The Rolling Stones – The Biography

By Bob Spitz.

Bob spits it out pretty good. I was never a huge Stones fan. I liked some of their tunes but never bought one of their albums. As an infant I recall a favorite from that era “Get Off My Cloud.” I took the tune personally. I felt I knew exactly what get off my cloud was about. Just get off. Get the hell off my cloud. Do it now. Just git. It was the truth. ”Play With Fire” was the same. It wasn’t so much don’t play with me ´cause you’re playin´ with fire as that block in St. John’s Wood and getting your kicks in Stepney not Knightsbridge anymore. I felt that truth in my bones as I roamed around my crib.

I remember Brian Jones. That he was a highly talented musician isn’t overlooked. Neither is fathering four children given birth to by four different girls of varying ages but all under the age of eighteen. The youngest was fourteen. Jones first got to know the girl when she was thirteen. Or that the man who said he held Jones under water is named. He’s dead himself and for some time.. The holding underwater is why Brian Jones was found unresponsive at the bottom of his swimming pool and pronounced dead at the age of twenty-seven. The reasons for his bandmates disaffection for him in the few years leading up to this are laid out in detail. His obnoxious moodiness and showing up stoned out of his gourd and useless. I do recall one clip of Jones gassed to the gills and very obviously drug-bombed off his nut doing nothing while his bandmates played.

I didn’t know bassist Bill Wyman married an eighteen year old when he was into his fifties. The relationship dated from when his bride was thirteen. The elaborate marriage cracked  up quite quickly. Marry in haste, Bill, repent at leisure. Wyman retired from the band but that was later.

Mick Taylor replaced Brian Jones. Mick Taylor was an exceptionally talented guitarist who added depth to the Stones delivery but he packed it in after just a few years, feeling under appreciated. It was too bad. One tune I recall he had a major part in is “Time Waits For No One.” I felt that a fine tune and still do because it’s true about the time thing. Mick Taylor’s gift from the band was an addiction to heroin whose chief long term devotee within the Rolling Stones was Keith Richards. Keith Richards downed enough dope to kill ten men but had a knack for pulling through with the added spice of some very close calls. He had a twenty year relationship with actress, model and raging heroin addict herself Anita Pallenberg that produced four healthy children which one would think should have been highly unlikely, poor things. Richards topped out at father of five children. After finally splitting with Anita he took up for a time with model Patti Hansen. Continuing in his line of models he ended up marrying Jerry Hall. He finally did clean up. It was awful. He knew how awful because it was his “tenth or twelfth time” doing it. Hell on wheels. Worse than that, but it sounds like he’s stayed clean for good this time. Survivor. With age comes wisdom? He carries on at 82. It’s only rock and roll but he likes it.

The unobtrusive and steady Charlie Watts back there on his straightforward four drum kit liked it too but eventually retired like Bill Wyman. Not known as a stoner he developed a uncharacteristic drug and alcohol problem late in his Stones tenure. Cancer took him five years ago at the age of eighty.

Ronnie Wood who took over after Mick Taylor is not gotten into too terribly much. His versatile guitar and bass playing filled in some of the big gap left by Taylor and he got on well with Keith, better than Mick T. ever did. He was Keith’s drug buddy. Ronnie today is a mere lad of 79. 

Mick Jagger, is, as in the Stones act, front and center in a lot of the book. More business minded than his fellow “Glimmer Twin” Keith, he evolved into the leader of the group following the demise of Brian Jones. He made a lot of the decisions and picked a lot of the venues. He knew that if the Stones wanted to keep going they had to keep going. And they did.  Through six decades. The last gig of note was in gigantic SoFi stadium in Los Angeles, July 2024 in front of sixty-five thousand people. Okay. They didn’t sell out the stadium. That would have taken another five thousand people, but it’s still quite a few people to see some old guys. The hired help on drums and vocals and some other stuff were younger.

Bob Spitz, who worked as Bruce Springsteen and Elton John’s manager at various times, has the cred to be a biographer in rock and roll. He doesn’t kid around. This epic is 602 pages but moves along very well. His earlier book on the Beatles is four hundred pages longer. He covered Led Zeppelin for close to seven hundred pages.

I did see the Rolling Stones once. Steel Wheels Tour 1989. A strapping lad I was by now. Vancouver. A good friend had a ticket another friend passed on. Go see the Stones? For free? My friend and I had seen many concerts in the past. We stopped going because the concerts stopped starting on time and long gaps between acts seemed the new normal. Not good enough.

And there they were up there. We weren’t close to the stage but we weren’t that far off. Mick skipped around all night. He was nothing if not energetic. They looked exactly as I remembered from my crib days. Just a little older. They gave people their money’s worth. I think they always made a point of doing that.

Okay, I folded. I ordered “Exile on Main Street” because it’s supposed to be good. As Bob Spitz relates, its was considered a dog of sorts when it was released and was mostly panned in the musical press. But the experts came around. After a few listenings the double album ended up being called a classic and a must have. Typical. I’ve experienced the same thing in music. Well, after many a day, it’s finally getting a listen.