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Garage to Stadiums is one of the Top 5% of podcasts in the world. From the bars to the arenas, learn the fascinating stories of how our biggest rock music legends made the leap. Each episode reveals the stories, songs and little known facts of the journey from obscurity to fame of one of rock music’s biggest stars. Join us on Garage To Stadiums as host Dave Anthony teams up with an author of a rock biography or director of a rock documentary to explore that journey, their early years, the stories behind the scenes, their top songs, and their place in music history.
Learn about the passion, talent, luck and even scandal that often came together to propel these stars from obscurity to household names.
Dave Anthony 0:00
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 festivals like Woodstock had drawn hundreds of 1000s 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. 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 horrendous to organize, the logistics were chaotic, and once the music began, the gathering quickly spiraled out of control. What was meant to be a celebration of music and freedom descended into dysfunction, culminating in a homicide that would stain the stone's legacy and mark one of the darkest moments in rock history, the Altamont concert. I mean, talk about a way to end the 60s on a bad note. What like that concert? What do you think the motivation was to do that? Because that was ill fated from the moment the planning started, it seemed,
Christopher Sandford 1:33
yeah, it was all done at the last minute. And I think it was a well intentioned idea, mainly by Jagger to do a free show. And there had been one, five months earlier in London at Hyde Park, which had been completely trouble free. And they played in front of 300,000 people in London, and the British Hells Angels were sort of a security in the London show. Now, the British Hells Angels in the San Francisco version are two rather different beasts. And I think the British guys tended to, you know, still live with their mums and dads and go home 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 motorcycle culture. The San Francisco guys were a little bit harder core than that. And, you know, and they were loaded. Some of them, the myth that they were officially hired to be security is, is a myth. It's another Rolling Stones legend. 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. We don't 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 really asking for a certain amount of grief. And they got it. And it was overcrowded. It went on really long and late. The stage was badly constructed. It was very low. There were a number of other problems. And of course, it was a tragedy in front where Meredith Hunter, who was just watching the show and maybe was influenced by drugs, waved a gun around and for whatever reason and was and was brutally killed more or less in front of the stage. So it was a shambles.
Speaker 2 3:56
Hey, brothers and sisters, brothers and sisters, come on now. That means everybody just cool out. Is there anyone there that's hurt everyone? All right, okay.
Christopher Sandford 4:15
It was a terrible tragedy. And as you say, almost symbolically, it was in December 69 rounded off the 60s. 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. And the idea that you could throw a sort of festival together, it'd be like 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. I think that was the last time they really went for that particular promise. And from then onwards, it was always going to be a much more structured, much more organized beast. You know, that's what we have today. So it was a turning point for the stones, as much as for the culture
Dave Anthony 5:06
interesting. By 1970 the stones had learned some hard lessons from the Alan Klein fiasco. 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 Rock's greatest hits collection 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's sticky fingers. Released in April 1971 the album was an instant sensation. It's an iconic Andy Warhol cover, complete with a working zipper over a man's crotch, turned heads as much as the music itself. The album sold 22 million copies and delivered classic tracks like brown sugar.
Dave Anthony 6:24
Is, can't you hear me knocking
Speaker 3 6:34
and bitch to muffin? Amen.
Dave Anthony 6:45
The album also continued the stones, continuing to dabble with country music. Keith Richards had become friends a couple years back with Graham Parsons, former member of the birds and country rock pioneer. He and Keith bonded over country music and drugs and Parsons influence can be heard on tracks like wild Horses
Dave Anthony 7:16
and dead flowers
Unknown Speaker 7:19
making bats on Kentucky Derby Day. Kentucky Derby Day,
Dave Anthony 7:28
adding that country flavor to the stone 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 plan.
Christopher Sandford 7:49
Well, the first thing he did was to advise them to take at least a year out of the country, to register as tax exiles, which is how they came to find themselves in France in 7172 with all that entailed, I mean, Exile on Main Street is the obvious artifact that came out of that
Dave Anthony 8:10
you described the scene at Keith Richards home on the French Riviera, Villa France sur mer, the mansion that was the town and via Villa nel court was the home. You paint a picture of that place that's absolutely out of the, you know, rock and roll Handbook of what a party place would be. 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?
Christopher Sandford 8:41
Yeah, it was pretty chaotic. I mean, I've never been there, but I've interviewed people who were there, survivors, if you will. It was, it was pretty good work. Yeah, they were survivors. It was pretty chaotic. You had this absolutely beautiful, idyllic estate overlooking the sea, you know, and you can imagine the south of the front the Riviera in summertime, gorgeous, you know? And he, Keith had a private beach. He had a speed boat. He had all these cars at his disposal. And, of course, you had heroin, which was freely available in Toulouse and nice among other places which are just down the coast. 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. 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 in those days. You never quite knew what mood he would be in. 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 nod. It off with a cigarette of some kind, or, shall we say, tobacco of some kind, in his hand. And the mattress was beginning to burn, 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 think Mick has often said that he he much prefers to separate his home life from his working life. And you want to go to a studio, work, cut, whatever you're doing, and then go home again, whereas in this case, it was all under one roof. And I think the divisions got blurred between work time and play time. And there was a lot of hanging around, a lot of waiting for Keith. Was ironic, because he actually lived in this house, and yet, still the last guy to appear for the sessions. Yeah, and you know why? 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 we'll cut this. You know, we can make a song out of this, yeah, but it was sort of Formless in a way. It was just musical, and they would cut it into pieces eventually and polish it up. And that's what became exile. So it was chaotic in the recording, and you can hear some of that even in, you know, even on the vinyl today. It's either a flawed masterpiece, total chaos or just brilliant, maybe all of the above, but that's how it's recorded.
Dave Anthony 11:43
And really, their backs are against the wall. They've they're in they they're broke at some levels, they're in tax exile. The house that you described, that the basement sounds like Dante's infernal, yeah, of humidity and like, it's absolutely oppressive down there.
Christopher Sandford 11:57
I do think you make a good point. The house was, really a shambles, and it was a sort of billionaire slum by the time they left it. 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. 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,
Christopher Sandford 12:34
but it's out of tune. And I think they just left it like that. It's not out of tune, in the sense that you wince when you hear it, yeah, a musician will immediately say to you, that's wrong. You know, they shouldn't be, shouldn't be playing
Dave Anthony 12:48
that. So that's part of that ramshackle sound you talk about. It's
Christopher Sandford 12:51
part of the charm of the album is that they left certain things on it, whether they had to, or they just decided to that, you know, an engineer today, let alone a computer system today would have rejected his sub sub standard.
Dave Anthony 13:05
Also on the Exile on Main Street album were songs like tumbling dice.
Dave Anthony 13:19
Happy. There
Dave Anthony 13:31
sweet Virginia.
Dave Anthony 13:42
Then shine a light.
Unknown Speaker 13:56
You're listening to garage to stadiums with host Dave
Dave Anthony 14:02
Anthony the 1972 tour that ensues. It sounds like I mean to continue, 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.
Christopher Sandford 14:16
Yeah, it was about two months long. 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 1130 at night, they didn't have a hotel room booked, partly because many hotels were reluctant to take anyone called the Rolling Stones, and partly because it was just the shambles in that organizational sense. So you know, you'd have the manager, Peter Rudge, frantically trying to get them into the Holiday Inn at midnight. You can again, imagine the nightclerks reaction as the Rolling Stones arrive on his premises. And it had that chaotic rock and roll feel to it, of. You know, making it up as you went along, yeah. And I think it was probably the last major tour they did that had that spontaneity to it.
Dave Anthony 15:07
It sounds like yeah, like the chaos backstage, the drugs and the roads are high and like, it's just yeah, chaos,
Christopher Sandford 15:16
yeah, 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. And there was a story on that tour where Stevie Wonder who was, believe it or not, the support act pulled out of one show might have been in Detroit, basically because his drummer had had some kind of collapse. I think it might have been drug induced, but the drama couldn't play. And so the last minute, Stevie Wonder pulled out of the out of that slot, that particular night, and the stones were furious. He said, Well, you know, drugs have never stopped us. We've we've gone through way worse, you know, stuff than that, and still, and their ethic was very much, you know, you get screwed up, and yet you perform. And you have that two hours out of every 24 where you have to be on and 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've still got that iron core in the heart, you know, that self
Dave Anthony 16:25
discipline, the golden era of the stones that everyone CITES is that 68 to 72 period. 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 songwriters, the sound Mick Taylor arrived. What? What do you think were some of the reasonings for that being cited as their golden run?
Christopher Sandford 16:58
Well, I think two words 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. Apart from his tragedy of his death, Taylor brought a new dimension to the stones that they didn't have. And you can hear his influence all over those albums. Not beggars, banquet, admittedly, but let it bleed fingers in exile, very prominent lead guitar parts. And you know you listen to him doing sway, for instance, on 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. He doesn't have the tone or the touch, whatever it is. He just doesn't have that fluency that Mick Taylor had. So I think they were very lucky or smart to get him when they did. There was 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, right? It's either really happening, or it's falling to pieces, or it has fallen to pieces creatively. And for them, it was happening very much so. And, yeah, improved technology was a was a factor. I mean, it sounded better, although you'd never know that from exile and the other two, Nate, the other two words that are really important are Jimmy Miller, sure, the producer, he'd worked with traffic, for instance, and he got an introduction through them, through Chris Blackwell at Island Records, to the stones. And the stones were sort of drifting a bit in 6768 after Satanic Majesties. And I think Miller was smart enough to hear the bring them back to the 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. And, you know, Bill would say, Bill Wyman says that he would millet would often stop a session and say, Yeah, this is good, but where's the groove? 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, Mick and Keith. And they'd been used to, you know, in total non interference and just writing more or less what they felt like. So I think Miller gave them that discipline. He knocked a few heads together in a benign way. And I think you've got a combination of him, Mick, Taylor, maturity, natural evolution of. Songwriting and you know better recording techniques. You put all of that together, and you know you've got a pretty strong package.
Dave Anthony 20:08
Some fans count one more album in the stones classic run 1973 goat's head soup, which gave them the number one hit, Angie.
Unknown Speaker 20:21
When Will those clouds
Dave Anthony 20:27
and tracks like Do, do, do, Heartbreaker reflecting Stevie Wonder's influence from their 1972 tour? I Oh,
Dave Anthony 20:50
It's Only Rock and Roll released in October 74 kept the momentum going. You.
Dave Anthony 21:06
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 stone's history. Why did Mick Taylor, do you think left? Why did he leave the band?
Christopher Sandford 21:32
I think there are a number of problems going on. One of them was his health, which is a euphemism basically for drugs. And he's admitted as much, he was going down a dark path at that time. He joined them when he was 20. He was a vegetarian, teetotaler, never smoked, and he left them five and a half years later, he was in poor shape. Yeah, 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. Not everyone is lucky. Is as fortunate or as resilient as that. And I think Nick Taylor was on a on a path to self destruction, and he realized that. And there I think there were frustrations about songwriting. Moonlight mile on sticky thing, as 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. They had visa problems in the US at that time, believe it or not, they were still regarded as, this is the sort of late Nixon, early Gerald Ford era, 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. The albums were taking years to record, and I think Mick Taylor was frustrated and bored, and he's, he thought he could do better and more stuff. Whether he has is another matter. But I think, I think he combination of all of those things, right, 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 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 and something to do 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. It's a shame. It would have been great if Taylor had stayed and developed with the stones, but we'll never know.
Dave Anthony 24:06
Next, the stones crash head first 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. Could they remain relevant in the face of these new sounds?
Speaker 4 24:27
Do you love Bruce Springsteen, Fleetwood, Mac, David Bowie and the who listen to more garage to stadiums on all podcast streaming platforms,
Dave Anthony 24:38
out of that musical cocktail of punk, new wave and disco occupying the song charts in the late 70s comes the stone's 1978 album, some girls, brash, restless and impossible to ignore. The title track stirred controversy with mixed, provocative roll call of women from every race and nationality. Then there was miss you a swag. Disco groove
Dave Anthony 25:16
and beast of burden, a slow burn plea of love. You. It,
Dave Anthony 25:36
and other new wave influence tunes that prove the stone still had some tricks up their sleeves. You mentioned satanic Majesty's album. They were roundly criticized for being too reactive to, I guess, music trans psychedelic. In that case, the Beatles had done Sergeant peppers. They then go on that famous run we just talked about, straight ahead rock and roll. 6872 Jimmy Miller, Mick Taylor and be and, you know, beyond that. But then 10 years later, in sort of 7778 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. Well,
Christopher Sandford 26:22
I think some girls is a bit of a mixture. I always think though. I mean, there is obviously that disco title song is famous or notorious, yeah, for being that four to the four disco beat, but there's a lot of other sounds on that record. There's a little bit of the punk, if you will, there as well, yeah, sounds down, yeah, respectable.
Unknown Speaker 26:58
I always love shatter. It's a great song, I think.
Christopher Sandford 27:14
Yeah, so they mixed it up on that album, but I think it was, you know, it's a great record, and it's talking about some girls. It's a great record in its own right.
Dave Anthony 27:25
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.
Christopher Sandford 27:36
But I think one of the reasons it did really well, then tattoo you two, three years later. Also did really well. It marks the beginning of the stones as 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. And then there's a second era, quite often, where it's sort of embarrassing, and it quite often, a band loses direction, and, you know, they repeat themselves and ever decreasing audiences. And sometimes it ends there. In a few cases, there's a third act where they managed to recover some of the early promise in 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. And I think the stones, particularly Mick, was smart enough to see that, that that was the way forward. Yeah. They had to adapt, yeah. And also the stage show had to adapt. It had to become much more of a spectacle in a family entertainment than it had been up until then, and I think the late 70s, maybe 81 is the turning point. The stones everything since then has pretty much been an evolution of that turn. The last 40 years have just developed that basic idea
Dave Anthony 29:17
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.
Dave Anthony 29:41
A year later, in 1981 came tattoo U featuring, start me up, you.
Dave Anthony 30:00
A riff driven anthem that began life years earlier as a reggae jam.
Dave Anthony 30:15
Thanks to Keith's love of Jamaican grooves, The album also gave fans hang fire little TNA
Dave Anthony 30:33
and the soulful waiting on a friend you
Dave Anthony 30:49
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. You've mentioned a few times that Mick was particularly Mick. You've used those words and the relationship between Mick and Keith, we touched on it a little bit. 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, Keith even writes in that book that Mick was looking after Marlon in hotel rooms and getting him a hamburger and these kind of things. So Keith was really out of it. Mick is kind of taking the reins, and it just has me wondering. You know, as the 80s start, Keith is more, you know, back in the game, a little bit off his addictions and the glimmer twins, as everyone you know referred to them, they have a bit of a rift. And what, what do you think that was about? And how did they resolve it?
Christopher Sandford 31:51
Well, I think it was about their different personalities. 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 immediately go on stage, back to the studio, back to the hotel, living like a sort of gang, almost, you know, like, 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 as we were saying earlier, you've got one who's very organized, efficient and hates to be idle. I know this for a fact. I mean, has to have a plan every day he gets up, what am I doing today? 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 sunsets. And I think some of that was went into the clash, into the into the problems they had. 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 cliche. I know it's thrown around to mean everything, but I think they did have some musical differences in the 80s, and some of those are evident on emotional rescue on the album. I think Mick wanted very much to follow the sort of 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's not do that. We made our name doing what we like to do and what we're best at, which is basically adapting the blues. And yeah, we don't need to be fashionable or trendy. We're the Rolling Stones. Other people follow us. You know, we don't follow them. So there was, there was a certain amount of that. 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, you have kids and lady friends. 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, you know, the deep felt need to make music and to push society's boundaries, as they once did. I think what really happened was Prince Rupert and 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 different way.
Dave Anthony 34:38
Yeah, in the old days, and they were cutting out the local promoters, basically, yeah, there we go. Here's a band that literally followed the garage to stadiums playbook from sweaty London clubs to the biggest stadiums in the 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. 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 Cole, 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. 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
Christopher Sandford 35:44
each. I mean cutting out, cutting out the middlemen, essentially and really heavy on on accessories and merchandise and the expensive gear and everything that goes with it, ticket prices in the three figures suddenly. And I, I think, you know, when Keith, Keith, who disdains claims to disdain any kind of commercial, you know, interest sorted matters of money. But I think when 10s of millions of dollars were beginning to be mentioned as a payday, I think his ears picked up, and he's never, he's never declined to check that I'm aware of. So, you know, he was quite happy to go along with this new master plan. And I think that's what brought them together in 89 with steel wheels. Record was, in my opinion, adequate, not a great album, but it's enough to say we're back. And you know, the tour became the template for every tour that's taken place since then, not only by the stones, but by a lot of other classic era rock groups as well.
Dave Anthony 36:49
Yeah, let's take the jukebox back on the road kind of thing, and there we go. Hits, yeah, the let's, let's do a little game here. Ron wood, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, Keith Richards, Mick, Jagger, of course, five words or less. Let's describe each man. Jagger, start with him,
Unknown Speaker 37:09
focused, driven, single minded.
Unknown Speaker 37:15
Richards,
Christopher Sandford 37:17
laissez faire. I Yeah, laissez faire, maybe laid laid back, but is this maybe more than five words, laid back, but with enough common sense to see which way the wind is blowing?
Dave Anthony 37:38
Very intuitive, yeah, yeah. Me, let's go to Bill Wyman.
Christopher Sandford 37:44
Bill Wyman, solid, respectable, somewhat withdrawn, insular, but reliable, trustworthy, and always there when you need him. Charlie Watts, Charlie Watts, enigmatic, rest in peace. Charlie Watts, yeah, rest in peace. What a guy. Enigmatic, taciturn, quiet, withdrawn, understated, elegant and brilliant. Hmm, I like it.
Dave Anthony 38:23
Let's touch on Ron wood. We haven't touched on him. He replaced Mick Taylor. What did he bring to the band? Flamboyant,
Christopher Sandford 38:31
adequate, technically, musically adequate, but irresistible as a personality, sort of a DR Kissinger type, brings people together, sort of an intermediary, so he's been very important as the glue, who's helped keep the stones on the road the last 30 or 40 years.
Dave Anthony 38:52
We're nearing the end here, Chris and you've really enlightened us 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. What will they be remembered for?
Christopher Sandford 39:13
Came up with some fantastic early songs that still sound good today, maybe better than they did initially. Even and were smart enough and self disciplined enough to evolve into what we now call 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 were initially. So they've cleverly repackaged themselves as a sort of nostalgia touring nostalgia group. But also that gives you. These tantalizing glimpses in the middle of a midnight Rambler, for instance, or give me shelter of what they really were when they came out of the gate, which was sensational. And I think they're unique in that sense of having both the young and the old ages so cleverly covered. So you know, they they've covered, they've run the gamut
Dave Anthony 40:25
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.
Christopher Sandford 40:38
The first album, well, I mean, some of it's pretty crude and badly recorded, and they did it in this little basement in London, which still there. You know, it was done on a wing and a prayer. But he does have that early sort of grit to it. In that spot you're
Christopher Sandford 41:02
gonna you've got five really enthusiastic guys who don't know if this is going to be their only album. And then, you know, they, who knows what's going to happen next? Yeah, they're putting everything into it. So that's got a lot of promise. 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, which is a different proposition, obviously, but it's got these wonderful songs. 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 has evolved into something much more sophisticated, much more interesting, and it's just seductive in a good way.
Dave Anthony 41:57
Yeah, and that's got give me shelter and yeah, Midnight Rambler, you always
Christopher Sandford 42:02
Yeah. 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 those fuss about the Rolling Stones? You could do worse than play. Monkey man, I love that too. Minion, you know, it starts off with this sort of insinuating sounds almost like cocktail music,
Christopher Sandford 42:36
but in a good way, yeah, it ends up with it sounds like Captain B Fart being sick or something, you know, Yeah, crazy kind of vomiting sound. It shouldn't work,
Dave Anthony 42:46
yeah, a cold Italian pizza or whatever. Cold Italian pizza,
Christopher Sandford 43:00
Oh, great. It's a great song. So I would, I would strongly put let it bleed in the mix, and it would be a toss up between sticky fingers and exile 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, yeah, there's stuff on it you might ideally want to have left off, yeah, but there's enough good stuff, great stuff on it for we have an open Yeah, brilliant.
Dave Anthony 43:38
We haven't, yeah, it's a brilliant we have an open debate in the offices across the stadiums, because I fight for sticky fingers, and others say exile. I think exile has, 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 there's a weak tune on there. Yeah,
Christopher Sandford 44:00
no, I'm a great fan of sticky fingers. It's a hard call. The first time I heard sticky fingers, I thought you can't get a better record than this. Whatever it is, 4040, minutes of perfect rock music, which runs all these different styles as well. This is old Fred McDowell. You know Mississippi blues, you've got to move, yeah, through to brown sugar. And you know, wild horses is
Dave Anthony 44:27
sublime. I'm glad you, and I'm glad you mentioned sway, because I think that's an underrated tune.
Unknown Speaker 44:31
Yeah, he's a fantastic soul. Up.
Christopher Sandford 44:50
So I would put sticky fingers in exile, almost in a bracket together, right? But if you put a gun to my head, I just go for exile. I.
Dave Anthony 45:00
Christopher Sanford is the author of The Rolling Stones he did 50 Years and updated it for 60 year anniversary. And I have to tell you, if you want to understand the history of an important band in the pantheon of rock and the dynamics of the personalities that basically invented a lot of the rock sounds that we hear, took a lot of the RMB stuff, but then made it their own. This book is a really entertaining read, and will give you a sense of that history and their importance. So I want to thank you today, Chris, for joining us. It's been highly entertaining to hear your perspective.
Unknown Speaker 45:41
Thanks for having me, Dave. It's been a pleasure.
Dave Anthony 45:48
And now for some closing notes on the Rolling Stones. A staggering 1.5 million fans watch the stones perform at COPPA cabana 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. Well in 1967 Jan 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 Stone shared ownership of the UK version of magazine. But the venture in London was soon as managed and Wenner took back control, ending the band's brief foray into publishing. Mick Jagger's father, Basil Joe Jagger was a fitness enthusiast and physical education teacher who 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 tours. Sporty. Mick actually appeared in a documentary on rock climbing at the age of 14 on the British children 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, admitted that he had invented the rumor himself. 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. Director Martin Scorsese has used the stones Gimme Shelter in three of his films, including Goodfellas in 1990 1995 casino and the departed in 2006 Did you know that the Rolling Stones promoted breakfast cereal Rice Krispies in a 1963 commercial?
Unknown Speaker 47:52
Rice Krispies,
Dave Anthony 47:55
as we mentioned, start me up on the stones tattoo. You album began as a reggae tune years before, the entire tattoo U album was made of older songs from the stones archive that had previously never been released, 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 U 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. 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 in recognition of her contribution to television, cookery and recipe writing, Andy Warhol gave the stones one of the most unforgettable covers 1971 sticky fingers, a bold close up of a man's crotch complete with a working zipper. Rumor had it the body was mixed, 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 goose could be harmed. 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 it is often referenced as the unofficial end of the hippie era. Mick Jagger was knighted by Prince Charles, now King Charles in 2002 as Sir Michael Phillip Jagger Heath Richards felt it was hypocritical of him to accept it, since the band had always been critical. All the British monarchy and English law, 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 6, 1968 assassination, Jagger darkly revised the lyric lies, immortalizing their death in Rock's most sinister anthem. Thanks for making garage the stadium 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. Our YouTube channel 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. Thanks to our producers, Amina fauber and Connor Sampson, 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 stadium story,
Unknown Speaker 51:28
another blast furnace labs, production,