Out in east Manchester the city turns into a series of small towns nestled into the Pennines. In one of those towns, Ashton- under- Lyne, there is an industrial museum at Portland Basin, the meeting point of two canals and some restored industrial buildings. In part of the museum there is a section on local bands and venues, all long gone, and this poster advertising a Rolling Stones gig from 1963. Oddly, the venue, Baths Hall in Urmston is miles away at the western edge of Manchester, a couple of miles from where I live. Baths Hall is also long gone, demolished in the 1970s. The Stones have outlived it by decades. The poster was saved by a member of the support act, The Meteors, who were from Hyde, an east Manchester town not far from Portland Basin (and not the '80s psychobilly band of the same name) and is part of a display about The Meteors.
The Rolling Stones played all over the country in 1963/ 4. I've written before about them playing in Leek, Staffordshire, a post that linked Joe Strummer's song At The Border, Guy (which has Joe calling out, 'at Leek town hall, Leek town hall tonight') and Half Man Half Biscuit's magnum opus The Light At The End Of The Tunnel (Is The Light Of An Oncoming Train). The song has lines about several Pennine and Staffordshire towns- New Mills, Matlock, Eyam, and Leek. I know Leek because it was where my Dad was born and grew up and we spent many Saturdays in the 1970s going over there to see my grandmother. Any musical references to it are therefore of interest. The last time we were in Leek, last year, we had a sandwich at The Foxlowe Arts Centre, which I noted was putting gigs on and I see that Leek will shortly host a gig by Jah Wobble so things are definitely happening in small town Staffordshire. At my original Leek post someone left a comment saying The Rolling Stones played Leek in 1963, and added 'I know this because I bought the pies'.
The early Rolling Stones were very much the band of Brian Jones. In the summer I found these photographs from the last photo session of the band with Brian as a Stone, nattily turned out in velvet suit and snakeskin boots, taken in May 1969.
Brian was a mess by this point and had been for some time- drink, drugs, paranoia, estrangement within the band. The third of the three photos is telling- they seem to be waving goodbye to Brian, Mick especially. The writing was on the wall when Andrew Loog Oldham put Jagger and Richards in a room five years earlier and told them they couldn't come out until they'd written a song. Brian was a blues obsessive whose guitar is all over their early songs and he could play any instrument he picked up. The mid- 60s Stones are drenched in Brian's playing- harmonica, piano, organ, harpsichord, mellotron, sitar- and his white teardrop Vox guitar. Tensions between Brian on the one side and Mick and Keith on the other led to his sacking from the band he started, in June 1969, replaced by Mick Taylor. Loog Oldham contributed to the wedge that was driven between them, as did Brian's own behaviour. Footage from the sessions that became Sympathy For The Devil show him in a poor light, only dimly aware of what's going on around him, nodding off while strumming.
Many people who knew him said he could be two different people, one sweet, intelligent, shy but friendly, the other cruel, preening, difficult and insecure. In 1969 Brian took a trip to Morocco in his Rolls Royce with his girlfriend Anita Pallenberg and Keith along for the ride. This became another straw added onto the camel's back that became Brian's sacking. He became violent towards Anita and Keith stepped in. Keith and Anita came home as a couple, and Keith portrayed himself as Anita's saviour ever after. Brian's declining abilities to turn up to sessions, play guitar when he was there and his various legal difficulties (drug busts, visa issues planned tours of the USA) made Mick and Keith's decision easier. Keith and Mick took control of The Rolling Stones musically, managerially and commercially in the mid/ late 60s and removed Brian when he was no longer any use to them- or the brand.
In an interview around the time of the publication of his autobiography Life, Keith was asked which of the people from the '60s who died young he'd bring back if he could, Keith gave a response- I can't remember who, maybe John Lennon or Jimi Hendrix. The interviewer then asked him, 'what about Brian Jones?'. 'Nah', Keef chuckled, 'he was a cunt, leave him dead'. Mick and Keith have controlled the narrative ever since Brian's ejection from the band. Brian's use of drink and drugs undoubtedly made his problems worse. Charlie Watts said Brian did everything to excess and that he wasn't strong enough to take it. In July 1969 Brian was found dead in his swimming pool aged twenty seven. The Stones paid tribute to him at their free gig at Hyde Park, Jagger dramatically reading a Shelley poem and then they released hundreds of white butterflies (most of which died within minutes). In the weeks before his death Alexis Korner had visited Brian at his cottage and they talked about putting a band together. Brian is said to have spoken to others about this including John Lennon, Alan Price, Mitch Mitchell and Jimmy Miller. He demoed some songs apparently.
It's fairly easy to imagine a different life for Brian, if he'd been pulled out of the pool in time to save his life. A blues band with Mitch Mitchell and Alexis Korner releasing an album in 1970. Some time getting himself sorted out, making a clean break from the Stones. Maybe an album in the mid- 70s with Steve Marriott and/ or Ronnie Lane. He could easily have added some '60s flash to T- Rex although Brian and Marc would surely have been combustible and bad for each other. Maybe as the '70s ticked over into the '80s Brian would have flounced into Billy's in Soho and been adopted by the New Romantics, a single with Steve Strange, a bit part in a Bowie video, a top ten synth- pop single. Maybe by the mid 80s Brian Jones could have made a single with Psychic TV, rather than being the subject of one.
From Psychic TV it's a short step to Shoom, Brian lost on the dancefloor at Southwark fitness centre, then making a 12" anonymously with Richard Norris maybe or a one off single like this one by ex- Frankie Goes To Hollywood man Paul Rutherford...
As Stones tours became bigger and louder it's easy to imagine Brian being brought on from the wings at some stadium somewhere and barrelling his way through Let's Spend The Night Together or taking the lead on Paint It Black. Then, in the 90s an elder statesman, acoustic album with Rick Rubin.
Let's Spend The Night Together
He was a troubled soul and a flawed human being. He probably needed some help that people weren't set up to give him at the time. He pops up now and again in popular culture- this year on their album Glasgow Kisses, The Jesus And Mary Chain paid tribute, 'I've been rolling with The Stones/ Mick and Keith and Brian Jones...'
That last photo session also gave up these shots which became the sleeve art for the second Rolling Stones compilation, Through The Past Darkly, released in September 1969 two months after Brian's death with the gatefold containing an epitaph to Brian- 'When you see this, remember me and bear me in your mind. Let all the world say what they may, speak of me as you find'.