Back in 1975 the Rolling Stones played a July 4th concert to a crowd of 50,000 in Memphis. The morning of the fifth, Keith Richards, Ron Wood, bodyguard Jim Callaghan and a fan, Fred (or maybe "Red" ) A. Sessler, who had been following the tour, rented a yellow Chevrolet Impala and took the scenic route to their next show in Dallas.

At about 3:00p.m. they stopped here for a late lunch. This is the 4-Dice Restaurant in Fordyce. The restaurant signage used to feature four tumbling dice, which might or might not have attracted the attention of driver Keith Richards. (The Rolling Stones 1972 "Main Street" album featured the song "Tumbling Dice." )

At about 3:30, after having steaks and fried chicken and signing autographs, the group piled back into the car, pulled onto the Fordyce Bypass and pointed the grill toward Camden. Before they got out of Fordyce, however, the city police (Joe Taylor and Eddie Childers) had pulled them over. The newspapers reported several different versions as to exactly why they were pulled over. One story was that a waitress at the restaurant called in a complaint that the rockers had been overly boistrous and rowdy, disturbing the peace. Another story holds that a motorist called the police to report a car that was running other drivers off the road. Yet another story has the Fordyce Police stopping the car on the request of the State Police. And yet still again a further 'nother story is that the Fordyce police car saw the car swerve, pulled it over, and detained the driver on a weapons charge when a leather-sheathed hunting knife was spotted in the seat next to him.

Richards passed a sobriety test, but Judge Thomas Wynne issued search warrants for the car and luggage based on the reek of marijuana reported by the arresting officers. Everybody in the party denied smoking anything.

At about 7:00pm their lawyer, Bill Carter, flew in from Little Rock. Carter was a native of Rector, Arkansas who had served on the Secret Service security detail for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. He had originally signed on with the Stones as a security consultant, but eventually became part of their legal representation. (He also represented country singerTanya Tucker.) He is at least partly responsible for the decision to take the scenic drive. For years he had been telling the band about the state's natural beauty, so this little crew took the opportunity to check it out for themselves. Touring by car while others flew was characteristic of Richards, who liked driving the back roads and seeing the country.

The Stones were detained at the brand new City Hall, pictured above, while the car was searched at the Old City Hall, pictured below. There, officers found a small vial of cocaine and a coke spoon. Sessler was charged with posession of a controlled substance and posted a $5000 bond. The police department and Judge Mays told me that the cocaine and coke spoon, along with a finely tooled leather pouch containing hashish (found on the roadside near the spot where the car was stopped) were made part of an educational anti-drug display. Eventually, the drugs were destroyed as a matter of procedure, but the police still have the coke spoon in a safe. It can't definitively be proven that the leather pouch belonged to the traveling party since it was not found in the car itself, so it's not part of the case.

The longer the incident went on, the more embarassing things were becoming for the town. The Stones weren't high and didn't have any drugs in their posession and weren't really causing a lot of problems and there were conflicting stories on exactly why they had been pulled over in the first place. To make matters worse, the rock stars were being very polite, patient and well-behaved. It would be awfully easy for the press to present this as harassment, and Arkansas has never looked very good in the mainstream press. Therefore, Deputy Prosecutor Tom Mays was eager to work with Carter to wrap things up and move the party along ASAP.

Carter advised Richards not to contest the reckless driving charge, but to defend the concealed weapon charge. There was a provision in the Arkansas law dating back to the 19th century that if you were on "a journey" you were allowed to carry weapons that you couldn't legally carry around your home town. By conventional application of that law people fourteen miles from home had been found to be "on a journey." For the reckless driving charge, Richards posted $162.50 bond, which he later, as expected, forfeited.

This was big excitement for the local teenagers, meaning fifty or sixty kids in this town of five thousand. The kids flocked around the jail in hopes of talking to the rock stars or getting an autograph or souvenir. One kid suggested trading hats with Keith Richards, who is pictured in the newspaper wearing his new denim railroad worker's hat. On my visit to Fordyce I tried to find out who that kid was and whether or not he still had Keith Richards's floppy brimmed hat. No luck. It's probably still in town somewhere, but I didn't find it.

I did however discover that there are several other Fordyce Incident artifacts in addition to the coke spoon and the allegedly connected leather pouch. Somebody in town has either a heavy shirt or light jacket with a Rolling Stones bird emblem on the back. Supposedly the former property of Richards. The cop that described it to me remarked about how skinny Richards must have been to be able to wear it. According to Judge Mays the original traffic citations have appeared on eBay but were not sold. Since the record was eventually expunged, some of the paperwork is now at large.

City Hall started getting phone calls from everywhere. From newspapers. From the State Department. From the British Consulate. From all the capitols of Europe. Streets around City Hall were jammed, and the Little Rock TV stations had all sent crews who were pressing the local cops to hurry up and reach some kind of conclusion in time to make the ten o'clock newscast.


The rental car was a 1975 Chevy Impala similar to this one. Pictured is a two-door model. The actual car might have had four. The band's road manager arrived via chartered plane and a third, larger charter was summonned to get the band members to Dallas in time for the next show. The major expense incurred by the Stones organization as a result of the Fordyce Incident was probably charter aircraft.

For the most part, Richards and Wood cooled their heels in City Hall. They were never locked up, and they occasionally appeared at one or another entrance to chat with the locals and sign autographs. It was at one of these appearances that Richards traded hats with one of the local kids.

Finally at about 11:40pm, Carter and Mays held a press conference to announce the official version of what had happened. It went like this: Driver Richards swerved the car when he leaned forward to adjust the radio. He was pulled over. The cop thought he smelled pot and thought the weapon was illegal. The group was therefore detained. Richards was given a sobriety test, which he passed. Warrants were issued. The search turned up coke, which belonged to Sessler. The knife was found to be legal. Richards posted $162.50 bond on the reckless driving charge. The Stones were taken into the courtroom where they posed for pictures and then everybody went out to the municipal airport to watch them fly off to Dallas.

Before we accuse the small-town cops of anything untoward, let's hop in the wayback machine and remember what the stones were in 1975 and what the country was like. Today the Rolling Stones are 60. They're the elder statesmen of Rock and Roll. Rock and Roll itself is the music of the establishment generation. Today the Stones are safe enough socially to play halftime at the Super Bowl. In 1975 they were 30 years old and they were like Marilyn Manson in that your being a fan made your parents nervous. They were known for narcotics and for being anti-authoritarian. 1975 was also just at the end of the Vietnam War, at the time when the authorities and the hippie counterculture were at their most polarized. Who would have dreamed that the Rolling Stones would go anywhere WITHOUT a suitcase full of narcotics?

Well, that's just what happened. Somebody pulled them over on a day when they happened to be travelling light, and Arkansas got another dose of the kind of publicity we hate. So before anybody alleges anything ask yourself this: Given the way things played out, who exactly would you say entrapped whom?

[arkansasroadstories.com]



I am a Frenchie ,as Mick affectionately called them in the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977 .

Freddies youngest son Stefan passed away this past May. Stefan was a great guy. he loved his father so much. We had a lot of great times with Keith.

Thanks for posting Sway. A great story.

Yes, thanks Sway for the post. I was born in Arkansas and it is really a great state overall.

Mike

You're all very welcome .

johnhenry ,I've read some of your posts if I remember well when you mentionned Mr Sessler.

A photo with the Stones :



RSbestbandforever :
Some more about Fordyce here :
[web5.nypost.com]

I met him in the mid-'80s during an all-nighter at Ron Wood's house. His first words to me were "So vot are you vorking on vit Voody? You vant maybe some blow?" His accent was so thick, I can't do it justice in print. He pronounced Keith "Keet" and Woody "Voody" and sounded like Peter Lorre from those old horror films.

By his own estimation, Freddy had been on every Stones tour since "England's Newest Hitmakers." He had supposedly laid more groupies than Mick Jagger and Bill Wyman and snorted more toot than Keith and Woody. His biggest claim to fame, however, was his participation in the "Fordyce Four incident."

It took place in 1975, after a Stones concert in Memphis. The band was boarding its private jet to Dallas, when Keith made an announcement: "Leave without me, 'cause I'm drivin'."

He wanted to experience America's Deep South firsthand and not from the window of an airplane, so he rented himself a Cadillac. The tour's promoter, Peter Rudge, begged Keith not to do it, but Keith told him to f- - - off. He got behind the wheel and brought along three passengers - Freddy, bodyguard JC and Woody. A quartet that would come to be known as the "Fordyce Four."

Fordyce, Arkansas, I'm told, was the kind of place where hog-calling contests made front-page headlines. The most heinous crime was the theft of a peach pie from Aunt Bea's windowsill. So when Keith Richards and Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones stumbled into the town's greasy spoon, no one knew what to make of it. The town's police force kept its eye on these suspicious-looking characters.

After a burger and a pee, Keith and his traveling companions hopped back in the Caddy. But when Keith drove off, the car kicked some dust and spun out a bit. Deputy Barney Fife flipped on his siren and pulled them over. A search of the car turned up an illegal knife and a stash of cocaine.

"The Fordyce Four" were hauled to jail and it looked like the Stones' concert in Dallas, if not the whole tour, might be canceled.

Two things worked in Keith and Woody's favor. First, Barney Fife found only a smidgen of the coke that was actually in the car. As Keith would reveal to me years later, "There was more drugs in that car than car." And second, Freddy Sessler played the fall guy. He convinced the judge, who also ran the general store and was the mayor on Tuesdays and Fridays, that he was a hitchhiker and that the drugs were all his. "Vot means Rolling Stones? I don't know dem."

The others shrugged in agreement. "Yeah, we never met this guy before today." After seven hours in jail, they were allowed to leave. Freddy got booked.

NO ONE ever forgot that Freddy took one for the team. He was credited with saving the tour and was rewarded for his loyalty. He was granted carte blanche and was loosely recognized as the Rolling Stones' team mascot - like Paul's grandfather in "A Hard Day's Night," but nowhere near as cute.

Freddy Sessler was born in Krakow, Poland in 1923. When he was 15 years old, @#$%&'s forces came through his Jewish neighborhood, torching homes and shooting people in the street. Freddy, along with his entire family, was rounded up and sent to a nearby concentration camp.

He attempted an escape one night, and it worked. He left his family behind and made his way to Russia. But when the Communists got hold of him, they shipped him to Siberia. They then sent him to England during World War II, because the Allies needed translators in London. Freddy spoke English, Polish, Russian, German and Yiddish.

When the war was over, he returned to Poland to search for his family, but learned they were dead. The house he grew up in was no longer standing. Freddy had to start his life over.



I am a Frenchie ,as Mick affectionately called them in the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977 .

Freddie was a legend. The absolute star of Bill German's recent book. He must have been an absolute riot to know.

- the traffic ticket ... Fordyce, july 5th 1975



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009-08-11 20:49 by with sssoul.

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with sssoul

- the traffic ticket ... Fordyce, july 5th 1975

Am I the only one to see a red cross instead of a photo ?

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Gazza
Freddie was a legend. The absolute star of Bill German's recent book. He must have been an absolute riot to know.

NO ONE ever forgot that Freddy took one for the team. He was credited with saving the tour and was rewarded for his loyalty. He was granted carte blanche and was loosely recognized as the Rolling Stones' team mascot
Nice indeed.



I am a Frenchie ,as Mick affectionately called them in the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977 .

- the reprobates ... photo by Annie Leibowitz or CS Sykes (a re-enactment, i guess?), text by Terry Southern



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009-08-11 21:02 by with sssoul.

I was at the concert in Memphis the day before. I remember reading about this in the paper and cracking up!

Oddly, this is not what put Fordyce on the map. It is actually the birthplace of legendary Alabama Crimson Tide football coach Paul William "Bear" Bryant!

Ross

Freddie was a great friend- and real character.

Anyone know what happenedt o his son stefan?

Upthread, it says Stefan died last May.


Gov. Huckabee (he's now got a show on FOX News) pardoned Keith a few years back. He's a massive Stones fan.

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mickscarey
Freddie was a great friend- and real character.

Anyone know what happenedt o his son stefan?

Freddie had a son who used to post here occaisonally. That wasnt him, was it?

Exactly, I had always thought "John Henry" was Freddie's son. Strange...

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Edith Grove

That's just so awesome!

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Edith Grove

Excellent !








I am a Frenchie ,as Mick affectionately called them in the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977 .