audience viewed it, making it the most watched show of the season. An instant hit in the US, fans in the UK had to wait several frustrating months to experience Presley's comeback on TV for themselves.

 

The New York Times opened its review describing Presley's breakthrough, and his influence on the musicians of the time. It observed that on this special, he was "rather conservative" compared to his new peers. Critic Robert Shelton stressed the singer's impact on music, but felt the program showed the performer less energetic, but still in touch with the musical trends of the time.

Jon Landau of Eye magazine remarked, "There is something magical about watching a man who has lost himself find his way back home. He sang with the kind of power people no longer expect of rock 'n' roll singers. He moved his body with a lack of pretension and effort that must have made Jim Morrison green with envy."

   

By January 1969, the single "If I Can Dream", written for the special, reached number 12. The soundtrack album rose into the top ten. According to friend Jerry Schilling, the special reminded Presley of what "he had not been able to do for years, being able to choose the people; being able to choose what songs and not being told what had to be on the soundtrack. ... He was out of prison, man." 

Steve Binder : "I played Elvis the 60-minute show, and he told me in the screening room, 'Steve, it's the greatest thing I've ever done in my life. I give you my word I will never sing a song I don't believe in.'"

NBC rebroadcast the special in the summer of 1969. The song "Blue Christmas" was replaced by the number "Tiger Man", at Parker's request. In 1977, the program was aired in a special presented after his death by Ann-Margret called Memories of Elvis. This broadcast also included the infamous bordello sequence which was originally approved by the censors, but removed by the Singer Corporation to avoid controversy.



After the taping of the first sit-down session, Presley called Parker to his dressing room, and told him he wanted to return to touring. During a press conference, Parker announced that Presley would soon embark on a "Comeback Tour". Parker's choice of words angered Presley, who felt he was being labeled a "has-been".

Parker arranged Presley's return to performing live. He made a deal with Kirk Kerkorian, owner of the Las Vegas International Hotel, for Presley to play the newly built, 2,000-seat showroom for four weeks (two shows per night, with Mondays off) for $400,000. His initial Las Vegas show attracted an audience of 101,500 — a new Vegas performance record. By 1970, Presley began to tour the United States for the first time in 13 years.


The Single :
Quote"In the Ghetto" was written by Mac Davis, and recorded by Elvis Presley. Originally titled "The Vicious Circle", "In the Ghetto" was recorded during Presley's session in the American Sound Studio in Memphis, Tennessee. It was Presley's first creative recording session since the Elvis '68 Comeback Special.



The song was chosen by Billy Strange, who had previously picked material for other Presley sessions. The protest song denounces the consequences of poverty, with compassion for inner-city youth. Because of "In the Ghetto"'s lyrics, controversial for its time, Presley originally did not plan to record the song because he thought it might alienate fans. After producer Chips Moman said he might give the song to Rosey Grier, Presley's friends convinced the singer to record it.

The single was released on 15 April 1969, with 300,000 copies shipped by RCA. In its second week after release, it entered the charts, where it remained for thirteen weeks (reaching number three on June 14), selling a million copies in the United States. However, its success triggered a confrontation between RCA and American Sound. During the sessions, Presley's usual producer, Felton Jarvis, grew increasingly worried about losing control of Presley and his recordings. During its first two weeks on the chart, "In the Ghetto"'s production was credited to Jarvis. Elvis' friend Marty Lacker then called Billboard and had them correct the producer credit to Chips Moman. During the fourth week, manager Colonel Tom Parker, asked Billboard to remove the production credit from the song's entry entirely (arguing that Presley's records did not traditionally list a producer credit).



The song was Presley's first Top 10 hit in the United States in four years, peaking at number 3, and number 2 in Canada. It was his first UK Top 10 hit in three years, peaking at No. 2. on the boring old Record Retailer chart, but topped both the mint NME chart and the skill Melody Maker chart.

   

Other Versions includeDolly Parton (1969)  /  The Diplomats (1969)  /  Chris Clark (1969)  /  Nat Stuckey (1969)  /  The Family Dogg (1969)  /  Mac Davis (1970)  /  Solomon Burke (1970)  /  Bobby Solo (1970)  /  Sammy Davis Jr. (1970)  /  Ross McManus (1970)  /  Bobbie Gentry (1970)  /  Rip 'N' Lan (1971)  /  Candi Staton (1972)  /  Brooklyn Allstars (1972)  /  Susan Cadogan (1975)  /  Merle Haggard (1977)  /  Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (1984)  /  Bobby Bland (1985)  /  Leningrad Cowboys (1987)  /  Beats International (1991)  /  Wet Wet Wet (1995)  /  Eilert Pilarm (1998)  /  Natalie Merchant (1999)  /  Apache Indian feat. Boy George (2000)  /  The Cranberries (2001)  /  Ronan Keating (2003)  /  Freddie McGregor (2005)  /  Mica Paris (2005)  /  Chris de Burgh (2011)  /  8bitsofcool (2011)  /  Danny McEvoy (2011)  /  José Feliciano (2012)  /  Pagar y Morir (2013)  /  DNX (2015)  /  Nana Mouskouri (2018)  /  Luisma Vazq (2018)  /  Erick Del Imperio 8-bit (2020)

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :
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Gulftastic

'Cos if there's one thing that she don't need
It's another 5pence on a tin of beans
In the Netto (in the Netto...)

Bloody shops closures spoiling jokes.

kalowski

If I Can Dream with Edge of Reality as the b-side is a great single combo.
I love In the Ghetto and wish Elvis had kept pushing in this direction. I love his work 1968-71, but think he got stuck in a rut after that.