Perusing 1962 issues of ‘Jazz News’ I came across a quote from Mick Jagger – presumably the first time he had been quoted anywhere in print – commenting on his band’s impending Marquee Club debut the following evening, Thursday 12 July.
And what did Mick say? “I hope they don’t think we’re a rock’n’roll band.”
Obviously, I will inform the band’s management without delay that, owing to some ghastly 55-year misunderstanding, they must immediately cease billing the Rolling Stones as “the greatest rock’n’roll band in the world”. It’s what Mick would want.
And who else was in the band that night? Keith Richards, ‘Elmo Lewis’ (i.e. Brian), ‘Stu’ on piano, Dick Taylor (bass) and Mick Avery (drums). If Johnny C were around he would tell us more about those last three. The band were titled ‘Rolling Stones’ in the brief news item, though a week or two later it was back to ‘Rollin’ Stones’.
And who was on at the Marquee the night before, you ask? Why, it was Dougie Richford’s London Jazzmen with Nat Gonella, featuring Big Pete Deuchar on banjo. The DRLJ had already released a single that year, recorded by Joe Meek and issued on Parlophone, ‘On Sunday I Go Sailing / Yip-i-Addy-i-Yay’. It’s good stuff – but no one would confuse it with rock’n’roll.
“Stu” is of course founder-member (along with Brian Jones) Ian Stewart, who was demoted in 1963 to road manager and part-time touring pianist. He was deemed to be too old, square-looking and ugly (he had rather a big chin but was otherwise OK) for a teen pop band. He remained with them until his death in 1985.
Dick Taylor played guitar and bass for a while and then left to form The Pretty Things with singer Phil May. Still going strong.
Another person on the Stones’ periphery in the early days was singer/guitarist Brian Knight, who was invited to join by Stewart and Jones but turned the job down. Something he frequently used to gripe about in later years.
Brian Knight used to live near me in Bushey, Herts and built himself a home studio there. I did some electrical work on it for him in the early ’90s and he still owes me £50 that he has never paid. Haven’t seen or heard of him in years. He was a decent slide guitarist and singer. An electric blues purist. Never ever known to buy anybody a drink.
Thank you Mike – I did know all that, by the way (except the last paragraph!), but it’s usually Johnny’s forte to provide these sort of potted histories. I was trying to tempt him back from obscurity…
I reckon Johnny’s Gone Walkabout.
He’s sitting by a billabong, munching on a lightly-grilled breakfast Goanna and daydreaming about The Beano Album.
He’s ramped up the tweeting in the past couple of days. Has he flounced, I wonder? Did he have words with someone?
Gone walkabout? He’s in the outback with Jenny Agutter? Lucky devil…
Hey, speaking of still being owed…Cat Stevens (or whatever he calls himself these days) never paid me my fee — a thousand dollars or so — for work I did in getting him back royalties (although I dealt with his royalty guy, who obviously wasn’t doing his job very well and is probably the one who ripped me off; this was back in my old NYC life in the ’90s).
Mick Avory went on to drum with The Kinks, think he only played a couple of times with the Stones.
In Mick’s defence ( I hope he appreciates it), the term rock’n’roll came to mean something else over the years – in 1962 rock’n’roll was a bit passe and old fashioned. It was also anathama to jazz fans, so he needed to make sure they were given a chance. I think the first time theywere described as ‘the greatest rock and roll band in the world’ was on the US tour in 1969, and I remember being intrigued and surprised when I heard that on Get Yer Ya Yas Out – rock was something quite different by then.
It’s a good point, Nigel – and my tongue (unlike that of the Stones logo) was firmly in my cheek in the OP. However, it’s curious that Brian Jones (under his own name, not Elmer Fudd or whatever) wrote to Jazz News a couple of issues later making precisely the point that he felt R&B (then a fast-bubbling ‘new thing’ in London) was more closely related to rock’n’roll than it was to jazz. Many others then, as now, have a different perception. I’m not sure what the point of his letter was – it was as if he was subliminally asking Jazz News to stop writing about them.
For what it’s worth Brian Knight died of cancer in 2001, he was 61.
In 1967 he married Cyril Davies’s widow, Marie. I think at some stage it was John Pilgrim who was intending to research a biography.
John’s home in Yoxford, Suffolk is a huge, rambling vicarage which I likened to a book and magazine warehouse….but he knew where everything was at a “drop of a hat” – his turn of phrase not mine.
Last time I spoke on the phone with John he was having his own battle with cancer and caring for his disabled wife.
Apologies for the “off the wall” ramble.
They may have become a rock’n’roll band, but at least he didn’t rip his traaaahsers!