I thought I knew a good bit about the Stones' early history, but I don't recall hearing about this guy:




The Rolling Stone who lives in a council house and claims he was lucky to be dropped
By CHRISTOPHER WILSON
Last updated at 7:45 AM on 8th February 2011

They loll in their mansions planning their next multi-million tour, while he lives in sheltered accommodation.
Their collective worth is estimated at £1billion - but Richard Brown, one-time bass player with the Rolling Stones, has to get by on his state pension.
His name remains unknown to all but a handful of the Stones’ millions of fans, but to Keith Richards he is a guitar hero - a musician to be looked up to.

So how come this 65-year old ex-rocker lives alone in a housing association flat on the windy east coast of England, planning his comeback on YouTube?
Is he just another casualty in the Rolling Stones legend - chewed up, spat out and left for dead?
Certainly Rich, as he prefers to be known, is the living personification of that old chestnut: if you can remember the Sixties, you weren’t there.
‘I got a royalty cheque the other day for £100,’ he confesses in quiet, almost scholarly tones. ‘It was for playing on some Dusty Springfield tracks. I don’t even remember doing them.’

Come to that, he doesn’t recall an awful lot about the time he spent playing with the Stones as they shot towards fame - but Keith Richards does.
In his recently published memoirs, he pays tribute to Rich, then playing under the stage-name Rick Fenson, and his sidekick, drummer Carlo Little.
In January 1963, just weeks before immortality tapped the Rolling Stones on the shoulder, Richards wrote excitedly in his diary: ‘Rick and Carlo played [with us]. Without doubt the Rollin’ Stones were the most fantastic group operating in the country tonight! Rick & Carlo are 2 of the best!!’
In his memoirs, he adds: ‘Ricky Fenson on bass - a lovely player. Ricky and Carlo, if they went into a solo, they would go into turbo max. The room would take off; they almost blew us off the stage they were so good. I suddenly had this noise behind me - whoa! That was the first time I got three feet off the ground and into the stratosphere.’

The Stones had suddenly discovered themselves. The realisation suddenly hit that with a heavy rhythm section behind them they could conquer the world - and the acclaim as the World’s Greatest Rock ’n’ Roll Band, a title they claim for themselves to this day, was but a step away.
But how did Rich Brown get left behind? Why was he robbed of fame and fortune?
Keith Richards and his co- guitarist Brian Jones certainly wanted him in the band - but it was Mick Jagger who vetoed their choice, so his place was taken by the granite-faced Bill Wyman, the preferred choice because he came as a duo with drummer Charlie Watts.

It was November 1962 when the Unknown Stone got his first taste of near-fame. Already established from hundreds of gigs up and down the country with Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages, he was pulled in to play at Ealing Jazz Club in West London in a line-up which included Jagger, Richards and Jones.
Later that month, the band hit the West End, playing a short set at the Piccadilly Jazz Club.

There was precious little sex or drugs around these gigs. ‘All they had was cola, fizzy orange and bags of crisps,’ Rich recalls with wry amusement. ‘All that excess came much later.’

There were to be many more gigs for this Durham-born son of a Polish airman, each one increasingly earning the respect of Richards and Jones.
But it was hardly big-time stuff - the William Morris Hall in South Oxhey, Sidcup Art College and the Green Man in Blackheath - all in the outer London suburbs.
It was a shaky existence. Jagger and Richards were starving in Chelsea while Rich was playing more or less full-time with one of the most respected bands of the time - the Cyril Davies R&B All Stars. ‘I was in a working band,’ he recalls.

‘The Stones couldn’t offer a quarter of the money I was earning. I suppose I must have slightly looked down my nose at them.’
By the end of 1963 the die had been cast, and Rich’s last appearance with the Stones was to be on BBC Radio’s Jazz Club.

Within a year, he and the Stones were living on different planets. ‘When I met the Stones they were barely formed, whereas I’d been playing for years,’ he recalls.
‘They’d be watching us like hawks when we (the Cyril Davies Band) were playing the Marquee Club.
‘The Stones looked up to Cyril, and Cyril would let them come on and play in the interval for £10.
‘A year later they were touring America. I was still with Cyril.’
And alas for Rich, the much-respected bluesman died soon after from leukaemia without a hit record to his name. Soon, the Stones were exploding onto the world stage.

Replacement bassist Bill Wyman acknowledges that he pinched a lot of ideas from Rich, but while the Stones were having chart hits with Come On, I Wanna Be Your Man and Not Fade Away, Rich’s career started to head south.
Today he lives alone, practising Bach cello suites on his bass guitar. While the Stones plan their next global moneyspinner, his ambitions are decidedly more modest: ‘Once I’m ready, I’ll put these pieces on YouTube.’
One senses it may be some time yet before that longed-for perfection is achieved.
He’s by no means the classic rock ’n’ roll car-smash, but he does admit to having had three wives ‘and a couple of other girls’.
There have been problems with drink and drugs - ‘it created a lot of damage in my life’ - but it’s evident these were conquered long ago.

For better or worse: There's no doubt the Stones have made substantial fortunes, but Richard Brown believes he wouldn't have been able to cope with the fame and fortune and is more than happy with his offerings from the state
Does he harbour bitter regrets that he never made it with his former bandmates?
‘If I’d joined them full-time I wouldn’t have known how to handle all that fame and fortune - all that money too. It would have gone to my head.’
For full-time musicians it’s hard to find another life. In his time since the Stones, Rich has been a railway ticket inspector, qualified as a civil pilot and worked as a classical musician.

‘I was thinking about job security and, for me, the future had gone out of the rock world. So I got work playing double bass with the London Festival Ballet, then the Scottish Ballet and Scottish Opera, but I didn’t really hit it off in that world,’ he laughs. ‘A bit too rock ’n’ roll for them, I imagine.’
Divorced now for many years from the chaos of the rock world, there has been time for quiet reflection.

A thoughtful and reserved man, he interests himself in geopolitics and in human rights in China, and there’s been time, too, for some self-analysis — not a hobby given to ex-rockers.
‘Sixteen to 20 is when people are getting their social education but I was on the road, living in a van. It didn’t stand me in good stead later on, in fact it still doesn’t.’
The Stones, meanwhile, never stopped rolling, and the gulf between the band and their one-time bass player grew ever wider. As I gave Rich a copy of Keith Richards’ memoirs to take home, I realised he would never open it.
‘The book? No disrespect,’ he says absently, ‘it doesn’t concern me, it’s not my life. They were always careful to remember where they came from, and the people they started off with.
‘Despite their wild image they are gentlemanly - whenever I’ve met any of them they have always been very courteous to me.’
He’s grateful for the home and pension which have been provided for him by the state.
And when he says ‘I’m in a far, far better place than I would ever have been if I’d been with the Rolling Stones’, you know that Rich Brown believes it to be true.


Read more: [www.dailymail.co.uk]

Bill Wyman writes about bassplayer Ricky Brown (sometimes known as Ricky Fenson) in Stone Alone.
Pages 106, 116, 137
And Keith writes about him (Ricky Fenson) in Life.
Pages 117, 118, 119

But the story you posted is a nice read. Thanks

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Keep On Rolling



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2011-02-08 13:53 by Rolling Hansie.

Cool story. Kinda like the Stones' version of Pete Best.

Not quite. Best was a bonafide founding member of The Beatles. His mum even did looked after the band's management in the pre-Epstein years. Rick Fenson was never more than one of a series of stand-ins between Dick Taylor and Bill Wyman.

If there's a Stones equivalent of Pete Best, it would be Stu, I suppose.

real interesting story, at least he can say he played with them. just wasn't the right person. he sure wouldn't have thought, at first when playing with them, "well I'd better stick with these boys, they're going to be really important very soon!"

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Gazza
Not quite. Best was a bonafide founding member of The Beatles. His mum even did looked after the band's management in the pre-Epstein years. Rick Fenson was never more than one of a series of stand-ins between Dick Taylor and Bill Wyman.

If there's a Stones equivalent of Pete Best, it would be Stu, I suppose.

Good point. And who would be our Stu Sutcliffe?

"No Anchovies, Please"

Thanks very much for that, Edith Grove.

There's a very brief interview with Rick Brown in this clip (plus bonus Art Wood):





- and here's the Carlo Little / Rick Brown rhythm section backing Wee Wille Harris:





He's also on the Carlo Little All-Stars album that came out a while ago.

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Elmo Lewis

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Gazza
Not quite. Best was a bonafide founding member of The Beatles. His mum even did looked after the band's management in the pre-Epstein years. Rick Fenson was never more than one of a series of stand-ins between Dick Taylor and Bill Wyman.

If there's a Stones equivalent of Pete Best, it would be Stu, I suppose.

Good point. And who would be our Stu Sutcliffe?

Dick Taylor! Founding members, bassists, both left the band of their own free will a few months before the band made their first record - whereas Stu and Pete Best were members who were dumped by the rest of the band and the management on the eve of their first record being made.

You da man, Gazza!

What a crap reporter. Since when did Bill Wyman come as a 'duo with Charlie Watts'? What, the band HAD to take Bill in order to get Charlie, is that the inference? You would think the Stones history would be as well known as the Beatles by now. When they dismissed Tony Chapman, they kept Bill. As far as I've ever read, no one ever asked Bill to leave, or questioned his competency on bass. He may not have looked and acted quite to their pop star image, but he dug in and made himself crucial to their sound. And he didn't miss gigs like Brian.

Maybe Ricky Fenton (Brown) understands something about his own nature and realizes he couldn't have handled fame and money well. Brian couldn't.

Fascinating. The hand of fate. Thank God Bill Wyman got the gig. He was so integral to their sound and made the Stones swing like no one else could have.