Old Gods Almost Dead (14 page)

At the airport, the Stones were greeted by five hundred excited girls and a chorus of dopey, shouted questions at a raucous press conference. “Hey! Over here! You guys wearing wigs? Do you sing like the Beatles?”

Promo men whisked them over to WINS, the big New York rock and roll station, to appear on
Murray the K's Swinging Soiree.
Murray (Kaufman), who called himself the Fifth Beatle since he'd latched onto their February tour, played “Not Fade Away” and interviewed the Stones on the air. After the show, he played them a new song by the Valentinos called “It's All Over Now” and suggested that the Stones could advance their career by covering it.

The next morning, they woke to find the Astor Hotel in Times Square teeming with a hundred girls, many armed with scissors and determined to cut a lock of long English hair. Bill was sick with the flu, it was Charlie's twenty-third birthday, and when anyone left the hotel for some sight-seeing, he was swamped by autograph-seeking teenagers.

                

Early on June 3,
the Stones, joined by Andrew Oldham, flew to Los Angeles to tape their national TV debut on Dean Martin's
Hollywood Palace
variety show. (Ed Sullivan, revolted by photographs of the shaggy, loutish Stones, had turned them down flat for his more popular show.) Dean Martin was an old-style fifties crooner at the height of his career—the leader, along with his pal Frank Sinatra, of the legendary Hollywood/Las Vegas Rat Pack that celebrated booze, broads, and gambling in song and lascivious patter. Martin's producer offered to buy the Stones uniforms and they refused. Then Martin and the Stones' new tour manager, Bob Bonis, had a loud fight backstage over how many numbers they would tape. Dino felt threatened by the Stones and went out of his way to insult them in his introduction.

“Now, something for the youngsters, five singing boys from England who've sold a lot of albeeums . . . albums [Martin was feigning being drunk]. They're called the Rolling Stones. [Aside:] I've been rolled when I was stoned myself. I don't know what they're singing about, but here they are.”

The Stones appeared in dark suits and blasted into “I Just Want to Make Love to You,” rocking the old Muddy Waters tune, Brian switching harmonicas for the bridge and appearing to give old Dino the finger while he was playing.

Dino came back afterward, rolling his eyes with withering sarcasm: “Aren't they great?” Audience laughter. “Y'know, these singing groups are under the impression they have long hair. Not true at all! It's an optical illusion—they just have low foreheads and high eyebrows, that's all.” The next act was a trampoline acrobat. Dino: “That's the Rolling Stones' father—he's been trying to kill himself ever since!”

Backstage the band was furious, but came back and performed “Not Fade Away” and their new single, “Tell Me.” Dino: “Now don't go away, folks. You wouldn't want to leave me with those Rolling Stones!” When the show was broadcast on ABC two weeks later, the Stones' segment had been cut to just sixty-five seconds of “I Just Want to Make Love to You.” Furious, Mick called Eric Easton in London and yelled at him for booking them on the show.

But, “after we'd had some big records in the States,” recalled Bill Wyman, “they reran the show—'And now the fabulous Rolling Stones'—with screams and cheers added in the background.”

There was outrage in certain circles over Dino's rough treatment of the band. In the liner notes to his 1964 album
Another Side of Bob Dylan,
Dylan took the trouble to write, “Dean Martin should apologize t' the Rolling Stones.” It was evident to the Stones' generation that they were killing the old showbiz mentality. The Rat Pack's scummy booze culture was history, demoted from the Big Rooms and into the Lounges where they belonged. Even Frank Sinatra's career as a huge seller was almost over. The new wind from England blew the middle-aged crooners away.

A month later, at the Newport Folk Festival, Bob Dylan was jamming at his hotel, trying to match the harmonies of “Tell Me” with fellow folkie Tony Glover. Dylan was a Stones fan from early on.

The Stones spent their time in Los Angeles going to music stores, buying clothes, hanging out. (Brian Jones attracted small crowds when he visited music stores in his seersucker jacket and new wraparound shades.) At RCA Studios, they met Jack Nitzsche, Phil Spector's resident arranger and keyboard player, the key man in Spector's musical scheme, who would also become a major element in future Stones records. There were parties every night, where the Stones met the Beach Boys and some of the L.A. crowd, like promo man Sonny Bono and his girlfriend, Cher, yet to have their first folk rock hit record.

Keith: “America was a real fantasyland. It was still Walt Disney and hamburger dates and kids going steady. We watched the presidential debates [Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater] and noticed that kids were more into what was going on [politically]. It was what we'd been dreaming of—better music, better cars . . . the girls were better looking, ha ha! It was like throwing a load of demons into heaven.”

On June 5, the Stones played their first American gig in San Bernardino, about an hour from L.A., on a bill with the Chiffons, Bobby Goldsboro, Bobby Comstock, and Bobby Vee and his band the Shadows. Bobby Vee's band (which had once employed a young, pre-Dylan Bobby Zimmerman) included a twenty-year-old tenor saxophonist named Bobby Keys. Bobby Vee, accustomed to the scorching heat of the American Southwest in summertime, appeared onstage in cool Bermuda shorts; he was amused to see the Stones playing in their usual jeans and sweatshirts, sweltering in the blazing sun of the outdoor gigs.

At least the Stones got a warm welcome too. There were 4,500 kids at the San Bernardino show, mostly deeply tanned teenage girls in tight shorts, bare feet, bare tummies. The band played an eleven-song set, Mick dancing around the stage, shaking his ass and his four maracas, leaping into the air with his scissors kick. Girls started rushing the stage, which sent the cops into action: flying tackles, body slams, pile-ons. One girl grabbed Mick and it took three cops to get her off. Brian almost had his harp pushed down his throat. Keith: “It was a straight gas. They all know the songs and they were bopping! It was like being back home. 'Route 66' mentioned San Bernardino and everybody was into it. We went out on the road and in Omaha there'd be six hundred kids. You get deflated. That's what stopped us from turning into pop stars. Then we really had to work America and it really got the band together. We'd fallen off playing in England because nobody was listening. We'd do four numbers and be gone. Don't blink, you'll miss us.”

The next day, the tour flew to Texas to play the San Antonio Teen Fair. The Stones' scruffy hair drew fire at the airport and in hotel lobbies. Crew-cut local rednecks, getting their first taste of long hair, uptight with homosexual panic, yelled taunts and wolf-whistled at them. All-American girls in their cashmere sweaters with round necklines and circle pins, wearing straight fifties-style skirts, came up and asked the band why they didn't carry purses and wear lipstick. There was hostility backstage too, and Mick Jagger got into a shoving match with the guitar player of country singer George Jones's band, which was also on the bill. Mick ended up in a headlock until Jones—disgusted by the Stones' look—told his ol' boy to let go.

After the San Antonio shows, the Stones were photographed at the Alamo, shrine of Texas independence. They complained bitterly to road manager Bonis that they weren't pulling any girls, what Keith termed “a distinct lack of crumpet.” Alarmed by constant taunts and insults from strangers, scared by random violence reported on the TV news, Keith and Bill bought cheap automatic pistols in Texas. Keith never toured America again without a gun close by, especially when he learned that Muddy Waters carried a .25 wherever he went.

2120 South Michigan Avenue

Andrew Oldham
wanted to record the next Stones album in America. They were all frustrated that the gutsy sound they'd been getting live in England never came close to being duplicated on record, which they blamed on sterile London studios and inadequate engineers. They were determined to get it right in a more sophisticated American studio. Phil Spector suggested they go to Chicago and work where their R&B heroes made their records. They flew to the Windy City on June 9. The band wanted to visit some famous blues clubs that night, but were told that racial tensions were running high and they'd better stay out of the South Side. Brian Jones spent the evening writing postcards to both of his pregnant girlfriends.

The next day, the Stones arrived at Chess Records at 2120 South Michigan Avenue. They walked into the studio and saw a big black man with a familiar-looking face, up on a ladder, painting the place. It was Muddy Waters.

Keith: “He was painting the goddamn ceiling, dressed all in white, with white paint like tears on his face, 'cause he wasn't selling any records at the time. That throws you a curve: here's the king of the blues painting a wall. When we started the Rolling Stones, our main aim was to turn other people on to Muddy. We named the group after him. And now I was getting to meet The Man. He's my fucking God, right?—and he's painting the ceiling!”

Bill: “We're unloading our van, helping Stu take the equipment in, when this big black guy comes up and says, 'Want some help here?' It's Muddy Waters, and he starts helping us carry in the guitars, the amps, the mike stands. It was unbelievable. Here's the great Muddy Waters carrying my guitar into the studio. I mean, it was unreal.”

Muddy Waters had been following the Stones' progress for a while. He'd toured England in late 1963 (disappointing R&B fans by playing only acoustic blues because Chess was trying to reposition him as a folksinger) and had said complimentary things about the Stones.

Muddy was also one of the inspirations for a new American generation of young white musicians beginning to update R&B. In New York, John Hammond, Jr., was reviving Robert Johnson's songs. Ronnie Hawkins and his band the Hawks were recording Bo Diddley jams, and in Chicago, white kids—Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, Charlie Musselwhite, and Elvin Bishop—were adapting R&B styles for a new audience. The Stones had an advantage over the local white musicians: they had the British Invasion momentum and a sexy, hip-swiveling lead singer who had never been advised by Muddy—as had Mike Bloomfield—that he wasn't man enough to sing the blues yet.

The Chess studio was basically unchanged from the late 1950s. Although Andrew was nominally producing the sessions, they began working with resident engineer Ron Malo, who'd recorded classic sides by Muddy, Chuck Berry, Howlin' Wolf, and the Stones' other idols. It was the first time the Stones had recorded in a modern four-track studio, and Malo surrounded them with the trademark Chess echo that gave the blues a misterioso depth and dramatic edge. Over the next two days, the Stones taped their next single, a second British EP, and most of their next album in a burst of inspired creativity. On the first day, they cut “It's All Over Now” and the first version of Irma Thomas's “Time Is on My Side.” Muddy smiled as he watched twenty-two-year-old Brian Jones play his skilled bottleneck guitar on “I Can't Be Satisfied” and some instrumental tracks featuring Stu on piano. Chess's resident composer Willie Dixon dropped by to sell the Stones some songs, but the band was more interested in covering some of their newly bought American soul records. Guitarist Buddy Guy and other blues stars came in and shook hands.

The next morning, Andrew staged a typically provocative press conference on a traffic island outside the
Chicago Tribune
building in the middle of the Loop. As reporters shouted questions, fans surged around them and traffic jammed up. An irate Chicago police captain showed up, threatened everyone with arrest, and the conference moved to the sidewalk before it broke up.

Back at Chess that afternoon, the band continued to record the soul tunes and R&B covers that would appear on the next album. In the middle of the session, Chuck Berry showed up, having been alerted that the English band was cutting a bunch of his songs. He had snubbed the boys earlier that year at one of the shows on his post-prison English tour, but now, with visions of royalties dancing in his head, Berry was much more friendly. He walked in while the Stones were playing “Down the Road Apiece,” and afterward he smiled and said, “Wow, you guys are really getting it on. Swing on, gentlemen.”

Bill Wyman: “Chuck Berry was the nicest I can ever remember him being, but don't forget we were making money for him. We all stood around talking about guitars, amplifiers, all that. We played 'Reelin' and Rockin' ' for him and he really liked it and said most of the cover versions of his songs didn't swing.”

The Chess sessions produced a cornucopia of fresh material. Brian was brilliant on harmonica, Stu was prominent on boogie piano, and Mick slurred his vocals like an Arkansas sharecropper. Among the outtakes were Big Bill Broonzy's “Tell Me Baby,” Willie Dixon's “Meet Me in the Bottom,” “High Heel Sneakers,” and Chuck Berry's “Don't Lie to Me” and “Reelin' and Rockin'.” And in an incredible moment, as the Stones were recording the atmospheric Nanker Phelge instrumental “2120 South Michigan Avenue,” Muddy Waters picked up a guitar and began to jam with the band (when the song was released later that year, Muddy's guitar had to be edited out—except for a single note—for contractual reasons).

In between takes, the Stones gave interviews to radio and TV crews, ate soul food from local rib joints, and chatted with Chicago blues idols who dropped in, curious about the strange English kids who had picked up on their thing. The Stones got a big dose of Chess ambience. Keith: “[There was] some incredible music going on in the back room while we were there. Sometimes we would open the door and peep in. Some
amazing
stuff going on.”