The Story of the Rolling Stones: A Chance Meeting That Changed Music Forever

Dave Anthony: 0:22
Welcome to garage to stadiums. Today's episode is the story of the Rolling Stones. Their incredible story begins not in a garage or a studio or on a stage, but on a gray train platform in Dartford, 20 miles east of London. Mick Jagger, 18 arms full of American blues records crossed paths with Keith Richards 17. The two had first met at seven year olds in primary school, but this reunion, bonded by Chuck Berry and muddy waters albums, would strike a partnership that changed music forever. From that moment, the stones roared out of London clubs to conquer the world, they sold over 250 million albums, terrified parents everywhere, and somehow, through addictions, arrests, deaths and near collapse kept rolling along the way, they made era defining albums, staged some of the most infamous concerts in history, and in their later years, even reinvented the business of touring itself. This isn't just the tale of a band, it's the saga of survival, reinvention and rebellion, and at its core, it's the story of two seven year old kids from Dartford, Nick and Keith, who became undisputed icons of rock and roll.

Introducing Christopher Sandford: The Preeminent Rolling Stones Biographer

Dave Anthony: 1:37
Here to tell their 60 year story is the author of The Rolling Stones 60 years Christopher Sanford, he's written acclaimed biographies of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Paul McCartney, Sting and Kurt Cobain, as well as books on John F Kennedy and Roman Polanski. For more than two decades, he's written about music and film for major media outlets on both sides of the Atlantic. Rolling Stone magazine has called him the preeminent author in his field. Today, he splits his time between London and Seattle and joins us now from Seattle. Welcome to garage, to stadiums. Chris, all right. Thanks, Dave, nice to be here

Dave Anthony: 2:16
the book that you've written and updated, Rolling Stones, 50 years, 60 years, et cetera. How did you get to know the stones for some of the research? Well, I'm an old time fan.

Christopher Sandford: 2:29
I don't quite go back to day one, but I go back to the kind of 6768

Christopher Sandford: 2:34
era when I was a kid. And largely it was because I was downstairs at my house in England as a child, and I think it was a dark Thursday night, and there was a venerable British music show, Top of the Pops, that came on every Thursday night. And somehow, my father, who was a very great guy, but a reputable, upright member of the British community, you know, establishment naval officer was upstairs somehow watching Top of the Pops. And I can only imagine it was because he happened to be channel hopping, rather than because he had an affinity for the pop music of the 60s. But I was downstairs, and I remember him screaming in a sort of outrage is I was quite worried. At first. I thought he might have had an accident or something, and I ran upstairs to see what the problem was. And the problem was, he was so offended by The Rolling Stones performing, probably, let's spend the night together, or maybe Jumping Jack Flash. I think it was probably, let's spend the night together. He was he was just paralyzed with indignation. These five young sort of thugs could be on his television screen in the middle of the evening and singing these lascivious lyrics. And I think at that point, I thought, these guys are good.

Christopher Sandford: 3:58
They've offended my father, which, of course, is very attractive, right that age. And they sort of got into my bloodstream. So I began a long, eventually juvenile event, originally juvenile, and then I guess, grown up fascination with them, and over the years, I met them a couple of times. I don't, I can't really claim to be intimate friends, or I've been backstage in various rooms in which they've been circulating. The one I would claim to know is dear old Bill Wyman, who I had some dealings with recently, who's, who's, of course, as we all know, no longer in the band, but a really interesting guy with great stories to tell. So I've come to know Bill quite well, which has been fun over the recent years.

The Origins of the Rolling Stones: Where Did They Come From?

Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and the Class Divide in Dartford

Dave Anthony: Can we talk a little bit about Jagger, Richards, Jones, watts, Wyman, just sort of briefly on, you know, where they grew up, what their family life was like? Sure. Well, I mean, there's a misconception among certain people. Steve.

Christopher Sandford: 5:00
All the stones are all impeccably working class, kind of downtrodden in Britain's, you know, very stratified class structure. And not quite true. I mean, Brian Jones came from Cheltenham, which is about as refined a town as it's hard to think of a North American equivalent, but somewhere in the sort of maybe Long Island Massachusetts, you know, Cape Cod, sort of ambience to it, very Genteel.

Christopher Sandford: 5:30
Admittedly, he was sort of run out of town eventually, but nonetheless, he grew up in some comfort as did as did Mick and I went to Dartford Grammar School

Christopher Sandford: 5:41
as part of my penance for writing about Mick a long time ago, I went to the school he was educated at, and they extracted from the file an old fashioned filing cabinet. They brought out his leaving report, confidential report, written when he was 18, as a reference for either a college admission or even a job. And what was striking about it was, I think I was probably the only stones archivist to have got that particular document. What's striking about it is how true to life it is today. It says things like

Christopher Sandford: 6:21
this, boy has mildly bohemian tendencies, but he has a fine mind. He's very self centered, very focused, not self centered. So very self focused. When he decides to achieve something, he undoubtedly achieves it. And you know, he has he compensates for lack of sheer intellectual willpower with with deep determination and ambition. And I mean that strikes 60 years later, you could say that's pretty much the mick blueprint across town. Meanwhile, was Keith in Dartford, literally on the other side of the tracks, because there is a railroad dividing the two the two parts of the town. And he grew up in a slightly more bleak,

Christopher Sandford: 7:10
say, working class culture. Hardly saw his dad, who worked such long hours. And I think he had quite a permissive mother, Doris, who, who? You know, he was an only kid. I think he got away with quite a lot as an adolescent and a teenager. And you could argue that some of those characteristics are still clearly the case today. You know, the self disciplined, focused Mick and the more laissez faire, not so detail orientated, Keith, and finally, Charlie was

Christopher Sandford: 7:43
very impeccably working class, but I think in the sense that he was also extremely house proud and very fastidious about things like his appearance and being punctual and being being, you know, efficient. And you could say that those were qualities that he displayed throughout the rest of his life as well, and just happened to have this miraculous gift for rhythm. So they were, they were a disparate bunch of people. They came from both sides of the British social system, and I think you can see the ingredients for what they still are today, in their early days.

The Dartford Train Platform: The Iconic Meeting of Mick and Keith

Dave Anthony: It's, it's an interesting but for a train ride together, we could not, you know, maybe not have the Rolling Stones that that Dartford platform story is iconic in the history of rock and roll. Do you want to tell it a little bit about it? Well, yeah, I mean, Mick and Keith had met as kids. And there's a there's a photo in one of the books I've written, showing them age nine or 10 together in a school group. And ironically, it's at Wembley Stadium. Ironic in that, you know, 25 years later, they returned in somewhat greater style, but they were at a school outing of some kind to go to England's soccer stadium together. And so there you see the spindly legged Keith, age 10, with his rather prominent ears, and in the middle of the group behind him, there's Mick, who is staring intently at the camera lens and holding a cat that had walked past, apparently, the group, and he'd clutched it to himself. And I can't help but think that there is a way there that Mick was, even at that age, ready to project himself in front of a camera. You know, he had a prop. There's a cat. He's the only kid who picked the cat up, and he's got that kind of intense Mick look, you know, staring right down the camera lens, whereas Keith has got that, I don't care, you know, look. So, I mean, they, they were buddies as kids, then they fell apart. They they moved apart because Mick went to a different school to Keith, and they.

Christopher Sandford: 10:00
Reunited in 61

Christopher Sandford: 10:02
October of 61 when they both happened to Yes, get on a train at Dartford station, which is not, God knows, particularly distinguished by anything else, but it is distinguished by this big bang moment where Mick was going up diligently to study London School of Economics. Keith was only going a couple of stops down the line to what was then Sidcup Art College, which was not a very academically pronounced place. He was basically killing time looking for some way out of it, and spent a lot of his time practicing the guitar. So he had a guitar Mick had albums. Chuck Berry,

Christopher Sandford: 10:50
you're nutty waters.

Christopher Sandford: 11:02
And you know, you don't see those too often at Dartford in 61 so they made a connection, and by the time Keith got off the train two stops later, they'd exchanged numbers. And yeah, the rest is history. Interestingly, I did find a guy at the London School of Economics, he's since passed away, who was mixed tutor, mixed professor at that time, Walter Stern was his name, and he kept really interesting notes of every time he met his students, he wrote not only what they did academically, but anything else he thought was interesting, and he actually wrote a note

Christopher Sandford: 11:43
that particular evening about the day that Mick and Keith met. And this is Walter stern, and he said something like, Mr. Jagger informed me that he'd met an old acquaintance, and he intended to be doing some blowing. I think he referred to it was presumably artwork. And stern went on to say, two days later, Mr. Jagger appeared in my office wearing a pair of blue Winkle picker shoes.

Christopher Sandford: 12:13
The next couple of weeks, he noticed this slow change in mix whole attitude. One day he came in and he said, Mr. Jagger, conducted our meeting today. I noticed he put his feet up on my desk throughout the entire meeting, and he saw this wonderful change from this rather

Christopher Sandford: 12:33
middle class, impeccably well behaved young Mike Jagger, as he was called to the Mick Jagger, we kind of know today, and this was all to do with Keith's influence, first couple of weeks, months that they reunited. So it was a wonderful sort of living image of how Mick, Mike transformed into Mick as seen through the eyes of his university tutor. Wow, that's, that's a interesting research there. Did, did do you think that there was an effect? The other way? Did Mick influence Keith?

Christopher Sandford: 13:11
Well, I think Mick was much more organized, even in those days. I mean, the fact that he had these mail order albums,

Christopher Sandford: 13:19
I think that impressed Keith. And if you read Keith's book, I'm sure you have, he talks about how Mick was together, and he, you know, he, he knew all the catalog numbers, even of the albums he could remember, you know, these long digits that attached to muddy Waters's second or third album. I think Keith was impressed by that. Whether Keith became more organized and more efficient as a result of me is a moot point. I don't see any great evidence of that. I think he was smart enough to see that Mick was another part of the equation, and a very important one. So there, you know, as has been said many times, they were two halves of the picture. And it was It was miraculous. They came together when they did

How the Rolling Stones Band Was Formed

Brian Jones and the Ealing Jazz Club

Dave Anthony: So how did this cast of characters from varying backgrounds, as Chris described, come together as a band? A key figure was guitarist Brian Jones, a charismatic, complicated character. By 21 he'd already bust overseas, fathered three children with three different women, and developed a deep love for the R B of Chuck Berry and muddy waters. In 1962

Christopher Sandford: 14:30
Brian was guesting at the Ealing jazz club in West London with British blues pioneer Alex corner and his widely admired band Blues incorporated Brian guested on guitar under the stage name Elmo Lewis in tribute to his slide guitar hero, Elmore James. When he tore into Elmore James song, dust my broom, two young men in the crowd, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, were electrified.

14:59
You.

15:00
Yeah,

Dave Anthony: 15:05
they introduced themselves after the show and learned Brian was starting a band. Jones had also placed an ad in jazz news, which brought in pianist Ian Stewart, and soon Jagger and Richards joined too, rehearsing with Jones and bassist Dick Taylor, that lineup Jones, Richards on guitars, Jagger on vocals, and Stewart on piano and Taylor on bass, was the seed that would grow into the Rolling Stones.

How Did the Rolling Stones Get Their Name?

Dave Anthony: So how did the stones get their name? Picture This Brian Jones phoned to his ear talking to a club owner, trying to convince him to let the group have their first gig. The club owner asked Ryan, so what's the band called? Panic. Brian glances down on the floor. Is the album The Best of muddy waters. Track five. Side one is called Rolling Stone blues. Ah, where the Rolling Stones, he blurts. Later, they tack on the G to the end of Roland, and on July 12, 1962 at the marquee club in London's Soho neighborhood, was their first gig.

Bill Wyman Joins the Rolling Stones

Dave Anthony: The Myth of Bill Wyman being recruited by this band they were. Was it true that, you know, Wyman had a amplifier or some sort of, you know, equipment. That's what got him in.

Christopher Sandford: Yeah, he went to a pub in, appropriately enough, a place called World's End in the in the wrong part of London, which is where they were then squatting, Mick, Bryan and Keith. And I think what really impressed him was, first of all, he did have a large amp. And secondly, he had a certain amount of money in his pocket because he had a job, and he used that to buy them drinks and hand round cigarettes. And I mean, they were, they were stone broke. And I think the very fact that he could, he could offer around beer and cigarettes and had his own equipment, was as much a calling card as his music, and he was also significantly older. I mean, when you're 19, someone who's 2526

Christopher Sandford: 17:10
is a sort of different thing. It's not so pronounced 50 years later, but at that time, they were still, Mick was at college, and the other two were dropouts, and they were really, you know, young kids, basically, whereas Bill had a family. I mean, he had a child at that stage, and he was into pop music. He was into the sort of top 20 hits of the day. He had Brylcreem, he had oily hair, and I don't think he pressed the right buttons for the stones, except the material one, and that was enough. And I don't think they were also inundated with other candidates. I mean, it's a pretty unpromising gig at that time,

Christopher Sandford: 17:51
bass player for these unknown, you know, scruffy guys living in their little room. So he got the gig based on that

Charlie Watts Joins the Rolling Stones

Dave Anthony: in need of a steady drummer, the stones began pursuing Charlie Watts, already well known on the London blues circuit for his refined jazz train style. At the time, like Brian Jones, he too was spending time drumming with blues incorporated that group led by Alexis corner, widely regarded as the father of British blues. As we just mentioned, the stones aggressively courted Charlie, though he was reluctant to give up steady gigs and reliable paychecks for an unproven blues group to sweeten the offer, the others even cut back on cigarettes and food, pooling what little money they had to guarantee him a steady weekly wage. Still, the decision weighed on Charlie remain in the safe embrace of Britain's blues Godfather Alexis corner, or take a gamble on a scrappy young band still fighting to prove itself. Watts finally joined in early 63 bringing the swing timing, steadiness and professionalism the stones needed from then on, he was revered by peers and fans alike as the band's unshakable, universally respected backbone. Educated in graphic design, he later applied his artistic eye to stage sets and tour logos, helping shape the stone's iconic visual identity.

The Rolling Stones Rise to Fame: From London Clubs to National Sensation

Andrew Loog Oldham: The Manager Who Shaped the Stones' Image

Dave Anthony: Alongside Mick Jagger in 1963 the Rolling Stones hit the road across the UK, finding their stride with raw, high energy takes on R, B, classics by Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and other black American pioneers, fronted by three striking figures, Brian Jones, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, the band quickly drew a legion of fans. Within months, they weren't just climbing the charts. They were even outscoring the Beatles in some early polls of England's most popular bands, a young man named Andrew Luke Oldham appeared on the scene just 19 years old. Andrew had been an assistant to Brian Epstein, The Beatles mastermind learning the art of publicity.

19:58
Thanks for listening to.

20:00
Garage to stadiums need more. Visit us on all social platforms and garage to stadiums.com. For bonus content.

Dave Anthony: 20:09
In April 63 the editor of a London based pop music weekly newspaper recommended to Andrew Oldham go see this blues band in Richmond, which was about 45 minutes west of London. Oldham walks in the air, thick with cigarette smoke, and watches the stones tear through their set. He's hooked within days, he's their manager. At first, he tries the Brian Epstein Beatles playbook, matching suits, tidy hair, clean cut charm, but then Oldham has a marketing positioning revelation. The stone shouldn't be like the Beatles. They should be their opposite. Out go, the suits. In come, the mismatched clothes, the long hair that don't give a damn attitude. He wants them raunchy, unpredictable, in his own words. Quote, threatening, uncouth, animalistic, unquote. He hammers it home with a headline that will haunt parents everywhere. The headline says, Would you let your daughter go with a rolling stone?

Ian Stewart: The Eliminated Rolling Stone

Dave Anthony: And Chris, you could say that Oldham wasn't shy about tough calls either, as in the case of the eliminated Rolling Stone. Ian Stewart,

Christopher Sandford: 21:15
yeah. I mean, he was very unlucky in that he was, he was one of the first in, maybe the first in, yeah, and he was auditioning for Brian. And I think he was obviously talented. He had that boogie woogie piano down, like very few other British piano players at that time, but he didn't look the part. And when, when, I think when Andrew Oldham came in in early 63 as the manager. And of course, it's extraordinary to think that Oldham was actually younger than Mick and Keith. I mean, he was 19 at the time, and they were just turning 20. Well, Mick was turning 20, and I very image conscious, and he didn't want anything that looked old or decrepit or smacked of the previous generation. And I think poor old Ian had a rather prominent chin,

Christopher Sandford: 22:08
but more importantly, he was just cheerfully old fashioned. I mean, he liked to put a propped his pint mug up on the top of the piano when he played. And he had a slightly even then, he had a slightly prominent belly, and he didn't care. So

Christopher Sandford: 22:26
he was out basically on the image. And I think Bill Wyman was quite lucky to survive as well, because he was, as we just said, he was the wrong side of, you know, respectable. He was 26 I think when he joined. And I think Oldham had doubts about Bill, but there was no compelling alternative to Bill, so he stayed. And of course, Ian Stewart stayed in, in the roadie capacity, and he was, I think, really heroic to do this incredible. I mean, stick around and play on these albums and move the equipment. Yeah, I never complained. And I think the one great thing he brought to the table, and Bill was telling me about this just the other day, was that he was the one guy. Stewart was the one guy They all listened to. And he would tell them, you know you were crap tonight,

Christopher Sandford: 23:19
or you know you you know, you didn't that song didn't work. Or, you know, there's too many Chinese chords, which is what he would call anything in a minor key, you know, anything pretentious that's straight, too far from the blues, he would say, "That's Chinese shit".

The Rolling Stones Begin Writing Their Own Songs

Dave Anthony: Let's move forward to, you know, the stones, of course, covering all the RnB, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, all those kind of bands and, you know, the Muddy Waters and all that kind of stuff. In 64 like the Beatles are already writing their own songs. The stones are still doing covers for the most part. What was the turning point? How did you know someone convinced them, hey, it's you got to bear down here, and how did they choose? Well, you tell us who they chose and why?

Christopher Sandford: Well, it was, again, it was Andrew Oldham's initiative. He was smart enough. He'd had some dealings with the Beatles. He was a sort of under publicist, under under Epstein, and he saw how much money could be made writing your own songs. And, you know, obviously the your career is going to be longer. Ideally, if you have your own material, you can only produce, you can only, you know, do a sort of human jukebox thing of other people's material for so long. So he was smart enough to see that was the future. And he, he, he sort of latched on to Mick and Keith as the two people who who could do that. Now there's still a debate to this day about whether Brian was elbowed out by Oldham, or whether Brian self destructed, or whether he was this wonderful songwriter who who was never given.

Christopher Sandford: 25:00
The opportunity to fulfill that. I think the reality is that Mick and Keith had the determination, and they may not have had the natural talent at first, but they had the focus, particularly Jagger, and they were the ones who were prepared to, you know, trial and error didn't happen overnight, go away and try and come up with songs, some of which are pretty awful to begin with. And, you know, it didn't happen in a flash of inspiration, but they they were prepared to do it. And I don't think Brian was the kind of guy who would lock himself in a room with a guitar and a piano for hours or days on end in the sort of monastic self discipline way. He just wasn't that kind of guy he would live for the moment, hedonistic. You know, what's the pop star lifestyle, if you will? That's what attracted him early on. So they had the they had the application.

Christopher Sandford: 26:01
It's arguable whether they had the natural talent that Brian did, but they had the application those two, what probably happened was Oldham said to them, listen, the Beatles are making a fortune. McCartney and Lennon are making a fortune writing these songs. Why don't you try? You know, come up with something

Lennon and McCartney Hand the Stones a Hit

Dave Anthony: because of stones manager Andrew Oldham's Beatles connections with Brian Epstein. 1963

Christopher Sandford: 26:27
brought an unexpected gift. John Lennon and Paul McCartney offered the Rolling Stones a song they had written called I Want To Be Your Man. It became a hit, but more importantly, it lit a fire. The stones realized they couldn't just play other people's songs. They did need to heed Oldham's advice and start writing their own tunes.

Mick Jagger Learns from James Brown on the T.A.M.I. Tour

Dave Anthony: Mick has long had a

Dave Anthony: 26:50
reputation, I'm going to call it, for borrowing

Dave Anthony: 26:55
imagery, musical styles, whatever, through his career, there's a seminal moment

Dave Anthony: 27:02
on the Tammy set of gigs in the US where he watches the famous James Brown perform. I mean, talk about high energy performer. James Brown may have been the guy. What do you think Mick took away from that series of concerts?

Christopher Sandford: Yeah, well, he learned a lot. He was a quick study. I did talk to the late Mary Wilson of The Supremes. She was on that bill the Tammy show, and she she remembered James Brown being furious that the stones were closing the show. Not he, not James Brown himself. And he threw around certain, you know, racially insensitive comments about, you know, these boys from England, you know, and I'm a star, and what the hell's going on here. But I think they took away a lot from each other, the stones and James Brown. I mean, he was also smart enough to see that they had an ear for a pop tune, a pop hook. And Mick was very He was fast to learn. Not only did he learn from James Brown at that show and other shows, but even on their first visit to the states in June of 64

Christopher Sandford: 28:13
whenever he had a spare moment, he wasn't going off to, you know, get high, or even necessarily women or any of those things. He was sitting in the balcony anonymously at the Apollo Theater, for instance, in Harlem, listening to whatever review was on that night and watching and he would absorb all of this information, how people moved on stage, how they got an audience up on their feet, how you keep an audience from losing interest halfway through the set all these things, he was smart enough to realize he had things he could learn, and he did learn them. So he was always on a quick a quick study

The Rolling Stones Classic Period Begins: 1965 and Beyond

Brian Jones Drifts as Mick and Keith Write Their First Ballad

Dave Anthony: by 1964 Brian Jones was still living it up off stage, and ended up fathering three more children by various women, while Mick and Keith, under Andrew Oldham's orders, locked themselves away to write their first big ballad that they wrote was as tears go by, lyrics by Mick, Melody by Keith, given to a 17 year old Mary Ann faithful, a former folk singer turned pop star, but no

29:20
I can see

Christopher Sandford: 29:33
Jagger later admitted it was a very melancholy song for a 21 year old to write

Dave Anthony: 29:39
Their first number one hit wouldn't come until February 65 with their own the last time.

Brian Jones, Anita Pallenberg and the Dark Side of Success

Dave Anthony: 29:53
But as the band rolled into 1965 Brian kept chasing the party and started dating model.

Dave Anthony: 30:00
Anita pallenberg, a glamorous mix of German and Italian heritage, and as you will hear, Anita would soon become one of the most fateful figures in the stones history.

How Satisfaction Became Rock's Greatest Anthem

Dave Anthony: If the stones had a true turning point, perhaps it would be in 1965 with their new song satisfaction, that July, the song didn't just top the charts, it blew apart the charts with Keith's buzzsaw guitar riff,

30:34
the mix sneering rebellious lyrics, complete with the gloriously ungrammatical can't get now.

Dave Anthony: 30:49
It became an anthem for restless youth everywhere, sealing the Jagger Richards partnership as Rock's next great songwriting force and true to their now bad boy image, the lyrics and satisfaction with the phrase quote, trying to make some girl unquote, had the song banned by the BBC the story of satisfaction being conceived is quite an interesting one that really launched the stones to the you know, top of the heap at some levels, that song was so devastatingly impactful on radio, as we know, it's still really the signature song. It came about in May of 65

Christopher Sandford: 31:27
when they were on one of their frenetic kind of concert tours of the states. And in those days, you paid 30 minutes. You didn't even usually play that often, that long, because the thing would devolve into a riot after the second or third song. So they all went back to this little motel in Clearwater, Florida. The Gulf motel, which is in is still there, but it's changed hands and changed name. And somewhere in the middle of the night, Keith, Keith had this riff apparently going on in his head, and he he had a very early tape recorder, a primitive sort of cassette recorder by the bed, and he hummed, and I think, strummed with his acoustic guitar, a few notes of what was going on in his head. Yeah, he apparently had fallen asleep soon after recording the riff, and in the morning, Heath rewinds the tape, finds this gem of a riff at the beginning, and on the rest of the tape, all that he can hear is him snoring. He claims he had no recollection of the riff. So thankfully, at least taped it exactly. And I mean, and as with all almost every great song, I mean, it was there in this sort of, you know, in embryonic form, but it it needed working up. And I think what really did it was When Ian Stewart, who we were talking about a minute ago, the unsung hero, the stones, uh, Stu went off a couple of days later. They were in Hollywood, and they went to the RCA studios there. Stu went off and got a fuzz box at some local musical equipment store. And they were quite rare at that time. I mean, just coming into the market, I think Eric Clapton was maybe using one, but not too many others, and they put Keith's guitar through this fuzz box, and it changed the whole sound of the thing.

33:22
The

Christopher Sandford: 33:28
and it went from being what had originally been in Keith's mind, I think more of a Stax, like Soul sound. He envisioned horns, where we now hear that crunching guitar riff. He heard horns, for instance. So it was only in this the guitar sounded, I think, to him, thin when he played it without the box, when he plugged it into the fuzz box, it got that nice raspy sound that we all know and love. And I, you know, I think Mick added some lyrics. And in those days, they often just, he made the lyrics up more or less on the spot. You know that that riff probably changed rock and roll, just the direction of it, at some levels, the way that they got. I mean, hats off to Ian Stewart for grabbing that box. Yeah. I mean, Ian, someone should, I think they have written a book about Ian Stewart, but someone should really there should be a statue to him somewhere, or a memorial the things he contributed to the stones, not only as a friend and an advisor, but musically as well. I mean, it's incredible. He was definitely the guy who had the smarts to say, Try plugging this in Keith. And I think Keith always been reluctant. To this day, he said as much, to go for any effects or gimmicks, or he doesn't have pedals on stage or anything like that. He just has a guitar. But he was smart enough to go with Stuart's advice, and that's the result. I think there is some controversy as the.

Christopher Sandford: 35:00
Brits would say controversy, as North Americans would say, relative to Mick and Keith dominating the credits, when really others played key roles or claimed to what was your research telling him? Do you think that they just didn't want are the two, the alpha males of the group and the others don't push, or they're just modest? Or what's the reason? I think a bit of all of the above, and also management, and I think they were quite keen to keep it down to the duo and not not to expand it into anything more collective than that. Nick and Keith were smart enough to hear something that maybe the guy who actually came up with the germ of the idea didn't hear after the success of satisfaction. The next album was December's children in 1965

Christopher Sandford: 35:47
producing, get off my cloud.

Christopher Sandford: 35:57
The 19th nervous breakdown.

Alan Klein: The American Accountant Who Changed the Stones' Future

Dave Anthony: Next we will hear about another mysterious figure that enters the stones world in the form of an American accountant who would change the stone's future in many ways.

36:12
Want more garage to stadiums. Visit us on Instagram, YouTube, X, Facebook and LinkedIn. You

Dave Anthony: 36:23
in 1965 the pop music industry was abuzz about an audacious American accountant by the name of Alan Klein who offered to renegotiate the Rolling Stones record contract with Decca Records in one of the worst decisions in the history of music, Decca had passed on signing the Beatles and said to manager Brian Epstein that, quote, guitar groups are on the way out, unquote, because DECA was embarrassed by the loss of the top selling Beatles. Alan Klein sniffed an opportunity for leverage to stand up to Decca and renegotiate the stone's original contract.

Dave Anthony: 37:01
KEITH RICHARDS recalls that Klein called a meeting with the stones and said, quote, we're going to nadeka today, and we're going to work on these motherfuckers. We're going to come out with their best record contract ever. He told the group, wear some shades. Just stand at the back of the room and look at these old doddering farts and don't talk. I'll do the talking. Unquote, inside the boardroom, Klein faced Sir Edward Lewis, the frail English Lord running Decca Records, according to Keith Richards, the elderly Lewis began drooling at Klein's preposterous demand to renegotiate an existing contract and an assistant would have to attend to his drool. The end result, Lord Lewis caved, and the stones walked out of the meeting with 1.2 5 million in advance royalties. Now that may not sound like much today, but it was unheard of at the time. It was even more than the Beatles had received from their label. EMI Alan Klein was now part of the Rolling Stones management team, which, as you will hear, would have lasting repercussions for the group down the road.

The Rolling Stones in 1966: Brian Jones Drifts Further

Dave Anthony: But first back to the music on the 1966 album, aftermath, Brian Jones was continuing his drifting from his early prowess on guitar. He was chasing new sounds, marimbas, dulcimers, and most famously, the sitar that you can hear on painted black Come

38:22
on. And you can also hear him play the marimbas, wooden like blocks struck by mallets in under my thumb. And

Marianne Faithfull and Her Cultural Influence on Mick Jagger

Dave Anthony: 38:56
remember that 17 year old Marianne faithful from 1964 who'd sung Heath and Mick's first ballad as tears go by. By 1966 she'd left her husband with her young son in tow to be with Jagger. They were actually introduced through Brian's girlfriend, Anita pallenberg, Mick and Marianne became one of swinging London's it couples, but Marianne brought more than beauty and scandal. Her father was a British intelligence officer, and her mother was a ballerina from an old, wealthy European family that had stood against the Nazis, which is how she met marianne's British intelligence officer father,

Dave Anthony: 39:36
Marianne grew up in England in a home filled with books, theater, opera and poetry,

Dave Anthony: 39:43
and this cultured upbringing seeped into Mick Jagger's world, which influenced the sophistication of his lyrics and Rolling Stones music in ways that would last for years.

The Fall of Brian Jones: Violence, Drugs and Exile

Dave Anthony: And speaking of Anita pallenberg, her stormy relationship with Brian Jones, raged on. Remember Brian was the band's.

Christopher Sandford: 40:00
Wonder, but the spotlight had shifted. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were now the songwriting duo and really the CO bosses of the band. Brian's drinking and drug use often even boiled over into violence, including toward Anita, one infamous trip to France and then Morocco was meant to be a bonding journey, a chance to patch things with Mick and Keith. Instead, according to Keith, Brian beat Anita, and Brian himself subsequently landed in the hospital with pneumonia.

Christopher Sandford: 40:31
Keith, disgusted by Brian's behavior, took Anita and left, and they became a couple, eventually having three children, and the divide with Brian Jones only deepened. Meanwhile, somehow, in this chaos, the music marched on the album between the buttons in 1967 gave us Let's spend the night together. When asked to perform on Ed Sullivan's family friendly Sunday night show, producers demanded a lyrical change. They said, You will sing. Let's spend some time together. Mick Jagger obliged, but the camera catches the eye. Roll rebellion barely contained right there on national TV. We'll include that clip at our website, garagestadiums.com

The 1967 Drug Bust at Redlands: A Cultural Turning Point

Dave Anthony: the next issue I wanted to bounce off you was the fact that

Dave Anthony: 41:20
the infamous drug bust in 67 at Keith Richards Redlands estate. That was a cultural shape shifting moment. Was it not in? Well, rock history, UK history, I mean that trial, that what happened next and and maybe you can tell us, you know, what you think of that incident, and what were the impact on British society was at the time, sure.

Christopher Sandford: Well, I mean, it took place on February the 12th, 1967 to be exact. And it was a Sunday night, and that the tranquil world of Redlands, Keith's house in the in the English countryside, was disturbed by this incredible

Christopher Sandford: 41:59
intrusion of police. There was something like 25 policemen. It was, though it was a sort of huge terrorist roundup almost descended on this otherwise quiet, idyllic cottage where Mick, Keith, Marianne, faithful and half a dozen of their friends were basically relaxing over various pharmaceuticals on a Sunday night, and Mick and Keith were arrested and hauled off and eventually were found guilty at trial and given these extraordinarily severe sentences, given the paucity of what the police actually came up with, I Think

Christopher Sandford: 42:40
Mick got six months, and Keith got a year inside for allowing his premises to be used for the purpose of drug taking. And it was, of course, another classic case is so many in history of the establishment overreaching itself, and, you know, completely counterproductive, because I think the

Christopher Sandford: 43:03
belief was, okay, we'll lock these two hoodlums up for six months or a year,

Christopher Sandford: 43:09
and they're impressionable young. Kids who listen to these idiots will lose interest, or they'll see them in a different light, will be irrevocably tarnished, and after they get out, they'll reform, you know, maybe they'll get a job and settle down and we'll hear no more of them exactly once it happened. It was this huge outcry that they'd been given they'd been unfairly treated, and it was led, ironically, by The Times newspaper, which was about as straight and establishment a paper as you could get in England in the 60s, and was not known for hitherto, for its, you know, espousal, the rock music. But the editor wrote a very interesting lead article, saying that basically, the two Mick and Keith had been treated unfairly, and that their sentence was not that which would have been given had they been two anonymous young men, and that this was a case where the police and the court system had overreacted to something. And it was, it was not British. I think they used the phrase, you know, if we're going to espouse qualities in this country that we think of as traditionally British, those qualities should include fairness and complete equal handedness in front of the law, and they don't in this case. So as a result of that and other initiatives, Mick and Keith got out a day later, never served any more jail time. But what it did was to polarize opinion, of course, and suddenly you had people like my dad, just as one example, but millions of people like him who thought the Rolling Stones were, you know, absolutely terror, subversive people that they were going to go.

Christopher Sandford: 45:00
Out and spike the water supply of the country with LSD and, God knows what else. What other horrors were going to ensue? And you had everyone else under the age of, I don't know, 21 maybe, arbitrarily speaking, it could have been a different age who thought they were wonderful and that they were scapegoats in this particular they'd be badly treated. So it had the opposite effect to the one that the straights the suits might have had in mind. And it became very much an us and them society as a result. And they polarized Britain. You were either pretty much for the stones or against the stones. No one was indifferent to them. Everyone had an opinion, and the law did much more for the Rolling Stones image than half a dozen hit singles or, you know, hell raising tours of the US, anything like that. I mean, it was the police at the court system who really launched the stones stratosphere. It's ironic, exactly perspective, yeah. So they, they helped the image along, yeah.

Dave Anthony: And it's interesting because we had Bob Spitz on and he wrote

Dave Anthony: 46:11
probably the best selling book on The Beatles that's ever been published. And Bob,

Dave Anthony: 46:16
you know, walked us through the reality of the Beatles and, you know, heroin, LSD, all sorts of stuff that, like, you know, hard drugs and chaos that The Beatles had. But of course, it never got publicized, and they were almost protected by the establishment as the good guys, it seems, and the stones bore the brunt of the police activity in that case, at least,

Christopher Sandford: 46:36
yeah. I mean, it was completely counterproductive. And you know, if the if the police had not knocked on the door of Redlands that dark Sunday night and the subsequent events had happened as they did, we might have had a very different Rolling Stones. I'm sure they would have gone on to have a career, obviously, yeah, but I don't think they would have been as iconic as they became, or as polarizing. So, yeah, it was, yet again, a classic case. It's like, it's like, you know, if you ban a record, for instance, yeah, exactly becomes a success. And same sort of phenomenon here. I mean they by hauling them off in handcuffs eventually. I mean, there's a famous picture of Mick being dragged away from court in handcuffs, and the the the policeman he's handcuffed to his beaming with pleasure at this, at this incarceration. I mean, hugely counterproductive and totally the opposite of what they had in mind.

The Rolling Stones in 1967: Psychedelia, Stumbles and a Return to Form

Dave Anthony: Now free from drug trials in jail, the stones dove into 1967 Summer of Love, only to stumble. In December, they released their satanic Majesty's request album, an obvious nod to the Beatles Sergeant Pepper album, the result a kaleidoscopic LSD soaked detour critics called awkward and self indulgent. Yet amid the swirling sitars and layered sounds Sean one Jim the song, she's a rainbow, a vivid burst of color in an otherwise uneven experiment.

Christopher Sandford: 48:19
Some of the lyrical flourishes on the album likely reflected the cultured, worldly influence that Marianne faithful was now bringing into Mick's life. However, that 1967 psychedelic misstep didn't deter the stones determined Mick and meticulous musical craftsman Keith Richards vowed to return to form. They'd strip back the experimentation, refocus on R and B and guitar driven songs and launch what would become the stones Classic period, a sequence of four albums starting in 1968 that astonished fans and cemented their place in rocks upper pantheon.

Jimmy Miller and the Start of the Stones' Classic Period

Dave Anthony: So how did the stones kick off their classic period in 68 after the humiliation of the psychedelia soaked their satanic Majesty's request, the turning point came with the arrival of new producer, Jimmy Miller, a former drummer who had produced bands fronted by Stevie Wynwood and Eric Clapton. Miller was known for his no nonsense, straight to the point style and the stones sought him out to help find the spinal column groove in their music. Their first collaboration was the single jumpin Jack Flash.

49:41
Jumpin Jack Flash was followed by the 1968 album, beggars, banquet everywhere

49:51
I

49:53
hear the sound of

49:59
March.

Dave Anthony: 50:00
And under Miller's guidance, the band crafted some of their most enduring work. One standout song, Sympathy for the Devil, lists a litany of historical horrors, from the crucifixion of Jesus to the death of the Russian czar, the atrocities World War Two and the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers. After

50:22
all, the all, it

Dave Anthony: 50:32
was the song was inspired by Marianne faithful, who had given Mick Jagger a copy of the novel The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, a novel about the devil visiting 1930s Moscow Mick translated that dark literary vision into a song for the ages. Some believe that Anita pellenberg, who by now had left Brian Jones for Keith Richards, may have influenced the song, as according to her own memoirs, she was very interested in the occult and black magic, and even considered herself a witch and attempted to put spells on people. As Jimmy Miller has mentioned in interviews, Brian Jones barely appears on Beggar's Banquet due to continuing absences during recording due to his escalating drug addiction. Miller says when he did show up, Brian would have some new instrument and insist on playing it. According to interviews with producer Miller, he claims that Jagger and Richards advise Miller that. Quote, if Brian continues to do this, just tell him to piss off. Unquote,

The Death of Brian Jones and the First Tragedy in Rock and Roll

Dave Anthony: next, the volatile co founder of the stones, Brian Jones, the man who placed that fateful wanted ad that created the stones is confronted by the band for his deteriorating behavior. What followed would become one of the first tragedies in rock and roll, garage to stadiums ranked as one of the top 5% of podcasts globally on June 8, as the band was recording the aforementioned Beggars Banquet Jagger and Richards, along with Charlie Watts, confronted co founder Brian Jones. His drug use and growing disengagement had made collaboration impossible. Jones agreed to leave the band. He had barely played on recent recordings and had increasingly withdrawn, compounded by tensions over Keith Richards being together with Anita pallenberg, enter Mick Taylor, a 20 year old blues guitar prodigy who had replaced Eric Clapton in the highly respected band John May Hall and the blues breakers,

Christopher Sandford: 52:34
and he was already known for his skill at this young age, he stepped in to Replace Brian, bringing fresh energy to the stone's lineup, and then just three and a half weeks later, on July 3, 1968

Christopher Sandford: 52:49
Brian Jones was found dead in a swimming pool. The coroner ruled it, quote, death by misadventure, unquote, an accidental drowning worsened by alcohol and drugs with an enlarged liver and heart noted in the report he was only 27 Joan's death marked one of rock's earliest and most infamous tragedies, and he would become member of the infamous so called 27 Club, which would later see Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and later Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse all dead in their prime at age 27

Dave Anthony: 53:24
two days later, after Brian's death, the stones performed a massive Hyde Park concert in front of hundreds of 1000s in his memory, but neither Mick Jagger nor Keith Richards attended his funeral.

Alan Klein's Financial Betrayal of the Rolling Stones

Dave Anthony: Earlier we mentioned Alan Klein's representation of the stones would have lasting and devastating financial consequences on the group. Klein didn't just manage artists money. He inserted himself between them and their record labels through so called Buy Sell deals, where his own company controlled the rights, manufacturing and sales that meant bigger paydays for his clients and for Klein, sometimes without them even realizing it. In 1965 the Rolling Stones 1.2 5 million DECA advance landed in a Klein controlled bank account with the fine print letting him hold onto it for 20 years.

Christopher Sandford: 54:22
The band ultimately accused him of withholding royalties, stealing publishing rights, and failing to pay taxes. You know, a lot of chaos emerges in the in the late 60s, they start to see that Alan Klein is, you know, not exactly the agent that he proclaimed to be, and Jagger runs into quite a character, Prince Rupert Lowenstein, at a I won't even dare to say his real name, because there's about 14 or 15 names to it, which I'm sure people will get when they when they read your book. And I wondered what you thought. You know, what was the impact of Prince Rupert?

Christopher Sandford: 55:00
Coming on the scene. What did he finally do for these guys? I think he was very much on mix wavelength and vice versa in terms of branding the stones as a corporation, not just as a group. And you started to get not only better royalty rates and better deals with record companies and their own record label, but then you started to get things like merchandising and, you know, the $300

Christopher Sandford: 55:27
bomber jackets and the B weeders T shirts. I mean, all that was part of Loewen Stein's initiative. He saw that they could be a corporation as much as just a band of five musicians. Yeah, and I think that chimed with how Mick was thinking about it, and the rest of them went along with it. I mean, Keith often said, I, you know, I didn't want to sell our music to commercials. I didn't really like merchandising ever. There's no evidence he's ever declined to cash a check when it came in.

Christopher Sandford: 56:01
He's, he's quite happy with the results of all of this. Oh, yeah. So it was, it was Mick and Rupert's initiative, but the rest of them were quite happy to go along with it.

The Rolling Stones in 1969: Let It Bleed and the Dark Sound of an Era

Dave Anthony: Fast forward to November 1969

Dave Anthony: 56:15
no one can accuse the Rolling Stones of ever giving up. Faced with another blow from Alan Klein's financial shenanigans, they continued to focus on the music with new guitarist, Mick Taylor in tow, and Jimmy Miller returning in the producer chair, first for a single entitled Honky Tonk Woman, which saw Miller, the former drummer, play the song's opening cowbell. The subsequent album, 1969 let it bleed, also produced by Miller, had him also drumming on The song, you can't always get what you want.

Dave Anthony: 57:22
and the dark songs continued, Gimme Shelter became almost a sequel to the earlier Sympathy for the Devil, but this time, the apocalyptic song discusses current dark news of late 60s, chaos that seemed daily in the news war, murder and even rape.

57:59
Another haunting cut was midnight Rambler,

58:16
which tripped with violent images of a killer on the loose, which was said to be about a murderer of the late 1960s Albert DeSalvo, better known as the Boston Strangler.

Why Did the Rolling Stones Go Dark? Vietnam, the Occult and the Times

Dave Anthony: 58:40
Chris some of the stones albums and songs as the 1960s progress. Get darker Sympathy for the Devil. Give me shelter. Midnight Rambler, mentions of murder, death, dark images of violence. I'd love your opinion on this. People often attribute this to the influence of Mary Ann faithful literary knowledge on Mick Jagger or Anita pallenberg is very strange fondness for the occult and dark imagery. Or was it just the cultural shift, the protest, the civil strife, the Vietnam War, what do you think kind of went into this? Or was it just a continuation of the, you know, the image of the anti Beatles, you know, the bad boys. I've always wondered, how did they come to this dark place in some of these tunes?

Christopher Sandford: I think it was probably all the above, the things you mentioned, and not not one in isolation,

Christopher Sandford: 59:27
what they were dark times in some ways. You know, Vietnam was the obvious shadow over everyone's life, or over artistic life, anyway, in the late 60s. And you know, Mick went on various demonstrations and marches. I've always remembered, just as a footnote, the late great Tom keelock, who worked for the stones in the 60s, and he was a sort of driver slash bodyguard. He did everything for them,

Christopher Sandford: 59:56
told me he dropped Mick off

Christopher Sandford: 59:59
in.

Christopher Sandford: 1:00:00
His Bentley mitten Jaggers, Bentley at the top of the march through London's Grosvenor Square that was demonstrating against the Vietnam War. And then Mick. Mick allowed his photograph to be taken several times and shouted the right slogans and linked arms with the marchers. And then he had Tom waiting around the corner 20 minutes later in the Bentley to take him off to some fast watch. And I always thought that was a sort of snapshot of Mick.

Christopher Sandford: 1:00:29
He's hip enough to see which way the zeitgeist is moving, and he may have been genuinely motivated to join that. I'm not saying he wasn't, but he was smart enough to know where the cameras were and what he had to do to appear, you know, street smarts. And yet, he had the Bentley waiting with his chauffeur, you know, to take him back to the Ritz for lunch or wherever he went. So, I mean, that's Mick for you, yeah, yeah. And Gimme Shelter is a, is a classic example of that, and it, I think Gimme Shelter reflects not only the larger landscape of the Vietnam War and, you know, Nixon era in the US, but I mean, there was specific things going on in the stones his life that it also reflects. I mean, you know, they were making this film performance in London. And of course, Mick, Mick was in there with Anita, and they had various, shall we say, erotic scenes together, some doubt to this day as to how far that play acting went and how much of it was real. And there's Keith brooding around the corner, you know, waiting for his girlfriend to come back from shooting these nude scenes with his best friend. It's an unusual situation, and he's in Robert Fraser's flat, their art dealer friend Robert Fraser one night waiting for Anita to come back from the set. And as luck would have it, there is literally an almighty storm blowing over London.

Christopher Sandford: 1:02:15
The windows were rattling, apparently, and that that was how the genesis of Gimme Shelter came apart. So again, you've got the larger picture of the times

Christopher Sandford: 1:02:26
and the disconnection of politics and society and the dark shadow of Vietnam. And then you've got the specifics of the stones and their dynamic. And they've always been quite clever at bringing the sort of specific into the general, you know, adapting their own problems or their own issues into something that sounds as though it's got a universal truth to it. And I think that's the story of gimme shoulder. And it's a combination of things, in short, that were going on in the late 60s, but I wouldn't rule out their own domestic issues as a big factor in those songs

What's Next: Part Two of the Story of the Rolling Stones

Dave Anthony: in part two of the story of the Rolling Stones, the end of the turbulent 1960s would come to a close for the band, but not before yet another dark shadow of misfortune and loss as the decade ends. Join us for part two as we uncover that tragedy and follow the stone's journey into the tumultuous 1970s and 80s.

THE TRAGEDY AT ALTAMONT

[00:00:00] Dave Anthony: Welcome back to Garage to Stadiums for part two of the story of The Rolling Stones. As the 1960s came to a close in December 1969, The Stones were about to be haunted by another tragic chapter. But first, some context. By the close of the 1960s, rock and roll had reshaped culture. Clothes, hair, fashion, sex, all had changed since 1960.

[00:00:22] Dave Anthony: Festivals like Woodstock had drawn hundreds of thousands into a dream of peace, love, and freedom, and Mick Jagger and The Stones wanted a piece of that energy for themselves. They planned a free concert in San Francisco at Golden Gate Park, but the city balked. Instead, a remote, hard-to-reach venue with limited access for a large crowd was chosen near Altamont Speedway, a racetrack 55 miles east of San Francisco.

[00:00:49] Dave Anthony: The Altamont Free Concert would feature performances by California-based bands Santana, Jefferson Airplane, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and The Rolling Stones. But the site was [00:01:00] horrendous to organize, the logistics were chaotic, and once the music began, the gathering quickly spiraled out of control.

[00:01:06] Dave Anthony: What was meant to be a celebration of music and freedom descended into dysfunction, culminating in a homicide that would stain The Stones' legacy and mark one of the darkest moments in rock history.

What went wrong at the show

[00:01:18] Christopher Sandford: Uh, the Altamont concert, I mean, talk about a way to end the '60s on a bad note. What... Like, that concert, what do you

[00:01:26] Dave Anthony: think the motivation was to do that?

[00:01:29] Dave Anthony: 'Cause that was ill-fated from the moment the planning started, it seemed.

[00:01:33] Christopher Sandford: Yeah, it was all done at the last minute. And I, I think it was a well-intentioned idea, mainly by Jagger, to do a free show. Uh, and there'd been one five months earlier in London at Hyde Park, which had been completely trouble-free, and they, they played in front of 300,000 people in London.

[00:01:56] Christopher Sandford: And the British Hells Angels were sort [00:02:00] of the security in the London show. Now, the British Hells Angels and the San Francisco version are two rather different beasts. Uh, and I think the British guys tended to, you know, still live with their mums and dads and go home for tea. And, you know, maybe at the weekend they dressed up a little bit and went out on their low, low-budget, you know, motor scooters and emulated what they thought of as the, the, the motorcycle culture.

[00:02:29] Christopher Sandford: The, the San Francisco guys were a little bit harder core than that and, you know, and they were loaded, some of them. The, the myth that they were officially hired to be security is, is a myth, is another Rolling Stones legend.

[00:02:43] Dave Anthony: Hmm.

[00:02:44] Christopher Sandford: There, there was never a contract or an agreement. I think beer was the main exchange mechanism, and they said, someone in the Stones organization said, "You can have access to this beer, but, you know, keep order as well, as best you can."

[00:02:59] Christopher Sandford: Hmm. "We don't [00:03:00] want anyone on the stage," for instance. Well, you know, and again, saying to the San Francisco Hells Angels, "Here's a truckload of beer for free, and, you know, we want you to, you know, act as stewards on this," is, is really asking for a certain amount of grief, and they got it. And it was overcrowded.

[00:03:20] Christopher Sandford: It went on really long and late. The stage was badly constructed. It was very low. Very low, yeah. And there were a number of other problems, and of course it was a tragedy in front where Meredith Hunter, um, who was just watching the show and maybe was influenced by drugs, uh, waved a gun around and for whatever reason, and was, and was brutally killed v- more or less in front of the stage.

[00:03:47] Christopher Sandford: So it was a shambles.

[00:03:51] The Rolling Stones : Hey, Keith, Keith, Keith. Keith, will you do it? And I'll try and stop it. Hey, brothers and sisters, brothers [00:04:00] and sisters- Come on now. That means everybody just cool out. Is there anyone there that's hurt, huh? Everyone all right? Okay

[00:04:15] Christopher Sandford: It was a terrible tragedy. And as you say, almost symbolically, it was in December of 69, rounded off the 60s.

[00:04:24] Christopher Sandford: What was significant in the longer term was, I think, again, it taught the Stones and particularly Mick never to do anything that they weren't fully on top of.

[00:04:34] Dave Anthony: Mm.

[00:04:35] Christopher Sandford: And the idea that you could throw a sort of festival together hippie-like, uh, in a few hours and it'll be fine because everyone will be mellow and no one will hurt anyone else and it'll be love and peace.

[00:04:48] Christopher Sandford: I think that was the last time they really went for that-

[00:04:52] Dave Anthony: Mm ...

[00:04:52] Christopher Sandford: particular promise. And from then onwards, it was always gonna be a much more structured, much more organized beast. [00:05:00] And, you know- Yeah ... that's what we have today. So it was a turning point for the Stones as much as for the culture.

[00:05:06] The Rolling Stones : Interesting.

REBUILDING WITH ROLLING STONES RECORDS AND STICKY FINGERS

[00:05:07] Dave Anthony: By 1970, The Stones had learned some hard lessons from the Allen Klein fiasco.

[00:05:12] Dave Anthony: Determined to regain control, they launched Rolling Stones Records, securing better rights to their music and partnering with Atlantic Records for distribution. But the fight with Klein was far from over, a legal battle that would ultimately stretch 13 years. Despite their legal efforts to claim that Klein deliberately misled them, including the rights to their songs, the courts ruled that Klein ultimately retained ownership of all pre-1970 songs, including the massive-selling Hot Rocks greatest hits collection.

[00:05:45] Dave Anthony: With no alternative but to push forward, in 1971 they headed to Muscle Shoals, Alabama, legendary for its Southern soul productions, to record the album Sticky Fingers. Released in April [00:06:00] 1971, the album was an instant sensation. Its i- iconic Andy Warhol cover, complete with a working zipper over a man's crotch, turned heads as much as the music itself.

[00:06:11] Dave Anthony: The album sold 22 million copies and delivered classic tracks like Brown Sugar

[00:06:24] Dave Anthony: Can't you hear me knocking?

[00:06:34] Dave Anthony: And bitch

[00:06:45] Dave Anthony: The album also continued the Stones continuing to dabble with country music. Keith Richards had become friends a couple years back with Gram Parsons, former member of The Byrds and country rock pioneer. He and Keith bonded over country music and drugs, [00:07:00] and Parsons' influence can be heard on tracks like Wild Horses

[00:07:16] Dave Anthony: And dead flowers.

[00:07:18] The Rolling Stones : Making bets on Kentucky

TAX EXILE AND THE MAKING OF EXILE ON MAIN STREET

[00:07:40] Dave Anthony: Adding that country flavor to the Stones' sound. Meanwhile, the financial chaos left behind by Klein demanded radical solutions. Enter the mysterious financial figure, Prince Rupert, who Mick Jagger had brought in to right the ship. And Prince Rupert devised a bold [00:08:00] plan.

[00:08:00] Christopher Sandford: Well, the first thing he did was to advise them to, uh, uh, take at least a year out of the country, um, to, you know, register as tax exiles, which is how they came to find themselves in France in '71, '72 with all that entailed.

[00:08:17] Christopher Sandford: I mean, Exile on Main Street is the obvious- Mm-hmm ... artifact that came out of that.

Life at Villa Nellcôte

[00:08:21] Dave Anthony: You describe the scene at Keith Richards' home, uh, on the French Riviera, Villefranche-sur-Mer. Mm. The mansion. That was the town and, uh, Villa, Villa Nelcôte was the home. Y- you paint a picture of that place that's absolutely out of the, uh, you know, rock and roll handbook of what a party place would be.

[00:08:44] Dave Anthony: Can you describe for the audience a few of the weird things and wonderful things that were happening in that, that sort of exile stage?

[00:08:52] Christopher Sandford: Yeah, it was pretty chaotic. I mean, I, I've never been there, but I, I've interviewed people who were there. Survivors, if you will. [00:09:00] And it was, it was pretty chao- That's a good word.

[00:09:03] Christopher Sandford: Yeah, they were survivors. It was pretty chaotic. You had this absolutely beautiful, idyllic, um, estate overlooking the sea, you know, and you can imagine the south of the front of the Riviera in summertime. Gorgeous, you know. And he- Keith had a private beach. He had a speedboat. He had all these cars at his disposal.

[00:09:21] Christopher Sandford: And of course, you had heroin, which was freely available in Toulouse and Nice, among other places, which are just- Uh-huh ... down the coast. Uh-huh. So you put all those things together, you've got a pretty combustible... You know, you put Keith, money, and drugs in one package, you usually get some fireworks. And there were some Uh, there was the moment when they tried to wake Keith up one evening to come downstairs to record in the basement of this beautiful house, and I think they were very apprehensive about waking him up.

[00:09:55] Christopher Sandford: In those days, you never quite knew what mood he would be in.

[00:09:59] Speaker 5: Uh-huh.

[00:09:59] Christopher Sandford: [00:10:00] Finally, someone bravely went up to Keith's room, which he shared with Anita, and thank God they did because they found that the bed was engulfed in flames. And of course, he'd nodded off with a cigarette of some kind, or shall we say tobacco of some kind, in his hand, and the mattress was beginning to f- to burn.

[00:10:20] Christopher Sandford: Wow. And so they managed to put that out and extract Keith and Anita from the flames. And there were, there were a number of instances like that. And I, I think Mick has often said that he, he, he much prefers to separate his home life from his working life. Ah. And you want to go to a studio, work, cut whatever you're doing, and then go home again.

[00:10:43] Christopher Sandford: Whereas in this case, it was all under one roof, and I think the divisions got blurred between work time and play time. Uh-huh. And there was a lot of hanging around, a lot of waiting for Keith, which is ironic because he actually lived in this house. And yet he was still the last [00:11:00] guy to appear for the sessions.

[00:11:01] Dave Anthony: Yeah.

[00:11:02] Christopher Sandford: And, you know, Wy- Wyman was quite funny on that subject. He said, "Normally you want to know when you're playing something in the studio, you know, kind of what direction you're going." He said, "I had no idea what the song was, if it was a song, what the title of the song was." A lot of it was just jamming, and every now and again, the engineer or the producer would say, "Okay, I've got enough now.

[00:11:25] Christopher Sandford: We'll cut this, you know, we can make a song out of this."

[00:11:28] Dave Anthony: Yeah.

[00:11:28] Christopher Sandford: But it was sort of formless in a way. Yeah. It was just musical, and they would cut it into pieces eventually and polish it up, and that's what became Exile. Yeah. So it was chaotic in the recording, and you can hear some of that even in, you know, even on the vinyl today.

[00:11:44] Christopher Sandford: It's either a flawed masterpiece, total chaos or, or just brilliant, maybe all of the above. Yeah. But that's how it was recorded.

[00:11:54] Dave Anthony: And really their backs are against the wall. They've g- they're, they're in, they, they're broke at some levels. They're in tax [00:12:00] exile. The house that you described, the, the basement sounds like Dante's Inferno-

[00:12:04] Christopher Sandford: Yeah

[00:12:05] Dave Anthony: of humidity and like it's absolutely oppressive down there.

[00:12:08] Christopher Sandford: I do think you make a good point. The house was, was really a shambles, and it was a sort of billionaire slum by the time they left it. Right. And one of the things was it was so hot, physically hot in there, and they had no air conditioning, that of course all the instruments would go out of tune very quickly.

[00:12:26] Christopher Sandford: Ah. And if you listen to something like the intro to All Down the Line, you'll hear that it's a wonderful riff. I mean, fantastic.

[00:12:44] Christopher Sandford: Um, but it's out of tune. And I, you know, I think they just left it like that. It's not out of tune in the sense that you wince when you hear it.

[00:12:53] Dave Anthony: Yeah.

[00:12:54] Christopher Sandford: But a musician will immediately say to you, "That's wrong," you know? Wow. "They shouldn't be, shouldn't be playing that."

[00:12:59] Dave Anthony: So it's, [00:13:00] that's part of that ramshackle sound- Yeah

[00:13:01] Dave Anthony: you talk about.

[00:13:02] Christopher Sandford: It's part of the charm of the album- Mm-hmm ... is that they left certain things on it, whether they had to or they just decided to, that, that, you know, a, a, an engineer today, let alone a computer system today, would have- Yeah ... rejected as sub- substandard.

[00:13:16] Dave Anthony: Also on the Exile on Main Street album were songs like Tumbling Dice.

[00:13:30] Dave Anthony: Happy

[00:13:43] Dave Anthony: Sweet Virginia

[00:13:53] Dave Anthony: shine a light[00:14:00]

[00:14:08] Announcer: You're listening to Garage to Stadiums with host Dave Anthony

THE CHAOTIC 1972 TOUR

[00:14:13] Dave Anthony: The 1972 tour that ensues, it sounds like, I mean, to continue, uh, the image of The Stones, this is like the nonstop drug and alcohol-fueled carnival that travels from town to town. It's just unbelievable circus.

[00:14:27] Christopher Sandford: Yeah, it was about two months long.

[00:14:30] Christopher Sandford: Uh, it was pretty crazy, certainly. It was the last one I think they ever did where they still... Sometimes they would give a show, and 11:30 at night, they didn't have a hotel room booked, partly because many hotels were reluctant to take anyone called The Rolling Stones. Wow. And partly because it was just a shambles in that organizational sense.

[00:14:53] Christopher Sandford: So, you know, you'd have the manager, Peter Rudge, frantically trying to get them into the Holiday Inn at midnight. [00:15:00] Right. And you can again imagine the night clerk's reaction as The Rolling Stones- ... arrive on his premises. Yeah. And it, it had that chaotic rock and roll feel to it of, you know, making it up as you went along.

[00:15:12] Dave Anthony: Yeah.

[00:15:13] Christopher Sandford: And I think it was probably the last major tour they did that had that spontaneity to it. It started getting- It sounds

[00:15:20] Dave Anthony: like-

[00:15:20] Christopher Sandford: Yeah.

[00:15:21] Dave Anthony: Like the chaos backstage, the drugs, and the- Yeah ... Rollies are high, and like, it's just-

[00:15:26] Christopher Sandford: Yeah ...

[00:15:27] Dave Anthony: chaos.

[00:15:28] Christopher Sandford: Yeah, I, I think, and yet, you know, The Stones have always been very professional when it actually comes to the 90 minutes or the two hours where they have to deliver the goods.

[00:15:38] Dave Anthony: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:38] Christopher Sandford: And there was a story on that tour where Stevie Wonder, who was, believe it or not, the, the support act, pulled out of one show, uh, might've been in Detroit, basically because his drummer had had some kind of collapse. I think it might've been drug-induced, but- Mm-hmm ... uh, the drummer couldn't play. Mm-hmm.

[00:15:57] Christopher Sandford: And so at the last minute, Stevie Wonder pulled out of the, [00:16:00] out of that slot that particular night, and The Stones were furious. They said, "Well, dr- you know, drugs have never stopped us." I mean, we, we, we'd go- we've gone through way worse, you know, stuff than that. Yeah. And still we... And, and their ethic was very much, you know, you get screwed up, and yet you perform.

[00:16:18] Speaker 4: Right.

[00:16:19] Christopher Sandford: And you have that two hours out of every 24 where you have to be on. And, uh, that, that, that's very much their reputation to this day. And I think that's one of the reasons we're still talking about them 60-plus years later, and they- they've still got that iron core in the heart. Yeah. You know, that self-discipline.

THE GOLDEN ERA: MICK TAYLOR AND JIMMY MILLER

[00:16:37] Dave Anthony: The golden era of The Stones that everyone cites is that '68 to '72 period, um- What was it about those four albums, that sort of period? Why did The Stones-- What was the... How did they come to that peak or that classic period? Was there-- The Beatles were gone. The, like, there's some-- Or is it just they were maturing as [00:17:00] songwriters, the sound?

[00:17:01] Dave Anthony: Wha-wha- Mick Taylor arrived. What, what, what do you think were some of the reasonings for that being cited as their golden run?

[00:17:09] Christopher Sandford: Well, I think two words, you, you mentioned that Mick Taylor are pretty important. He was obviously a virtuoso guitar player that Brian Jones might have been had he persevered and kept going and developed as a guitar player, but never really did.

[00:17:24] Speaker 5: Uh-huh.

[00:17:25] Christopher Sandford: What, apart from the tragedy of his death Taylor brought a new dimension to the Stones that they, they didn't have, and you can hear his influence all over those albums. Not Beggars Banquet admittedly, but uh, Let It Bleed, Fingers and Exile, very prominent lead guitar parts. And, you know, you listen to him doing Sway, for instance- Mm-hmm

[00:17:47] Christopher Sandford: on Sticky Fingers, and then listen to them doing it, which they periodically do now live. No disrespect to Ronnie Wood, who I like and admire, but it's not the same beast. It, you [00:18:00] know- Uh-huh ... he doesn't have the tone or the touch.

[00:18:02] Speaker 5: Uh-huh.

[00:18:02] Christopher Sandford: Whatever it is, he just doesn't have that fluency that Mick Taylor had.

[00:18:07] Speaker 5: Uh-huh.

[00:18:07] Christopher Sandford: So I think they were very lucky or smart to get him when they did. Um, there was a, a maturity of songwriting that was, you know, beginning to peak then. They'd been doing it, Mick and Keith, for about five years by the time they got to Banquet, and that's usually, if you look at the history of classic rock bands, usually after about five years-

[00:18:30] Dave Anthony: Right

[00:18:30] Christopher Sandford: it's either really happening or it's falling to pieces, or it has fallen to pieces creatively. And, and for them, it was happening very much so. And, you know, improved technology, uh, was a f- was a factor. I mean, it sounded better, although you'd never know that from Exile. Mm-hmm. And the other two na- the other two words that are really important are Jimmy Miller-

[00:18:52] Dave Anthony: Sure

[00:18:52] Christopher Sandford: uh, the producer. Um, he'd worked with Traffic, for instance, and he got an introduction through them, [00:19:00] through Chris Blackwell at Island Records, to the Stones. And the Stones were sort of drifting a bit in '67, '68 after Satanic Majesties. Uh-huh. And I think Miller was smart enough to hear the, bring them back to their roots, and yet give Mick and Keith enough leeway to, you know, embellish and write the sort of material they were then doing, interested in, but to keep it grounded in, in the blues and the roots.

[00:19:30] Christopher Sandford: And, you know, Bill would say, Bill Wyman says that he would, Miller would often stop a session and say, "Yeah, this is good, but where's the groove?" Oh. You know, "Where are we going here? Where, where's the real story? Where's the song?" And you know, this, this was something that other than Ian Stewart, no one else would say to them- Mm-hmm

[00:19:51] Christopher Sandford: Mick and Keith. And they'd been used to, you know, total non-interference and just writing more or less what they felt like. So I think Miller gave them [00:20:00] that discipline. He knocked a few heads together in a benign way. And I think you got a combination of him, Mick Taylor, um, maturity, natural evolution of songwriting, and, you know, better recording techniques.

[00:20:15] Christopher Sandford: You put all of that together and, you know, you've got a pretty strong package.

Goats Head Soup and Angie

[00:20:19] Dave Anthony: Some fans count one more album in The Stones' classic run, 1973's Goats Head Soup, which gave them the number one hit Angie

[00:20:36] Speaker 5: Clouds all disappear

[00:20:39] Dave Anthony: And tracks like Do Do Do Do Heartbreaker, reflecting Stevie Wonder's influence from their 1972 tour[00:21:00]

[00:21:01] Dave Anthony: It's Only Rock 'N Roll, released in October '74, kept the momentum going

MICK TAYLOR'S EXIT AND RON WOOD'S ARRIVAL

[00:21:18] Dave Anthony: By 1975, a major lineup change would happen. The first one since Brian Jones' exit shook the band in 1968. Mick Taylor left and Ron Wood, a former guitarist and bandmate of Rod Stewart in the band The Faces, stepped in, marking a new chapter in The Stones' history. Why did Mick Taylor, do you think, left? Why did he leave the band?

[00:21:41] Christopher Sandford: Uh, I think there were a number of problems going on. One of them was his health, um, which is a euphemism basically for drugs.

[00:21:52] Speaker 5: Uh-huh.

[00:21:52] Christopher Sandford: Um, and he's admitted as much. He was going down a dark path- Mm-hmm ... at that time. He joined them when he was 20. He was a [00:22:00] vegetarian teetotaler, never smoked, and he left- Wow

[00:22:03] Christopher Sandford: them five and a half years later, he was in poor shape.

[00:22:06] Dave Anthony: Yeah.

[00:22:07] Christopher Sandford: And say what you will about The Stones, particularly Mick and Keith, they've got the inner apparent strength to take all this stuff, certainly Keith, and yet come out of the other end, still function. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Not everyone is lucky, is as fortunate or as resilient as that, and I think Mick Taylor was on a, on a path to self-destruction, and he realized that.

[00:22:31] Christopher Sandford: And there were, I think there were frustrations about songwriting Moonlight Mile on Sticky Fingers we just mentioned is a song I think he thought he might have well got a credit for, among others. And finally, it was just becoming harder to work with The Stones in around '74. I think there was some talk about whether they would tour again.

[00:22:54] Christopher Sandford: They had visa problems in the US at that time. Believe it or not, they were still [00:23:00] regarded as, this is the sort of late Nixon, early Gerald Ford era- Right ... still regarded as subversive, anti-American troublemakers who would stir up the kids to go crazy in the streets, and they, they were having trouble even getting to work in the US.

[00:23:17] Christopher Sandford: The albums were taking years to record. And I think Mick Taylor was frustrated and bored, and he's, he thought he could do m- better and more stuff. Mm-hmm. Whether he has is another matter, but I think, I think he, a combination of all of those things-

[00:23:34] Dave Anthony: Right ...

[00:23:34] Christopher Sandford: and he just wanted to go solo. It's a pity in retrospect, he may think this, I don't know, that he couldn't have got a solo career going in parallel with The Stones.

[00:23:47] Christopher Sandford: And Bill Wyman was doing much the same thing. In '74, he released his first solo album, and it may not have been a great piece of work, but at least it gave him a focus- Mm-hmm ... and something to do [00:24:00] during the, you know, interminable delays getting Keith out of bed and, you know, Mick motivated. But Mick Taylor didn't or couldn't follow that particular road.

[00:24:10] Christopher Sandford: It's a shame. Uh, it would've been great if Taylor had stayed and developed with The Stones, but we'll never know.

STUDIO 54, PUNK, AND THE SOME GIRLS ERA

[00:24:18] Dave Anthony: Next, The Stones crash headfirst into the chaos of the late 1970s of New York's infamous disco, Studio 54, soaking up the glitter, the gossip, and the pulse of punk and new wave sweeping the late '70s.

[00:24:34] Dave Anthony: Could they remain relevant in the face of these new sounds?

[00:24:39] Speaker 7: Do you love Bruce Springsteen, Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie, and The Who? Listen to more Garage to Stadiums on all podcast streaming platforms.

[00:24:49] Dave Anthony: Out of that musical cocktail of punk, new wave, and disco occupying the song charts in the late '70s comes the Stones' 1978 album Some Girls.

[00:24:58] Dave Anthony: Brash, [00:25:00] restless, and impossible to ignore. The title track stirred controversy with Mick's provocative roll call of women from every race and nationality. Then there was Miss You, a swaggering disco groove

[00:25:27] Dave Anthony: And Beast of Burden, a slow burn plea of love

[00:25:47] Dave Anthony: Other new wave influenced tunes that prove The Stones still had some tricks up their sleeves.

[00:25:53] Speaker 4: You mentioned, uh, Satanic Majesties album. They were roundly criticized

[00:25:58] Dave Anthony: for being too reactive [00:26:00] to, I guess, music trends, psychedelia in that case. The Beatles had done Sgt. Peppers. They then go on that famous run we just talked about, Straight Ahead Rock and Roll, '68, '72, Jimmy Miller, Mick Taylor, and be- and, and, and, you know, beyond that.

[00:26:14] Dave Anthony: But then 10 years later in sort of '77, '78, they veer again with the album Some Girls. This time it seemed to hit the right buttons, that sort of veering away a little bit. Why do you think that one landed and sort of, you know, Satanic was just over the top?

[00:26:32] Christopher Sandford: Well, I think Some Girls is a bit of a mixture, I always think.

[00:26:36] Christopher Sandford: I mean, there, there is obviously that disco. The title song is famous or notorious-

[00:26:42] Dave Anthony: Yeah ...

[00:26:42] Christopher Sandford: for being that four to the floor disco beat. But there, there's a lot of other sounds on that record. Mm-hmm. There, there's a little bit of the punk, if you will, um- Yeah ... ethic in there as well.

[00:26:53] Dave Anthony: Yeah,

[00:26:53] Christopher Sandford: that new wave kind of sound.

[00:26:54] Christopher Sandford: Uh, when the wind comes down. Yeah, respectable.[00:27:00]

[00:27:09] Christopher Sandford: I always loved "Shout." It's a great song, I think. Shout.

[00:27:25] Speaker 4: Yeah

[00:27:26] Christopher Sandford: So they mixed it up on that album. But I think it was, you know, it's a great record and it's, we're talking about Some Girls, it's a great record in its own right

[00:27:36] Dave Anthony: Chris, the song Miss You from Some Girls reached number one and also a top 10 hit was Beast of Burden. That album did really well, reaching number one in the US charts and number two in the UK.

[00:27:47] Christopher Sandford: But I think one of the reasons it, it did really well and Tattoo You, um, two, three years later also did really well, it marks the beginning of The Stones as [00:28:00] survivors, you know, as in it for the long term, the really long term. And, you know, there's a part, there's a point where a band comes out of the starting gate usually really brash, exciting, brings about, you know, most of its fans are the same age as they are.

[00:28:16] Christopher Sandford: And then there's a second era quite often where it's sort of embarrassing and it, it ca- quite often a band loses direction and, you know, they repeat themselves in ever-decreasing audiences, and sometimes it ends there. In a few cases, there's a third act where they manage to recover some of the early promise and the early initiative, and yet run with it in a way that is, you know, friendly to an older audience and encompasses different styles, has an ear to what's going on on the radio at the time without slavishly imitating it.

[00:28:55] Christopher Sandford: And I think The Stones, particularly Mick, were smart enough to see that that, [00:29:00] that was the way forward-

[00:29:01] Speaker 5: Yeah ...

[00:29:02] Christopher Sandford: that they had to adapt.

[00:29:03] Speaker 5: Yeah

[00:29:03] Christopher Sandford: And also the stage show had to adapt. It had to become much more of a spectacle and a family entertainment than it had been up until then. And I think the late '70s, maybe '81, uh, is, is the turning point.

[00:29:18] Christopher Sandford: Mm-hmm. The Stones, everything since then has pretty much been an evolution of that turn. The, the last 40 years have just developed that basic idea.

THE 1980S: EMOTIONAL RESCUE AND TATTOO YOU

[00:29:28] Dave Anthony: As The Stones rolled into their third decade, they kicked off the 1980s with Emotional Rescue, delivering the funky title track and the icy bite of She's So Cold

[00:29:52] Dave Anthony: A year later, in 1981, came Tattoo You, featuring Start Me Up[00:30:00]

[00:30:11] Dave Anthony: A riff-driven anthem that began life years earlier as a reggae jam

[00:30:26] Dave Anthony: Thanks to Keith's love of Jamaican grooves. The album also gave fans Hang Fire, Little T&A

[00:30:45] Dave Anthony: And the soulful "Waiting on a Friend."[00:31:00]

[00:31:00] Dave Anthony: Both of these albums in 1980 and '81 showed there was no stopping The Stones in their third decade together, as both albums finished number one on the Billboard charts.

The Glimmer Twins' rift

[00:31:11] Speaker 4: You've mentioned a few times that Mick was... Particularly Mick, you've used those words, and, uh, the relationship between Mick

[00:31:18] Dave Anthony: and Keith, we touched on it a little bit.

[00:31:20] Dave Anthony: Keith in his book cites the fact that Mick really carried the business side of things in the '70s while Keith was really struggling with his heroin addiction. In fact, you know, Keith even writes in that book that Mick was looking after Marlon in hotel rooms and getting him a hamburger and, and these kind of things.

[00:31:37] Dave Anthony: So Keith was really out of it. Mick is, uh, kind of taking the reins, and it just has me wondering, you know, as the '80s start, Keith is more, you know, is back in the game a little bit off his addictions, and, uh, the Glimmer Twins, as everyone, you know, referred to them, they have a bit of a rift. [00:32:00] And what, what do you think that was about, and how did they resolve it?

[00:32:03] Christopher Sandford: Well, uh, I think it was about their different personalities. They're, they're, they're no longer, you know, tied by the demands of daily gigs and the crazy life, you know, of having to record, um, immediately go on stage, back to the studio, back to the hotel, living like a sort of gang almost, you know, like a- Yeah

[00:32:24] Christopher Sandford: you know, completely joined at the hip. I think once that pace slowed down a little bit, and in Mick and Keith's case they had enough money to indulge that, some of their natural differences, I think, surfaced. And a- as we were saying earlier, you've got one who's m- very organized, efficient, and hates to be idle.

[00:32:45] Christopher Sandford: I know this for a fact. I mean, has to have a plan every day he gets up, "What am I doing today?" And, and Keith, who's quite happy to sit in a hammock or lie in a hammock for three days, you know, smoking something and, you know, looking at the Jamaican [00:33:00] sunsets. And, uh, I think some of that was went into the clash, into the, into the problems they had.

[00:33:08] Christopher Sandford: One of them wants to work, the other one likes to but isn't compelled to do something every day. And then you've got musical differences. I mean, it's a, it's a cliché, I know it's thrown around to mean everything. Um, but I think they did have some musical differences in the '80s, and some of those are evident on Emotional Rescue, on the album.

[00:33:30] Christopher Sandford: I think Mick wanted very much to follow the sort of, um, the disc, you know, Bee Gees, if you will, sort of, or Saturday Night Fever even sort of vibe. And Keith is, you know, "Let, let's not do that." Uh-huh. "We, we made our name doing what we like to do and what we're best at- Uh-huh ... which is basically adapting the blues.

[00:33:51] Christopher Sandford: And, you know, we don't need to be fashionable or trendy." Uh. "We're The Rolling Stones. Other people follow us, you know, we don't follow them." So there was a, there [00:34:00] was a certain amount of that. Um, and, you know, middle age, you've got families coming into the picture You're no longer a 19-year-old kid with no loyalties or commitments other than your music.

[00:34:13] Christopher Sandford: You have kids and lady friends. Um, so all of those went into the, into the problem, and I think what brought them out of it basically in one word was money. I mean, I'd love to say it was the, you know, creative imperative or the, the, you know, the deep-felt need to make music and to push society's boundaries as they once did.

[00:34:34] Christopher Sandford: I think what really happened was Prince Rupert and, um, one or two smart, you know, middlemen managed to convince Mick and Keith that they could package their tours from now on in a completely- Uh-huh ... different way- Yeah ... than the old days, and they agreed- Cutting out

[00:34:51] Speaker 7: the local promoters, basically.

[00:34:52] Christopher Sandford: Yeah, there we go.

BUILDING THE STADIUM EMPIRE

[00:34:53] Dave Anthony: Here's a band that literally followed the garage to stadiums playbook from sweaty London clubs to the biggest stadiums in the [00:35:00] world, and by 1989, the Stones start to complete their transformation. With the '89 Steel Wheels Tour, they didn't just fill stadiums, they redefined how rock and roll tours were run.

[00:35:12] Dave Anthony: Gone were the patchwork of local promoters who handled local promotion and ticketing in return for a cut of the gate. In came mastermind Canadian concert and events promoter Michael Cohl, who sold them on a bold idea: take total control and think bigger than anyone before. The gamble paid off. From August 1989 to August 1990, the Stones stormed North America and Europe, raking in a staggering 175 million.

[00:35:42] Dave Anthony: It was the dawn of the Stones' stadium empire, where every tour since has pulled in hundreds of millions and have led Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to amass fortunes nearing 600 million each.

[00:35:57] Christopher Sandford: I mean, cutting out, cutting out the middlemen essentially. Mm-hmm. [00:36:00] And really heavy on, on accessories and merchandise and-

[00:36:04] Christopher Sandford: you know, the expensive gear and everything that goes with it. Ticket prices in the three figures suddenly. And I, I think, you know, and Keith, Keith, who disdains, claims to disdain any kind of commercial, you know, interest, sordid matters of money. But I think when tens of millions of dollars were beginning to be mentioned as a payday, I think his ears picked up.

[00:36:28] Christopher Sandford: Yeah. And he, he's never, he's never declined a check that I'm aware of. So, you know, he was quite happy to go along with this new master plan. Yeah. And I think that's what brought them together in '89 with, um, Steel Wheels. Uh, record was, in my opinion, adequate It's not a great album, but it's, it's enough to say we're back.

[00:36:49] Christopher Sandford: And, you know, the tour became the template for every tour that's taken place since then- Yeah ... not only by The Stones, but by a lot of other classic era- Sure ... [00:37:00] rock groups as well.

[00:37:01] Dave Anthony: Yeah. Let's take the jukebox back on the road kinda thing and- There we go ... play the hits. Yeah. Yeah. The, um ... Let's, let's do a little game here.

Five words or less

[00:37:09] Dave Anthony: Ron Wood, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, Keith, uh, Richards, Mick Jagger, of course. Five words or less, let's describe each man. Jagger, start with him.

[00:37:20] Christopher Sandford: Uh, focused, driven, uh, single-minded

[00:37:27] Dave Anthony: Richards

[00:37:28] Christopher Sandford: Uh, laissez-faire, um Yeah, laissez-faire maybe. Laid, laid back. Um, but, um, is this maybe more than five words? Laid back, but with enough common sense to see which way the wind is blowing.

[00:37:48] Dave Anthony: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Very intuitive, yeah.

[00:37:51] Christopher Sandford: Mm.

[00:37:51] Dave Anthony: Um, let's go to, uh, Bill Wyman.

[00:37:56] Christopher Sandford: Bill Wyman. Uh, solid, respectable, [00:38:00] um, somewhat withdrawn, insular, but reliable, uh, trustworthy, and always there when you need him.

[00:38:12] Dave Anthony: Hmm. Charlie Watts.

[00:38:14] Christopher Sandford: Charlie Watts. Enigmatic, um-

[00:38:16] Dave Anthony: Rest in peace, Charlie Watts.

[00:38:18] Christopher Sandford: Yeah, rest in peace. What a guy. Um, enigmatic, um, taciturn, quiet, withdrawn, understated, elegant, and brilliant.

[00:38:31] Dave Anthony: Hmm. I like it. Um, let's, uh, touch on Ron Wood. We haven't touched on him. He replaced Mick Taylor. What did he bring to the band?

[00:38:40] Christopher Sandford: Flamboyant, um, adequate, technically, musically adequate, um, but, um, irresistible as a personality. Hmm. And sort of a Dr. Kissinger type. Hmm. Brings people together. Sort of an intermediary.

[00:38:56] Christopher Sandford: So he's been very important as the glue who's [00:39:00] helped keep The Stones on the road the last 30 or 40 years.

THE ROLLING STONES' LEGACY

[00:39:03] Dave Anthony: We're nearing the end here, uh, Chris, and you've really enlightened us on, on the dynamics of this band. What will The Rolling Stones be remembered for? What's their place in music history? Some young person stumbles on The Rolling Stones 10 years from now and says, "Man," and then someone says, "These were the guys that blank."

[00:39:22] Dave Anthony: What, what, what will they be remembered for?

[00:39:24] Christopher Sandford: Uh, came up with some fantastic early songs that still sound good today, maybe better than they did initially even. Um, and were smart enough and self-disciplined enough to evolve into what we now call a sort of a package, an entertainment package, where they take some of their early spark and market it in a way that is friendly to all ages and all groups, and you can go and hear at least a glimmer, to use a word, of what they [00:40:00] were initially.

[00:40:01] Christopher Sandford: So they've, they've cleverly repackaged themselves as a, as a sort of nostalgia, um, touring nostalgia group, but also that gives you these tantalizing glimpses- Mm-hmm ... in the middle of a "Midnight Rambler," for instance, or "Gimme Shelter," of what they really were when they came out of the gate, which was sensational.

[00:40:22] Christopher Sandford: Uh-huh. And I think they're unique in that sense of having both the young and the old ages so cleverly covered. So- Right ... you know, they've, they've covered, they've run the gamut.

[00:40:34] Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.

Three essential albums

[00:40:36] Dave Anthony: Very well put. Here's the hardest question you're gonna get, or maybe the easiest, I'm not sure. What three albums would you recommend the audience dive into to get a sense of The Stones if they don't really know the music?

[00:40:49] Christopher Sandford: The first album was, I mean, some of it's pretty crude and badly recorded, and, uh, they did it in this little basement in London, which is still there. But, [00:41:00] you know, it was, it was done on a wing and a prayer. But it does have that early sort of grit to it and that spark.

[00:41:19] Christopher Sandford: You've got five really enthusiastic guys who don't know if this is gonna be their only album, and they give- ... you know, they ... Who knows what's gonna happen next?

[00:41:29] Speaker 5: Yeah. But

[00:41:29] Christopher Sandford: they, they're putting everything into it. Um, so that's got a lot of promi- that's g- that's got a lot to say for it, the first album. And then I think you have to move forward to Let It Bleed, um, which is a different proposition obviously, but it's got these wonderful songs.

[00:41:46] Christopher Sandford: Um, it's true to the blues. You can still hear the five guys who were in the basement five years earlier doing their first record. You know, it's blues rooted, and yet their songwriting by then [00:42:00] has evolved into something much more sophisticated, much more interesting, and, and it's just seductive in a good way.

[00:42:08] Dave Anthony: And- Yeah, I mean, that's got Gimme Shelter- Yeah ... and Midnight Rambler, um-

[00:42:12] Christopher Sandford: Midnight

[00:42:13] Dave Anthony: Rambler ...

[00:42:14] Christopher Sandford: Monkey Man. You always get what you want. Yeah, Mon- Monkey Man. I think you could do a lot worse if you ... If a Martian arrived and said, "What, what's one song, you know, that ... What's, what's fuss about The Rolling Stones?" You could do worse than play Monkey Man-

[00:42:26] Dave Anthony: I love that

[00:42:27] Christopher Sandford: tune

[00:42:27] Christopher Sandford: in my opinion. You know, it starts off with this sort of insinuating ... It starts almost like cocktail music.

[00:42:47] Christopher Sandford: But in a good way. Yeah. It ends up with, it sounds like Captain Beefheart being sick or something, you know- Yeah ... with his crazy kind of vomiting sound. Yeah. It shouldn't work.

[00:42:57] Dave Anthony: Yeah. But it does work. A cold Italian pizza or whatever that [00:43:00] line is.

[00:43:19] Christopher Sandford: It's a great song. So I, I would, I would strongly put Let It Bleed in the mix, and it would be a toss-up between Sticky Fingers and Exile-

[00:43:29] Speaker 5: Uh-huh ...

[00:43:30] Christopher Sandford: for the next one. Personally, I'd go for Exile because it's got such a breadth of material. I mean, as with every double album in history-

[00:43:38] Dave Anthony: Yeah ...

[00:43:39] Christopher Sandford: there's stuff- Yeah

[00:43:39] Christopher Sandford: on it you might ideally want to have left off.

[00:43:42] Dave Anthony: Yeah.

[00:43:43] Christopher Sandford: Um, but there's enough good stuff, great stuff on it for it to be- We have

[00:43:47] Dave Anthony: an open-

[00:43:48] Christopher Sandford: Yeah, brilliant.

[00:43:49] Dave Anthony: We have an open-

[00:43:49] Christopher Sandford: Brilliant

[00:43:50] Dave Anthony: stuff ... yeah, it's a brilliant ... We have an open debate in the offices of Garage to Stadiums because, uh, I fight for Sticky Fingers and others say Exile.

[00:43:58] Dave Anthony: Yeah. I think Exile has, [00:44:00] well, it's a double album, it has a lot of tunes that probably they stuffed onto it, and it doesn't, you know, as you said, didn't sound as finished as otherwise. But Sticky Fingers, I don't think- Yeah ... there's a weak tune on there.

[00:44:10] Christopher Sandford: Yeah, yeah. No, I, I've, I'm a great fan of Sticky Fingers.

[00:44:13] Christopher Sandford: It's a hard call. Um, yeah, the first time I heard Sticky Fingers I thought, "You can't get a better record than this." Yeah. I mean, this is whatever it is, 40 f- 40 minutes of perfect rock music- Yeah ... which runs all these different styles as well. There's this old Fred McDowell, you know, uh, Mississippi Blues, You Gotta Move.

[00:44:33] Dave Anthony: Yeah.

[00:44:34] Christopher Sandford: Um, through to Brown Sugar and, you know, Wild Horses is sublime.

[00:44:38] Dave Anthony: It's- And I'm glad you, and I'm glad you mentioned Sway, 'cause I think that's- Yeah ... an underrated tune.

[00:44:42] Christopher Sandford: Oh, yeah. Sway, Sway is a fantastic song.[00:45:00]

[00:45:01] Christopher Sandford: So I, I would put Sticky Fingers and Exile almost in a bracket together. Right. But if you put a gun to my head, I'd, I'd just go for Exile.

[00:45:11] Dave Anthony: Christopher Sanford is the author of The Rolling Stones. He did 50 years and has updated it, uh, for a 60-year anniversary, and I have to tell you, if you want to understand the history of, uh, an important band in the pantheon of rock, and the dynamics of the personalities that, uh, basically invented a lot of the rock sounds that we, uh, hear, took a lot of the R&B stuff but then made it their own, um, this book is a really entertaining read, and it'll give you a sense of that history and their importance.

[00:45:46] Dave Anthony: So I want to thank you today, Chris, for, uh, joining us. It's been highly entertaining to hear your perspective.

[00:45:52] Christopher Sandford: Thanks for having me, Dave. It's been a pleasure.

CLOSING NOTES

[00:45:58] Dave Anthony: And now for some closing notes on the Rolling [00:46:00] Stones A staggering 1.5 million fans watched The Stones perform at Copacabana Beach gig in 2006, making it the largest rock concert ever. Ever wonder how Rolling Stone magazine was able to name their magazine when an existing rock band already had the name?

[00:46:18] Dave Anthony: Well, in 1967, Jann Wenner launched Rolling Stone magazine in San Francisco. As soon as Mick Jagger saw the magazine using the band's name, he threatened legal action. The negotiations ended with a settlement granting The Rolling Stones shared ownership of the UK version of the magazine. But the venture in London was soon mismanaged and Wenner took back control, ending the band's brief foray into publishing.

[00:46:42] Dave Anthony: Mick Jagger's father, Basil Joe Jagger, was a fitness enthusiast and physical education teacher. He was also a gymnast and helped popularize basketball in Britain. He certainly left his influence on his son, as Mick is known for his fitness, including running and ballet training, which he maintains to prepare for [00:47:00] tours.

[00:47:00] Dave Anthony: Sporty Mick actually appeared in a documentary on rock climbing at the age of 14 on the British children's series Seeing Sport, which we'll include on our website. Keith Richards was long rumored to have had a full blood transfusion to kick his heroin addiction. In 2010, he was interviewed on CBS News and admitted that he had invented the rumor himself.

[00:47:21] Dave Anthony: He was arrested in 1977 in Toronto, Canada for possession, and as part of his sentence, he played two shows for blind children in the Toronto area. He claims the judge was lenient after hearing a story from a blind girl who Richards had helped get into a previous Stones show. Richards referred to the girl as his blind angel.

[00:47:40] Dave Anthony: Director Martin Scorsese has used The Stones' Gimme Shelter in three of his films, including Goodfellas in 1990, 1995's Casino, and The Departed in 2006. Did you know that The Rolling Stones promoted breakfast cereal Rice Krispies in a 1963 commercial?[00:48:00]

[00:48:00] The Rolling Stones : Pour the milk and listen to the crackle of that rice. Get up in the morning to the promises it supplies. Hear them talking crisp. Rice Krispies.

[00:48:07] Dave Anthony: As we mentioned, Start Me Up on The Stones' Tattoo You album began as a reggae tune years before. The entire Tattoo You album was made of older songs from The Stones archive that had previously never been released.

[00:48:20] Dave Anthony: With three Top 20 hits, nine weeks at number one in the US, and over four times platinum in sales, The Rolling Stones turned reclaimed studio scraps from their archives into Tattoo You and one of their best-selling albums. The cake on that cover of The Rolling Stones' 1969 album Let It Bleed was baked by Delia Smith, who later achieved fame with her UK cooking show.

[00:48:46] Dave Anthony: She later recalled it was in response to a request that was for a gaudy cake that had to look really horrible. Despite the horrible cake, Smith was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire, CBE, in 2009 [00:49:00] In recognition of her contribution to television cookery and recipe writing. Andy Warhol gave The Stones one of the most unforgettable covers, 1971's Sticky Fingers, a bold close-up of a man's crotch complete with a working zipper.

[00:49:13] Dave Anthony: Rumor had it the body was Mick's, but he always denied it. Iconic? Absolutely. Practical? Not so much. When it was stacked for shipping to retailers, the weight of many zippers damaged the vinyl records. The fix, the zippers were half-zipped down so that they rested right at the label at the center of the record, where no record grooves could be harmed.

[00:49:35] Dave Anthony: One of the cameramen in their 1970 documentary Gimme Shelter, which chronicled the chaotic Altamont Rolling Stones concert, was none other than legendary film director George Lucas of Star Wars fame. The film captures the stabbing murder of Meredith Hunter while The Stones were playing Under My Thumb at their infamous Altamont Free Concert in 1969.

[00:49:56] Dave Anthony: It is often referenced as the unofficial end of the hippie [00:50:00] era. Mick Jagger was knighted by Prince Charles, now King Charles, in 2002 as Sir Michael Philip Jagger. Keith Richards felt it was hypocritical of him to accept it, since the band had always been critical of the British monarchy and English law.

[00:50:15] Dave Anthony: Perhaps Queen Elizabeth felt the same way, as she was unavailable that day due to scheduling conflicts. Originally, Sympathy for the Devil did not mention both the Kennedys. But after Robert F. Kennedy's June 6th, 1968 assassination, Jagger darkly revised the lyric live, immortalizing their death in rock's most sinister anthem.

[00:50:40] Dave Anthony: Thanks for making Garage to Stadiums one of the top 5% of podcasts in the world. We'd love for you to follow our shows on your favorite podcast platform so you can be alerted when our next episode drops. Follow us for some great music history content posted on our social channels, Instagram, X, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

[00:50:58] Dave Anthony: Our YouTube channel [00:51:00] has additional bonus coverage from our interviews. Visit us at Garage to Stadiums for more bonus content on all the bands featured and links to great downloadable playlists on Apple and Spotify. Special thanks to our guest today, Christopher Sanford, author of The Rolling Stones: 60 Years.

[00:51:20] Dave Anthony: Thanks to our producers, Amina Faubert and Conor Samson, our program director, Scott Campbell, creative director, Chad Raymond, and video director, Nigel Campbell. You've been listening to Garage to Stadiums. I'm Dave Anthony. See you next time for another Garage to Stadiums story.