Author:Bob Spitz
US author Bob Spitz proves that there’s still plenty to say about The Rolling Stones in this epic new biography of the band. Although it appears that he, perhaps unsurprisingly, hasn’t been able to interview any of the band members, he has nevertheless forensically gone through their story from its very beginnings with the proverbial fine toothcomb. It takes as its heart the bond between two young boys that has endured for over six decades, and their volatile, even alchemical, creative partnership, while simultaneously drawing in others who fell within their orbit, those who survived the course such as Watts and Wood, and those, like Jones, Taylor, and eventually even Wyman, who fell by the wayside. There is certainly a huge amount of detail here, and although many of the stories are already well known the author shines a light to give them a welcome new perspective. While the book itself clocks in at a hefty 700 pages, the last 100 are reserved for the bibliography, index etc, so there’s actually 600 pages to get through. Rather frustratingly, the content is heavily skewed towards their early years – by page 450 Exile has only just been released, which basically leaves around 150 pages to cover the next fifty odd years! Indeed, anything post 1990 is given very cursory treatment, so in that respect the book could perhaps have benefited from another 100 pages. There are also a few typos that really should have been spotted – Moonlight Mile is referred to at one point as Midnight Mile for example and Memory Motel as Memory Hotel, although these to be fair are minor irritations in the grand scheme of things. Overall, this is a very enjoyable and informative read that has obviously been painstakingly researched, and it may yet prove to be the final definitive word on the story of the band, or as close as we’re ever likely to get given that Jagger seemingly handed back the publishers advance for his own story a number of years ago.
Length of Read:Epic
Might appeal to people who enjoyed…
The existing books by Keith Richards and Bill Wyman, the numerous other Stones book around and the author’s other titles on The Beatles and Led Zeppelin.
One thing you’ve learned
With a new, perhaps final, studio album in the offing, this is a chance for fans or the merely curious to reacquaint themselves with the ongoing story of the band whose myth and music have in many ways come to encapsulate the spirit of rock and roll over the last sixty years.
Nice review. I wasn’t very impressed with his Beatle book a while back so will be giving this one a miss.
* until it appears as a 99p download anyway
I don’t know what’s wrong with his Beatles book. I really enjoyed it, particularly the opening chapter which was a great description of an early gig, I think. It may not have been authoritative, but it was a good read, while I was walking from Bonn to Trier, many years ago. It weighed a ton in my rucksack, so it must have been worth it.
I just found it to be lacking much insight and very familiar, sounds like The Stones book may be similar from the review
While I understand the book industry is under threat, the focus on early years in bios remains frustrating. What happens in the latter years, the emergence of self-consciousness, the lack of development in the artist’s approach are ripe areas for the thoughtful writer and reader.
Up to a point, depending on who’s being written about.
I’m not so sure there’s very much more to be revealed about The Stones, once you get this side of the ’80s. About their music at any rate.
I remember reading Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography and finding the first 2/3 a really good read but the last 1/3 of it became rather hard going. A lot of detail about not very much happening.
I think that’s quite a common fault in rock music biographies. Once the artist/artists are established and successful they are less interesting. The really interesting stuff has happened by then and there’s not always a great deal of substance remaining to report on.
Agree. A couple of recent ones fall in to this trap. Kenney Jones’ book is great when he’s talking about his childhood and early music experiences. Once he gets to running his polo farm and afternoon tea with Charles and playing with a bunch of people who aren’t half as good as the Small Faces, I wasn’t all that interested. Same with Chris Frantz’ s book – I found the early years really interesting (including the snide remarks about David Byrne), but once it got to endless tours and parties and the inevitable rehab it was a bit of a yawn.
The Who were at least half as good as the Small Faces! 😉
A mere shadow of their former selves by the time Kenney Jones joined them, I would contend.
I’d actually have bought it had it gone into depth post, say Steel Wheels, which was around the time I got into the Stones in a big way. I’d have enjoyed insights into the era that I can remember, what was happening behind the scenes with Darryl’s story, how the much publicised Steel Wheels era rapprochement between Dot and Ethel actually panned out during the course of the 90s and beyond, the approach to music making up to Bigger Bang and Hackney Diamonds, the changing personalities of the principles, how they adapted to the digital era, aging, etc etc. There’ll be books about all that in due course I expect, but I feel those 450 pages up to exile have been exhaustively mined already and so why do we need another compilation of hoary old chestnuts?
The rock star book I have enjoyed the most is Elton John’s Me, which covers all the decades, pretty equally all told. There’s always something going on. Does it matter that the 80s albums aren’t great when you have the Renata saga happening at the same time? Normal life can entertain – my favourite story is how he is pissed off at West Brom beating Watford so to cheer himself up he calls up a friend to ask him to invite some gay men over for dinner. And that’s how he meets David Furnish.
Yes, that’s a really fun bio. I can take or leave him as a performer – his singles collection Diamonds is all the Elton I need – but boy has he lived life, and the book tells his story very well and with plenty of self-deprecation.
Until I read it, I hadn’t appreciated just how many health issues he has had. He is definitely one of life’s survivors.
Yes, Me was pretty good – and well written by, I believe Alexis Petridis.
I have a particular insight into this at the moment as I am ghostwriting the autobiography of a fairly major figure in the UK art world. It has been relatively easy to get well formed stories from his childhood and the distant past as those memories have solidified into polished anecdotes and serve a narrative purpose.
The early – mid career stories are easy and flow like wine. But recent material is harder to write. When you have been purposefully building up a narrative arc, the final descent to the end is difficult to navigate- how to imbue the right weight and value to the text without lumbering everything with a sense of finality, a neat ending. Thats what I liked about the Elton, Keef or Peter Hook books. They balanced their life stories out nicely.
Very interesting
You will let us know when it’s available. I’d buy it!
I have recently been pondering biographies in a music and sporting context.
I believe that many subjects are not in themselves interesting and are often reduced to a succession of cliched album/tour album/tour …. interspersed with increasingly childish high jinks which can become wearing. Even more so sports stars recounting a succession of matches generally of a career on the rise is not inherently interesting “Stoke on a cold wet winters night was always a difficult trip ….. “((without the visuals of a documentary, for example).
In some way, )particularly in my NME reading years) we vicariously lived our lives through what we saw as rebellious outsiders who lived at the edge of, and threatened society norms.
As the protagonists reach their dotage they take on many of the traits of a substantial portion of the population as they veer to the right/Reform-like reflecting their world view. And were perhaps never the rebels we thought they were ( or as portrayed).
As mentioned by prior correspondents often the interesting bit is pre fame as they struggle with achieving success and recognition. Thereafter (with exceptions admittedly) they are doing a job, much as you or I.
Conversely, I find some of the very mundane aspects of their lives endearing. Robert Plant’s evident devotion to Wolves (and I have visions of his weekend being ruined by conceding a last minute goal, or him continuing to play five-a-side with his old mates). I also recall hearing out ELO being on the road in the US in the 70s and having the commentary on Birmingham matched related by transatlantic phone). I could relate to this.
These touches of a common touch were more interesting and endearing than another hotel room being trashed.
Hence, with this new Stones book I understand the weighing towards the first 10 years. But there would be interest in an honest appraisal of how they have transitioned to the current commercial juggernaut. And the participants reflection on said mutation.
(Slotbadger – I see we simultaneously made overlapping points!).
Yes I agree. I think it is very interesting – why keep doing it, the challenges, how they get around their challenges, the smoke and mirrors employed and maybe why they insist on that awful compressed sound these days.
I would certainly read a book that covered the years post say Some Girls which is really the last album covered in any detail – thinking back, I can’t recall Voodoo Lounge or Bridges to Babylon being mentioned even in passing, while A Bigger Bang and Blue and Lonesome are rather dismissed in one solitary sentence. OK, these are records no one will be in a hurry to listen to again, but even the resurgence of Hackney Diamonds is glossed over.
I’m not that interested in rock stars per se but I do like details of how the great singles and albums came to be written and how they were recorded. Sadly these details tend to be skimmed over in pursuit of the next scandalous jape.
I’m a stones fan for sure but this doesn’t particularly appeal to me given how much of this ground has been covered elsewhere. Like others on this thread I think there are other parts of their history that are probably ripe for exploration and present fresh or fresher territory. Personally, I’ve always had a soft spot for the mid 70s to early 80s era of the band when they started going disco, funk and punk in Paris and New York, etc as well the post ’89 era – some not bad at all albums came out of that period while the Glimmer Twins continued to rub up against each other albeit in a quieter way. Us lot are probably in the minority in relation to stuff like that (as we likely are in other areas of life/modern culture…..)
I agree, I’d like a book that covers the Black & Blue to Tattoo You period. Maybe start with the 1975 US tour and end with the 1982 European one. I think this period is underrated, the albums have a good vibe and whisper it, but Some Girls might be their best album. It’s basically the period covered by the Sucking in the Seventies compilation, which is now largely forgotten, but is an entertaining record.
No, I don’t think it’s their best, but decent and certainly up there with the best released after the incredible 4 album run ended with Exile.
It’s more than decent.
I suspect the problem with writing anything about The Stones recent doings is that their extensive suite of businesses is an extremely tightly-run ship, where nothing is left to chance and every last detail needs to be run past lawyers, PR and marketing people etc. before publication.
If they decide they don’t wish to cooperate with a writer then nobody in their employ, past or present, is going to be forthcoming. NDAs will have been signed and will be enforced. Complete lockdown apart from what is already in the public domain.
Mick shows no sign of wanting to bring out a biography. Keef’s will have been scrutinised in exhaustive detail before publication, as to what could or could not be included.
I used to work at a publisher’s where they did one of those huge authorised coffee table books on the Stones, about 13 years ago. I was keen to be involved, because, well, it was the Stones, and so was given the task of writing captions for the hundreds of photographs in the book. I was told to make them “lighthearted, irreverent, funny”. So, pathetically attempting to channel the spirit of 80s Smash Hits, I set to. I mean there are only so many ways you can say “here’s Mick in a ghastly nylon shirt in 1973” but I tried.
Like every last word in the book, the captions were then sent out to the four separate offices, representing Mick, Keith, Ron and Charlie for approval where what seemed an infinite number of people scrutinised each last full stop. Finally, three offices signed off on them, Mick’s office flat-out refused to allow us to use them til they were completely rewritten. These were just the captions. The level of control over the entire process was remarkable,.
Interesting insight. Thanks.
I suppose the sad and brutal truth is that the Stones were largely uninteresting and irrelevant as a genuine musical force after 1972. A few nice bits here and there but…you know…we ALL surely know…
Keith seems to be missing on the promotional duties, plus the European tour not happening. Hope he’s ok
Nice review, @Bargepole.
This book got quite a kicking in the Culture section of the Times on Sunday, with the misogyny of the individual Stones being flagged (Charlie aside). One of the other issues raised, as has been mentioned above, is the latter years being dismissed in comparatively few pages.
I think Keith can probably be excepted too from such judgement. Brian was a disgusting person. Yes that was not a very promising revire from Craig Brown no less
Revire? Review!
Keith wasn’t a near psychopath with women like Brian, but certainly he wasn’t immune to the cliched misogyny of 70s rock n roll. A couple of biographers and memoirists (Victor Bockris, “Spanish” Tony) have accounts of him beating up Anita on occasion.
One of the most interesting/weird facts about the Stones was when, as Brown points out in the review, Bill Wyman’s son got engaged to Mandy Smith’s mother, which would’ve made Bill the son-in-law of his own son.
⬆️ this could be my new favourite fact, thank you @hamlet