The True Adventures
of the Rolling Stones, by Stanley Booth (Canongate).
Review by Chris Bourke
Stanley Booth was the Zelig of rock’n’roll writing. A
Southern hipster determined to become a serious writer, he was present in the
Memphis studio when Otis Redding wrote ‘Dock of the Bay’, and he witnessed the
Rolling Stones record ‘Brown Sugar’ in Alabama. He penned the liner notes to Dusty in Memphis, was a confidante of
revered R&B producers Jerry Wexler and Jim Dickinson, and a friend and
patron of street-sweeping Memphis bluesman Furry Lewis. That Booth came from
the same small town in Georgia as Gram Parsons just confirms his knack of being
in the right place at the right time.
It must have seemed that way
when, after writing prescient, lyrical pieces on BB King and Elvis Presley for Esquire and Playboy in the 1960s, he was commissioned to go on the road with
the Rolling Stones on their 1969 US tour and write a book.
The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones took Booth 15 years and
almost cost him his life. The book became a critics’ favourite but was a
box-office disappointment. It didn’t enable him to get on with his real ambition
– to become a streetwise successor to William Faulkner – but aficionados of
music writing consider it to be the one book in an over-published,
undisciplined genre that approaches literature.
Booth was originally disdainful
of white musicians trying to perform R&B; in a 1968 article he was scathing
of a chaotic Janis Joplin performing alongside dignified Memphis soul legends.
But he became fascinated by the Stones after attending the drugs trial in
England of the group’s doomed founder, guitarist Brian Jones. He was invited
into the group’s inner circle: he was a writer, not a journalist. Best of all,
he was an actual Southerner whose immersion in a cultural and musical milieu
they could only envy and emulate.
The Stones’ 1969 tour is
notorious for climaxing with Altamont, a free concert that became an
apocalyptic nightmare. The tour also produced the live album Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out and the classic
cinema verite documentary Gimme Shelter.
The winter of 1969 is one of discontent, of bad dope and bad vibes, with Nixon
in the White House, troops stuck in Vietnam, students protesting and
generations clashing.
Booth’s book weaves through
several stories simultaneously. There is the tour itself, with the writer having
an access-all-areas pass and a rapport with Keith Richards that has professional
benefits and lifestyle drawbacks. Almost subliminally, the Stones’ history is
compellingly related using anecdotes from the participants. Booth describes the
unlovable Brian Jones, his decline and inevitable demise. And he also tells his
own story: a swift ascent to become a writer tumbles, like Icarus, from flying
too close to the sun. The Altamont festival provides a chilling climax to the
strands of his narrative. On stage beside the band, he stands transfixed but
impotent as several Hell’s Angels viciously beat members of the crowd with pool
cues.
The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones is written like a
non-fiction novel. In Cold Blood was
an influence, though Truman Capote’s own attempt at writing about the band’s 1972
tour stalled from writer’s block and a cultural disconnect. Booth was
immediately on the Stones’ wavelength. His Southern accent, upbringing and
contacts provide an entree: he can act as their regional interpreter. By
appropriating R&B, rock’n’roll and country music, and adding their own
Dartford Delta seasoning, the Rolling Stones produced their finest albums Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on
Main Street, inventing a trans-Atlantic music steeped in popular culture
and hedonism.
With an introduction by Greil
Marcus and an afterword by the author, this handsome reissue by Canongate
coincides with the Rolling Stones’ 50th anniversary. But it conveys their story
far more evocatively than any sanctioned coffee-table book. To Booth’s
annoyance, the 1984 US edition was melodramatically renamed Dance With the Devil. His own title – The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones – hints
of James Fennimore Cooper. Booth had aspirations towards Raymond Chandler, and
affectations to William Faulkner. But the one thing his original publisher did
right was see the link to Edgar Allen Poe. – Chris Bourke
Caption: Stanley Booth (right) with
Keith Richards, 1969.
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