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  If that’s the “good girl” version of teenage sexual awakening, then the “bad girl” version has to be this steamy recollection that rock chanteuse Patti Smith penned for Creem magazine in January of 1973:

  PATTI SMITH: Look back. it was 1965. Pa was shouting from the tv room. “jesus christ! jesus christ!” . . . I ran in panting. I was scared silly. There was pa glued to the tv screen cussing his brains out. A rock ’n’ roll band was doing it right on the ed sullivan show. pa was frothing like a dog. I never seen him so mad. but I lost contact with him quick. that band was as relentless as murder. I was trapped in a field of hot dots. the guitar player had pimples. the blonde kneeling down had circles ringing his eyes. one had greasy hair. the other didn’t care. and the singer was showing his second layer of skin and more than a little milk. I felt thru his pants with optic x-ray. this was some hard meat. this was a bitch. five white boys sexy as any spade. their nerves were wired and their third leg was rising. in six minutes five lusty images gave me my first glob of gooie in my virgin panties.

  That was my introduction to the Rolling Stones. they did Time is on my side. my brain froze. I was doing all my thinking between my legs. I got shook. light broke. they were gone and I cliff-hanging. like jerking off without coming . . . I can tie the Stones in with every sexual release of my late blooming adolescence. The Stones were sexually freeing confused american children, a girl could feel power. lady glory, a guy could reveal his feminine side without being called a fag. masculinity was no longer measured on the football field . . . Ya never think of the Stones as fags. In full make-up and frills they still get it across. they know just how to ram a woman. they made me real proud to be female. the other half of male. they aroused in me both a feline sense of power and a longing to be held under the thumb.

  You said it, Patti. Rock was sex, and the Rolling Stones were rock. And they were brazen about it as well. Let’s do a quick survey of the ways that the Stones led the charge of the sexual revolution of the ’60s and beyond.

  In the beginning, it was through the words and music of others—cover versions of the down and dirty paeans to erotica by their American blues heroes, such as two Willie Dixon classics, “I Just Want to Make Love to You” (a hit for Muddy Waters) and “Little Red Rooster” (a hit for Howlin’ Wolf). Then it was the constant flow of hits and album tracks that celebrated venery and volupté such as “The Spider and the Fly,” “Back Street Girl,” “Satisfaction,” “Stray Cat Blues,” “Parachute Women,” “Let It Bleed,” “Live with Me,” “Brown Sugar,” and “Some Girls.” Or how about the ones that were so over the top and outrageous that they had to be disguised by the record company to avoid retribution (“Star Star” and “Little T & A”)! What other band would allow a documentary like Cocksucker Blues to make its way into the public sphere?

  And then what about the whole question of androgyny, unisexuality, and homoeroticism that is such a large part of the history and mystery of the Rolling Stones? From the picture sleeves for “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” to the cover of the Some Girls album to the late Guy Peellaert’s erotically charged depictions of the Stones in drag, with naked underaged girls, and in fishnet stockings and full Nazi regalia in his iconic art book Rock Dreams—the Stones have never shied away from their feminine side (They even asked Peellaert to do the cover of It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll in 1974.)

  MICK JAGGER: Elvis was very androgynous. I saw Elvis as a rock singer, and obviously you were attracted to him because he was a good-looking guy. If you look at the pictures, the eyes are done with makeup, and everything’s perfect. I mean, look at Little Richard. He had a very feminine appearance, but you didn’t translate that into what Little Richard’s sex orientation was . . . As far as I was concerned, it was part of the whole thing from the beginning. It was very English—guys dressing up in drag is nothing particularly new . . . And it obviously worked and offended people, which was always the big thing, something new to offend them with. I think what we did in this era was take all these things that were unspoken in previous incarnations of rock ’n’ roll and intellectualize them . . . rock ’n’ roll mostly is a very butch thing, and it appeals to one hard side of the masculine character. But I don’t think the Rolling Stones are only a rock band. They can be other things. They can be very feminine.

  KEITH RICHARDS: Oh, you should have seen Mick really . . . I’ll put it like this; there was a period when Mick was extremely camp. When Mick went through his camp period, in 1964, Brian and I immediately went enormously butch and sort of laughin’ at him. That terrible thing . . . that switching-around confusion of roles that still goes on.

  One final observation about the Stones and sexuality. It comes from one of the best essays about the group, written by Michael Lydon for his 1971 book Rock Folk. Lydon traveled with the group on their infamous 1969 tour of America and recorded the following exchange. I think it best illustrates the intersection of fame, sex, mythology, and perception as reality that this chapter is really all about:

  CATHY: Two years ago my girlfriend Mary and I were married and living in Ojai. It was okay, but boring, and all we ever thought about was Mick Jagger. We loved him a lot more than our husbands. So one day we decided: we’ll split, get divorces, and move down to the Strip. It was great, you know, hanging around the clubs. We got to know a lot of groups but never forgot Mick. So imagine how we felt in the Whisky one night when this guy said he was Sam Cutler and asked if we’d like to be with the Stones when they were in LA, and drive ’em around and stuff.

  It was Sam who picked me up, and I felt loyal to him, but when we were up at Mick’s house the first night—well, I’m only human. We were all sitting around, and Mick said he was going to bed. I was really disappointed. But he came down again and started pouring perfume on me, and sort of whispered, “Will you come up with me, then.” I almost died, but I managed to say, “Only if my friend Mary can come too.” We had been together through two years, and had to make a pact not to leave the other out. He said okay.

  It was funny, man, I could hardly get it on. He makes all the sexy noises in bed, like he does singing. I was laughing so hard, but know what was funniest? For two years I had been thinking with every guy, “He’s great, but he’s not Mick Jagger.” And then with Mick, all I could think was, “He’s great, but he’s not Mick Jagger.”

  An early sign of the Stones’ androgyny

  CHAPTER 12

  WAITING ON A FRIEND

  WHEN BRIAN JONES took out an ad in Jazz News in May of 1962 looking for like-minded musicians, the first respondent was Ian Stewart. Stewart was working for a chemical company at the time.

  IAN STEWART: [My] desk at ICI was the headquarters of the Stones organization. My number was advertised in Jazz News and I handled the Stones’ bookings at work.

  KEITH RICHARDS: He used to play boogie-woogie piano in jazz clubs, apart from his regular job. He blew my head off too, when he started to play. I never heard a white piano player play like that before.

  Ian was a full-fledged member of the band for the first year or so, before Andrew Loog Oldham decided he should take more of a backseat role, saying that six members was one too many for a rock group and that Stewart, who was a burly guy, didn’t fit the image he was trying to create for the Rolling Stones.

  IAN STEWART: Nobody ever said, “You’re out.” But all of a sudden I was out. It happened one night when I went down to play a gig and there were five guys in band uniforms and none for me.

  MICK JAGGER: It was obvious that Ian Stewart didn’t fit the picture. He was still playing piano when we wanted him to; he didn’t play on everything, anyway, because we were playing electrical instruments and he was playing an unamplified upright piano in a noisy club. You couldn’t hear it. I’m not dissing him as though he wasn’t part of the whole thing, but there were a lot of numbers which he didn’t play on. It was plain that Ian didn’t want to be a pop singer.

  Ian “Stu” Stewart

 
Stewart stuck around in his vital role as the “sixth Stone,” becoming the band’s road manager and continuing to play keyboards.

  KEITH RICHARDS: [Stu] might have realized that in the way it was going to have to be marketed, he would be out of sync, but that he could still be a vital part. I’d probably have said, “Well, fuck you,” but he said, “OK, I’ll just drive you around.” That takes a big heart, but Stu had one of the largest hearts around.

  CHUCK LEAVELL: In the early days when they were playing Milwaukee or something, they’d be staying twenty miles away from the city in some hotel. “Why in the world are we out here?” Of course it was because there was a golf course Stu wanted to play nearby.

  KEITH RICHARDS: We’d be playing in some town where there’s all these chicks, and they want to get laid and we want to lay them. But Stu would have booked us into some hotel about ten miles out of town. You’d wake up in the morning and there’s the links. We’re bored to death looking for some action and Stu’s playing Gleneagles.

  But it was also clear that he was like family. Keyboardist Chuck Leavell was Stewart’s protégé.

  CHUCK LEAVELL: Everyone would get dressed up in their rock ’n’ roll regalia before the show—me included—but Stu would come out in his golf polo shirt and jeans. He’d bring his camera and half a sandwich. He’d put the camera and the sandwich on the piano. Sometimes he would just stop playing and take pictures.

  Stu was a universally beloved figure.

  CHUCK LEAVELL: Stu and I really got on famously; I felt like his little brother. Stu was very particular. He didn’t like playing on slow songs—ballads. He didn’t like playing on things that had minor chord changes to them. He only liked playing the boogie-woogie and the rock ’n’ roll stuff. So if it was a rock ’n’ roll tune that he wanted to play piano on, that’s what he did, and I played organ. If it was a ballad like “Angie” or if was something like “Miss You” that had minor changes in it or modal changes, then I took over the keyboard part . . .

  BILL GERMAN: Ian saw what the Stones went through in terms of fame—they couldn’t just go to the park—so he loved being anonymous. It’s just the way it played out. In Stu’s opinion, not being an official member of the band worked out for the best. He got to lead a normal life, while still being creative and still touring the world and still playing piano the best he could. He led a very happy life and he was a very humble guy. He was so glad not to be a rock star—fall into all the trappings of the drugs, and the booze, and the groupies, all that sort of stuff. He seemed to love it that way . . . He told me that the people he hung out with were not famous rock stars, for the most part . . . He knew every rock star, but basically the guys he hung out with on a day-to-day basis were pig farmers and local guys from his town.

  Bill got the opportunity to meet Stewart in the early ’80s when he was writing the Stones’ fanzine Beggars Banquet.

  BILL GERMAN: He famously used to call the Stones “His showers of shit.” And they would take it from him because they had such a respect for him. That’s what intimidated me: If he calls the Stones “showers of shit,” what is he going to think of me? . . . It turns out that he completely puts me at ease. He was the nicest guy in the world. He was teaching me a little bit about boogie-woogie jazz.

  Ian Stewart died in 1985 of a heart attack, but he remains inextricably connected to the band.

  CHUCK LEAVELL: I think about Stu all the time. I know we all do. I miss that guy. He was so funny and such a great human being—a good person and enjoyable to be with.

  MICK JAGGER: Stu was the one guy we tried to please. We wanted his approval when we were writing or rehearsing a song.

  KEITH RICHARDS: Ian Stewart was the first to get us into the studio to make some demos. As far as I’m concerned, the Rolling Stones are his band.

  Appropriately, the reception after the funeral was held at a golf course.

  CHUCK LEAVELL: I can remember Keith saying, “I can hear Stu now saying that this is the only way that they’d let me in this club.”2

  CHAPTER 13

  LET’S SPEND SOME TIME TOGETHER

  TELEVISION IMPRESARIO ED Sullivan learned early on that a “new-fashioned” rock ’n’ roll sensation could pump up the ratings of his “old-fashioned” Sunday night variety show on CBS. It happened with Elvis. It happened with the Beatles. And as we’ve noted, it happened six times, from 1964 to 1969, with the Rolling Stones.

  BILL WYMAN: Well, I think Ed Sullivan can be summed up really easily. Do you remember when the Supremes came on his show and it came time for him to make the announcement? He said, “Ahnd naow, ladies and gen’lmen, for your enjoyment, the . . . the . . . the . . .” and the curtains open and he says, “the Girls.” He had one line to say every ten minutes, but he couldn’t handle it. Every time we were on the show he had to do four re-takes of whatever he was saying. “Heeeeeere’s the Rolling Stones with their new record . . . er . . . uh . . .” He must have been all right at one time. Otherwise he never would have gotten the show, right?

  As you might imagine, there was also headline-making controversy attached to some of these appearances. For every fresh-scrubbed, squeaky-clean performance by the Dave Clark Five, Herman’s Hermits, or Gerry and the Pacemakers, there were an equal number of eyebrow-raising moments involving a few of the biggest names in music. In his third appearance on the Sullivan show, in January of 1957, Elvis was shown from the waist up only because of the uproar caused by his first two hip-swiveling performances in 1956. Bob Dylan walked off the show in 1963 when he was prohibited from singing “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues.” (He never did appear on the broadcast in its remaining eight years on the air.) Another famous incident occurred in 1967 when the show booked the Doors for an appearance on September 17.

  RAY MANZAREK: “Light My Fire” went to number one and a day later we got a call from Ed Sullivan saying, “You’re on the show in two weeks.” So we get to New York, get in the rehearsal situation, and right at the end of “Light My Fire,” some guy comes up to us, Ed Sullivan’s son-in-law, actually [Bob Precht], and says, “Very good boys, very good. There’s only one problem. You’re going to have to change the word ‘higher’ . . . You can’t say ‘high’ on nationwide TV.” We said, “Hey, that doesn’t have anything to do with drugs, or anything like that. That’s not a drug song, it’s a love song. We’re so in love, our love couldn’t get much higher.” “I don’t care what your rationale is boys. You can’t say ‘higher’ on nationwide TV. You can say ‘bite my wire’ for all I care, but change it or you’re not on!” We said, “Okay, okay, okay, okay, we’ll change it. Yes sir, yes sir.”

  He left the room and we all looked at each other and said, “Let’s not change it.” It was only a five-second delay. It was virtually live. “They’re not going to be able to edit it. Nobody’s gonna even know. So it comes time to sing, man, and there we are: “Girl we couldn’t get much HIGHER!” and we did it for all we were worth. After the show, this guy comes up to us and starts screaming, “You promised! You promised you wouldn’t say ‘higher.’ Why did you do it?” And we said, “Hey, man, in the excitement of the moment—nationwide television—we just forgot. Our minds went blank. You know how musicians are, man. We’re kind of dumb.” And he said, “But you promised,” and walked out of the room, and we never did another Ed Sullivan Show again.

  Two famous eyerolls: Mick on Sullivan in 1967; Dean Martin from back in 1964

  The Stones handled a very similar situation in a very different way. For their January 15, 1967, live appearance during which they were scheduled to perform and promote the new single “Let’s Spend the Night Together” and “Ruby Tuesday,” the group was famously asked by Sullivan himself to alter the lyric of the former to “Let’s spend some time together.” In this instance, the group complied with Sullivan’s wishes, albeit with Jagger contemptuously rolling his eyes skyward at every opportunity during the song’s entire three minutes and twenty-nine seconds.

  BILL WYMAN: If it was Englan
d we probably wouldn’t have bothered to go through with it. But the Sullivan show was quite important at the time, reached sixty million people or so, and it was our only shot since you had to agree not to do another big show one month before or after being on it.

  Or, to put it another way, Mick Jagger didn’t attend the London School of Economics for nothing!

  CHAPTER 14

  RUBY TUESDAY

  THE STONES HIT the ground running at the beginning of 1967 with a two-fisted, two-sided, almost “too” controversial forty-five-rpm single called “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” backed with “Ruby Tuesday.” The former was yet another hard-rocking, lewd, rude, and crude invitation by the Stones to cast off the pretenses and conventions of World War II era parents, and acknowledge that young people all over the world were engaging in all kinds of sexual relationships without the benefit of marriage. Well, once again, the Stones were a little bit ahead of their time, but a little bit behind the archconservatism of Big American Media.

  As a result, the Stones ran into a thick brick wall of censorship when they tried to peddle the song on The Ed Sullivan Show (see chapter 13). And they also ran headlong into the same problem with the self-appointed guardians of culture and mores on the nation’s airwaves. (Just a note to point out here that while all of this was going on, a young Howard Stern, who had just turned thirteen years of age, was attending Roosevelt Junior High School on Long Island!)