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Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: Green Lady ()
Date: April 19, 2012 11:45

[www.telegraph.co.uk]

True Adventures With the Rolling Stones: author Stanley Booth interview

Fifty years after the band was formed, Stanley Booth, who wrote a book about the infamous American tour of 1969, talks to Mick Brown.

Like any good thriller – or should that be horror story – 'True Adventures With the Rolling Stones’, Stanley Booth’s account of the group’s epochal tour of America in 1969, contains two moments that strike an ominous minor chord, – uh-oh moments, warning you that no matter how rosy things may look at the time, they are sure to end badly.

The first is when the Rolling Stones, badgered into demonstrating their counter-culture credentials, agree to perform a free festival – 'for the kids’ – at the Altamont racetrack in San Francisco.

On hand to offer advice, Rock Scully, the road manager of the Grateful Dead, suggests, in the spirit of the times, that it would be 'natural, not to say organic’ to entrust the security arrangements to the Hells Angels.

'He was a very unwise young man...’, Booth says drily.

The second is when Keith Richards invites Booth back to his room in New York’s Plaza hotel with the words, 'I’ve got something in here that might interest you...’. Richards produces two caps of heroin. 'I don’t do it very often, just take it when you get it,’ he says – mocking the gods. 'Keep it around, you get hung up on it.’ 'I’ll never forget that night’, Booth says. 'It was connoisseur dope. We sent out a bellhop to get us a couple of cheeseburgers. I was soon very sleepy and Keith was sleepy too – as would anybody be who wasn’t a horse.

We just sat and looked at those cheeseburger as if they were pieces of a Warhol sculpture.’ Richards, of course, would fail in his resolve to 'just take it when you get it. 'Well, if you’ve got the money...’ Booth says with a shrug.

While Rock Scully’s inspired suggestion would result in the scenes of mayhem, violence and ultimately murder that would lead to the Altamont festival assuming an almost symbolic importance as the moment when the Edenic dream of the Sixties came to an end.

First published in 1984, and now republished to mark the 50th anniversary of the Rolling Stones. 'True Adventures’ is one of the great books about rock and roll, an enthralling insider’s account of the Stones’ surreal procession through cavernous sports arenas, the endless waits at airport terminals and anonymous Holiday inns, like a troupe of renaissance bandits with their retinue of courtiers, bagmen, bodyguards and groupies.

It is also an account of Booth’s own struggles to 'stay in the saddle,’ as he puts it. 'It was like being in a rodeo – you put one hand over your head and you spur this bull on and he tries his best to kill you...’ A courtly, slow-talking man, Booth, who is 70, was born in Georgia, but moved as a teenager to Memphis where he first started writing about the local music scene. He spent time at Graceland and was in the studio with Otis Redding in 1967 when Redding recorded 'Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay’.

In 1968 Booth came to London, where he met the Rolling Stones for the first time, persuading them to allow him to join them on their American tour the following year – their first in America for three years.

'It’s just a tour after all’, Charlie Watts’s wife Shirley tells Booth, 'just a group of people going around getting up on stages and playing music for kids to dance’. ('And if you don’t put that in your book’, Charlie adds, 'I’ll kill you’.)

Well, up to a point...

Booth’s book describes a group at the summit of their creative powers, 'the greatest rock and roll band in the world’, as they had no hesitation in describing themselves, but also riding the crest of a wave of notoriety – 'like Jesse James and the Younger brothers’, Booth says now – avatars, it seemed, of a gathering darkness that was already casting a shadow over the idealism and utopianism of the 'peace and love’ generation.

'They were (itals) very interested in the dark side of things,’ Booth says.

'I mean, Sympathy for the Devil is a brilliant piece of writing, but it goes in a dangerous direction...’ It was this curious, and volatile, mixture of idealism, hubris and naivety that would make inviting the Hells Angels to 'police’ Altamont seem like a perfectly reasonable idea.

'“They’re righteous dudes, man”,’ says Booth, parodying the prevailing wisdom – or lack of it – that surrounded the Hells Angels at the time.

'“They carry themselves with honour and dignity.” Bullshit! Any one of them would just as soon kill you as look at you.’ In his book, Booth describes Altamont as a Bosch-like vision of hell, 'the world’s end of freakdom’, a putrid mess of squalor, ugliness and violence, culminating in a young black man, Meredith Hunter, being stabbed and kicked to death by Hells Angels, just yards from the stage were the Stones were performing – the murderers swarming over their victim’s flailing body, Booth notes, 'like flies on a stinking carcass.’ 'One had the feeling that people in Vietnam must have had,’ he says now, 'that in the next ten seconds you could die and there’s nothing you can really do to prevent it.’ Staring into the face of authentic violence, all that Jagger could do was plead vainly – pathetically – for calm. 'People! Why are we fighting...?’

'He was terrified’, Booth remembers. 'And so, it has to be said, was I.’ Altamont was not only cultural watershed, but a turning point for the Stones. 'For reasons of self-preservation’, he writes, they would 'turn toward comedy.’ 'Mick has always belittled that idea,’ Booth says now. 'But he’s being disingenuous. Once you’ve been through an experience like that it makes you change your act. When they came back in 1972, Mick was wearing pink, and their whole show was being done for laughs.’ Attempting to put his experiences with the Stones on the page exacted its own toll on Booth. He recounts how group’s assistant Jo Bergman told him – 'long after it was too late’ – that an astrologer had advised her that he would write his book, but that it would cost him everything except his life.

In 1971 he was arrested on drugs charges, but escaped with a fine and a year’s probation. Living on a small family inheritance, he retreated to a cabin in the Ozark mountains where he would spend the best part of the next 10 years, waylaid by clinical depression, drug problems and domestic upheaval as he struggled to write 'True Adventures’.

In 1978, high on LSD, he fell from the top of a waterfall and broke his back. His first marriage had long since collapsed, and he married and divorced twice more. 'Women are the real danger in the world’, he notes laconically. 'At least, they had been for me.’ 'True Adventures’ would not be completed and published until 1984 – a book, as Keith Richards put it, that took 'longer to write than the Bible’.

It was a critical success, but due to a series of contractual disputes with agents and publishers, Booth ended up making next to nothing. 'But hey, I got to hear the band play.’ In 1991 he published an anthology of his writings on southern music, Rythm Oil, and is presently working on a book about the blues.

It would be impossible, he says, to write a book like 'True Adventures’ now – impossible to imagine that any writer would have the access that he enjoyed with the Stones, so corporate and carefully policed has rock and roll become. 'Everybody has their own representatives and lawyers and dressing rooms. I saw an interview where Keith said he hadn’t been in Mick’s dressing room for 20 years. That I found somewhat shocking.’ He thinks about this. 'I was a fly on the wall. Nowadays a fly would get swatted.’

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: Title5Take1 ()
Date: April 19, 2012 12:19

Quote
Green Lady
'He was terrified’, Booth remembers. 'And so, it has to be said, was I.’ Altamont was not only cultural watershed, but a turning point for the Stones. 'For reasons of self-preservation’, he writes, they would 'turn toward comedy.’ 'Mick has always belittled that idea,’ Booth says now. 'But he’s being disingenuous. Once you’ve been through an experience like that it makes you change your act. When they came back in 1972, Mick was wearing pink, and their whole show was being done for laughs.’

Interesting interview. But Dancing with Mr. D. was in 1973, which wasn't exactly changing the act.

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: duke richardson ()
Date: April 19, 2012 18:37

I'd like to read more from Booth. Glad he's working. this 'interview' is either too edited or wasn't much more that a promo piece for his forthcoming book..

hbwriter--maybe you could arrange to interview Stanley Booth?

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: memphiscats ()
Date: April 19, 2012 18:56

YEAH - that would be GREAT! I've read a lot of Stones books now, and Stanley's remains my favorite!!smoking smiley

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: 24FPS ()
Date: April 19, 2012 21:16

They did tone down the darkness for a while. It seemed to have sobered Mick up a bit. SFTD wasn't played much (at all?) until 1975. Let's face it, the swirling black undertones of the Stones was reflecting a very real vibe at the time. Although quite good at doing that kind of music, they seemed to have steered away to a more traditional rock and roll with horns on Sticky Finger and Exile. Mick quit being so preciously effeminate as he'd been in his jockey silks on the Altamont stage, pleading impotently; the Satan baiter reduced to the flower power punk whining for the Angels to quit killing people. Just cut it out, you guys. It's not nice.

I remember hearing Dancing With Mr. D. for the first time in '73 and thinking that they were trying to return to their old ways. It seemed kind of forced. (It was much better as a live song). By '75 it was all camp and no bite, and hey, It's Only Rock and Roll. The Messianic Stones were done.

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: Bliss ()
Date: April 19, 2012 21:42

I am interested to know the circumstances of how he left the Stones. The article mentions drug problems. Was he addicted to heroin as a result of his association with Keith and the RS milieu, and if so, was he distanced when he slipped below a certain level of functioning, as was Gram Parsons?

He did publish a bio of Keith in 1996, and I wonder why it wasn't mentioned in the article.

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: duke richardson ()
Date: April 19, 2012 23:01

>>"Booth’s book describes a group at the summit of their creative powers, 'the greatest rock and roll band in the world’, as they had no hesitation in describing themselves,"<<

that rings very false..
I don't think any of the Stones ever said that

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: 68to72 ()
Date: April 19, 2012 23:11

Quote
duke richardson
>>"Booth’s book describes a group at the summit of their creative powers, 'the greatest rock and roll band in the world’, as they had no hesitation in describing themselves,"<<

that rings very false..
I don't think any of the Stones ever said that


You are quite right they didnt, it was Sam Cutler.

He describes why and when he said it in detail in his biography

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: rebelrebel ()
Date: April 19, 2012 23:55

Mr Booth was also interviewed on Front Row on Radio 4 on Wednesday night so it should be up on Listen Again for the next 6 days.

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: memphiscats ()
Date: April 20, 2012 00:39

Quote
rebelrebel
Mr Booth was also interviewed on Front Row on Radio 4 on Wednesday night so it should be up on Listen Again for the next 6 days.
Do you happen to have a link you can share? Thanks!

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: Rockman ()
Date: April 20, 2012 01:10

.....just goes ta show that starin' at cheeseburgers ain't good for anyone's health.....either eat 'em or bin 'em.....



ROCKMAN

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: stonesrule ()
Date: April 20, 2012 03:47

Rockie, you know that Stanley is just another ignorant slut.

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: Rockman ()
Date: April 20, 2012 03:53

another !!!! .......... how many are there altagether????

ROCKMAN

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: Green Lady ()
Date: April 20, 2012 12:41

Quote
memphiscats
Quote
rebelrebel
Mr Booth was also interviewed on Front Row on Radio 4 on Wednesday night so it should be up on Listen Again for the next 6 days.
Do you happen to have a link you can share? Thanks!

[www.bbc.co.uk]

Second programme down the list - will probably not be available outside the UK, so if anyone knows how to record and upload (I don't)...

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: Deltics ()
Date: April 20, 2012 13:33

Quote
Green Lady
Quote
memphiscats
Quote
rebelrebel
Mr Booth was also interviewed on Front Row on Radio 4 on Wednesday night so it should be up on Listen Again for the next 6 days.
Do you happen to have a link you can share? Thanks!

[www.bbc.co.uk]

Second programme down the list - will probably not be available outside the UK, so if anyone knows how to record and upload (I don't)...

Here you go:

Stanley Booth.mp3

You can listen to and/or download this.


"As we say in England, it can get a bit trainspottery"

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: memphiscats ()
Date: April 20, 2012 17:13

Quote
Deltics
Quote
Green Lady
Quote
memphiscats
Quote
rebelrebel
Mr Booth was also interviewed on Front Row on Radio 4 on Wednesday night so it should be up on Listen Again for the next 6 days.
Do you happen to have a link you can share? Thanks!

[www.bbc.co.uk]

Second programme down the list - will probably not be available outside the UK, so if anyone knows how to record and upload (I don't)...

Here you go:

Stanley Booth.mp3

You can listen to and/or download this.

Thanks very much Green Lady & Deltics...this will be my Friday afternoon "blow off work" listening. Cheers. smoking smiley

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: CousinC ()
Date: April 20, 2012 19:40

Quote
Title5Take1
Quote
Green Lady
'He was terrified’, Booth remembers. 'And so, it has to be said, was I.’ Altamont was not only cultural watershed, but a turning point for the Stones. 'For reasons of self-preservation’, he writes, they would 'turn toward comedy.’ 'Mick has always belittled that idea,’ Booth says now. 'But he’s being disingenuous. Once you’ve been through an experience like that it makes you change your act. When they came back in 1972, Mick was wearing pink, and their whole show was being done for laughs.’

Interesting interview. But Dancing with Mr. D. was in 1973, which wasn't exactly changing the act.

Come on. You can't really compare Dancing to Sympathy and other 68/69 stuff.
Dancing with Mr D was just a gimmick. All the danger and darkness was gone.

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: stupidguy2 ()
Date: April 20, 2012 20:40

Quote
24FPS
They did tone down the darkness for a while. It seemed to have sobered Mick up a bit. SFTD wasn't played much (at all?) until 1975. Let's face it, the swirling black undertones of the Stones was reflecting a very real vibe at the time. Although quite good at doing that kind of music, they seemed to have steered away to a more traditional rock and roll with horns on Sticky Finger and Exile. Mick quit being so preciously effeminate as he'd been in his jockey silks on the Altamont stage, pleading impotently; the Satan baiter reduced to the flower power punk whining for the Angels to quit killing people. Just cut it out, you guys. It's not nice.

I remember hearing Dancing With Mr. D. for the first time in '73 and thinking that they were trying to return to their old ways. It seemed kind of forced. (It was much better as a live song). By '75 it was all camp and no bite, and hey, It's Only Rock and Roll. The Messianic Stones were done.

I just thought they had move on from that whole late 60s pseudo-Satanic nonsense. That was a gimmick. Rock and Roll and horns were the real deal.

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: with sssoul ()
Date: April 20, 2012 21:50

Quote
24FPS
SFTD wasn't played much (at all?) until 1975.

it was played regularly on the 1970 tour

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: tomcasagranda ()
Date: April 20, 2012 22:30

It's a great book. Rythm Oil is also a great collection of writings.

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Date: April 21, 2012 00:04

The progression from Sympathy to Dancing w/Mr D just seems to underscore Booth's point - about going for the laughs. Dw/MD is just a campy send-up. SFTD is the real deal.

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: Green Lady ()
Date: April 21, 2012 00:11

Quote
memphiscats
Quote
Deltics
Quote
Green Lady
Quote
memphiscats
Quote
rebelrebel
Mr Booth was also interviewed on Front Row on Radio 4 on Wednesday night so it should be up on Listen Again for the next 6 days.
Do you happen to have a link you can share? Thanks!

[www.bbc.co.uk]

Second programme down the list - will probably not be available outside the UK, so if anyone knows how to record and upload (I don't)...

Here you go:

Stanley Booth.mp3

You can listen to and/or download this.

Thanks very much Green Lady & Deltics...this will be my Friday afternoon "blow off work" listening. Cheers. smoking smiley

- and don't forget rebelrebel for spotting the programme in the first place!

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: rebelrebel ()
Date: April 21, 2012 00:14

You're too kind, Green Lady! Thanks so much for sorting out the request while I was away from the site! thumbs up

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: memphiscats ()
Date: April 21, 2012 06:57

Quote
rebelrebel
You're too kind, Green Lady! Thanks so much for sorting out the request while I was away from the site! thumbs up
Many thanks to you too, rebelrebel!smoking smiley

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: with sssoul ()
Date: April 21, 2012 10:43

Quote
Rockman
another !!!! .......... how many are there altagether????

don't worry RockMan honey - that's from that Mike Myers/Mick skit with Mick imitating Keith
the Mick-as-Keith says to the Myers-as-Mick "you ignorant slut!" :E
[rutube.ru]

what it's got to do with Stanley Booth is a mystery, but that's all right! :E

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: Rockman ()
Date: April 21, 2012 11:55

don't worry RockMan honey - that's from that Mike Myers/Mick skit with Mick imitating Keith
the Mick-as-Keith says to the Myers-as-Mick "you ignorant slut!"


..... OH thanks for that ... please excuse my ignorant sluttiness ...HeeHee...Ha

ROCKMAN

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: with sssoul ()
Date: April 21, 2012 13:42

Quote
Rockman
OH thanks for that ... please excuse my ignorant sluttiness

smile: you were pre-excused, RockMan honey! Stanley too, and Chet Flippo
we'll even throw in Mr Jimmy Phelge for good measure, how's that

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: Rockman ()
Date: April 21, 2012 13:49

how's that

......Oooh yeah that's a good gang of guys to be hangin' with....Okay I'll hang up this garter-belt and put me trousers back on...aaaahhh

ROCKMAN

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: misterfrias ()
Date: April 21, 2012 14:23

Thanks for posting this article, Green Lady. Much appreciated!

"Get those people out of here, dopey!"

Re: Telegraph interview with Stanley Booth
Posted by: Rockman ()
Date: April 22, 2012 05:32



............................................................................ Keef and Stanley

ROCKMAN

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