[www.mickjaggerbiography.com]



Gotham (September 8, 2011)

[www.mickjaggerbiography.com]


For decades, Rolling Stones’ fans and critics have debated Mick Jagger’s commitment to rock-and-roll. Many assumed that Keith Richards was the only true believer of the two. Did Mick, with his middle-class upbringing and parental support, have ulterior motives for being a rock star above and beyond a love for the music? Mick’s swagger, bed-me eyes, and intellectual prowess were certainly essential to the Stones’ early success. After their early 70s peak, however, Mick’s celebrity persona and notorious womanizing, started to perhaps obscure his considerable talent as a songwriter and musician. His partner, Keith, has, in this time, laid claim to the heart and soul of the World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band. Until now, no one has really challenged this claim.

Veteran music journalist and author Marc Spitz’s sharp, funny and bold look at rock’s premiere front man, Jagger: Rebel, Rock Star, Rambler, Rogue (Gotham Books; September, 2011) reveals that Mick is truly the only Rolling Stone who has never gathered moss. He was androgynous and beautiful like the band’s late founder Brian Jones, but never as fragile. He was sybaritic, like Keith, but rarely self-destructive. In a band that based its early lyrics on the idea of freedom, Mick would emerge from the 60s, the only truly free Stone; defying expectation, often to the chagrin of the other Stones and the band’s fans. Jagger was a “lovely bunch of guys,” they’d crack. But these poses, chronicled anew in Jagger: Rebel, Rock Star, Rambler, Rogue, somehow perfectly defined their times and solidified Jagger’s place as a rock n’ roll trail blazer.

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, the fabled “Glimmer Twins” have a love/hate conflict that is nearly as old as rock and roll itself. As Spitz notes, it has its roots in their early years as boys in the middle-class London suburb of Dartford, where the two lived, literally and figuratively, on different side of the tracks. Later, while most of the pre-Stones band mates shared an apartment and lived on little more than potatoes and their love of the blues, Jagger always kept a foot in two worlds, attending the London School of Economics and stealing to his parents’ home for an occasional hot meal and clean laundry. Jagger’s reputation as the less hardcore and serious artist of the two has been fostered ever since, while Keith’s myth has only deepened. But it was Mick who considered becoming a radical, anti-War movement leader, Mick who made the still peerlessly perverse cult film Performance, and Mick who has always kept his ear to the ground and pursued new sounds that kept the Stones from being the blues rock war horse they might have been. Even his Knighthood, and refusal to stop shaking his behind at 67, can be seen as progressive acts along these original lines.

Drawing upon in-depth research and reporting, Jagger includes many brand new interviews with those who’ve worked with him (childhood friend and original Rolling Stones member Dick Taylor, “You’re So Vain” singer/songwriter Carly Simon, Albert Maysles, director of the legendary documentary Gimme Shelter, 70s-era Rolling Stones records chief, Marshall Chess, Neil Innes of the Rutles, and Vernon Reid of Living Colour), those who’ve praised him (activist Tariq Ali, who marched with him in protest of the Vietnam War, and ’69 tour manager Sam Cutler, who first called the Rolling Stones “The World’s Greatest Rock N’ Roll Band”) and those who, like Keith, have also questioned some of his choices (punk writer Mick Farren, and Exile in Guyville rocker Liz Phair and “Bittersweet Symphony” songwriter Richard Ashcroft of the Verve). With emphasis on two dozen key moments from Mick Jagger’s life and times, rather than a cumbersome day by day format, Spitz creates an appropriately brisk and unique portrait of a true rock and roll searcher and survivor. It’s not a pro-Mick spin job and hardly an Anti-Keith book, but rather a natural, contrarian view, designed to restore some balance to the Glimmer Twins and allow us to see Mick’s one of a kind life from a new perspective.

This is the punch Mick never returned to Keith Richards for some of what is written in his memoir Life. For all of the heat he has taken from the critics and the band, Mick Jagger has remained unaffected and unwilling to be drawn into the fray. His skin is as resilient and dense as Keith’s liver,” Spitz writes. While Richards has the reputation of being one of the people, Spitz concludes, “Mick Jagger, for all his jet-setting, is that common man: vulnerable, searching, skeptical, never fully pledged to something as monolithic as rock and roll. The Rolling Stones are a covenant for Keith and they are a covenant for us. For Mick, they subsidize and sometimes impede a philosophical life-search.”

One role he was never interested in playing, however, was historian. His attempt to write a memoir himself akin to Keith’s bestseller ended in Mick returning the advance. Wary of nostalgia, Mick has shied away from most interviews and only does brief press appearances to promote new Stones’ products. His story has been, and always will be, told by others and has often been told in the same way. Here at last is a different take.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2012-09-27 15:03 by proudmary.

Mick Jagger rebel?

Knighthood!!

No one forced him to accept a knighthood.

Mick has become part of the establishment.

Is it really worth selling your soul to be called "Sir"?

For God's sake, it's just ridiculous!
what kind of Establishment do you mean? just to be a millionaire to fly on private jets and hanging out with presidents and movie stars - this is not establishment?

we do not live in the 60s, everything changed. this is the same as a French Legion of Honor and the Nobel Peace Prize, only poseurs and idiots refuse such awards.
Of course, Jagger is a rebel. The fact we are arguing about him is the confirmation of that.
For some reason the society still can not digest Jagger( unlike Richards, who just found a place as a universal sweetheart)

Who's rebelling and what for? If those cats don't stop rebelling, we ain't gonna play!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-07-06 12:50 by Silver Dagger.

I agree with you, Proudmary - the book sounds promissing. Rockjournalists way to take Keith´s perception for granted and to idolize the man has needed balancing for decades.

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proudmary
For God's sake, it's just ridiculous!
what kind of Establishment do you mean? just to be a millionaire to fly on private jets and hanging out with presidents and movie stars - this is not establishment?

You accept the knighthood you accept the establishment, you become part of it.

And yeah. hanging round with Presidents (and Royalty) is definitely establishment.

Why the hell does he want to be called "Sir"?

It stinks.

I have a big issue with the Royal family and all the crap that goes with it.

I never voted for them.

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GetYerAngie
I agree with you, Proudmary - the book sounds promissing. Rockjournalists way to take Keith´s perception for granted and to idolize the man has needed balancing for decades.

"Jagger might be rock & roll’s most unknowable soul, but Spitz gives him back every bit of his Satanic majesty" - I'm really looking forward to it.
I'm tired of the cult of Keith Richards. There is so much more to Rolling Stones than the guitars, the riffs and multi-day drugs filled sessions in the bathroom. I mean, it's OK, I love it - just it is not all.
And Keith Richards and his admirers gradually turned the Rolling Stones
into yet another rock group ( like Led Zepellin, Queen, name it)
In fact, it's time to look at the Stones from Jagger's point of view

Of course Jagger is a rebel. He is just a smart rebel, and resourceful.
His love for the Blues is pure, and early on when he was mail ordering records from overseas, this was very much against the grain. But it already showed a knack fore getting things done, for solving matters.
Keith himself has said that for a long period Jagger did many, many drugs. He was just a lot more careful about keeping a lid on it.
Wasn't it Jagger who rallied the ragged troups to move down to France?
Or Jagger who decided "F&ck it, we're going to fly around in our own airplane"; and pretty much drew one of the groundrules for rock-touring in splendid isolation.

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Palace Revolution 2000
His love for the Blues is pure,

He's bored by the blues.

He was completely bored with it around about 1976 and I think he said as much at the time.

That's why he always wanted to do "modern" stuff and partly why Keith was at war with him.

He must have been extremely frustrated that the Stones were not able to do that keyboard stuff like the Pet Shop boys in the 1980s.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2011-07-06 15:31 by GravityBoy.

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GravityBoy

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Palace Revolution 2000
His love for the Blues is pure,

He's bored by the blues.

How about the Red Devils sessions in the 90's? and how about the album with Jimmy Rogers in 99 or something? There are also some live performance with Gary Moore...


Dust My Broom from 2005 Mustique blues festival :







Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-07-06 16:12 by kowalski.

This is an interesting thread. I can never put my finger on what really makes Mick tick and he is so guarded in his interviews that one can not really know what goes on his head. Is he bored by the blues?? Sometimes I think he is and then he comes up with something like Blue. He seems to want to make hit records and still be in the game. I really wish he would try some mature subjects like Dylan has on his last 4 records. Mick has enough money and does not need hit records. Again I never know what to think of Mick. He obviously cares about the Stones as well it is he that makes sure all of these huge tours go off without a hitch so I don't know. I do think at one time he was a rebel but not anymore.

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proudmary

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GetYerAngie
I agree with you, Proudmary - the book sounds promissing. Rockjournalists way to take Keith´s perception for granted and to idolize the man has needed balancing for decades.

"Jagger might be rock & roll’s most unknowable soul, but Spitz gives him back every bit of his Satanic majesty" - I'm really looking forward to it.
I'm tired of the cult of Keith Richards. There is so much more to Rolling Stones than the guitars, the riffs and multi-day drugs filled sessions in the bathroom. I mean, it's OK, I love it - just it is not all.
And Keith Richards and his admirers gradually turned the Rolling Stones
into yet another rock group ( like Led Zepellin, Queen, name it)
In fact, it's time to look at the Stones from Jagger's point of view

Yes I think you're right. That's a precise way to put it.

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kowalski

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GravityBoy

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Palace Revolution 2000
His love for the Blues is pure,

He's bored by the blues.

How about the Red Devils sessions in the 90's? and how about the album with Jimmy Rogers in 99 or something?

He will still go through the motions.

Doesn't mean he enjoys it.

He definitely said something back in 1976 (or just after) about not wanting to do Exile type stuff anymore because he was bored by it.

And you can tell from the Stones music.

The Mick/Keith war over Bridges to Babylon tells you all you need to know. Mick wanted modern tinsel. Keith wanted what the Stones know and are good at.

...that's your perspective and your sticking to it....so there.

He still likes to play the harmonica though

...new show in London's Portrait Gallery that will feature Mick...here's link to some info and a few photos...[www.huffingtonpost.com]

Download an excepert from the book




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GravityBoy
Mick Jagger rebel?

Knighthood!!

No one forced him to accept a knighthood.

Mick has become part of the establishment.

Is it really worth selling your soul to be called "Sir"?

Maybe he just rebels against anyone who tries to tell him what he can and can't do.....maybe the establishment have given up trying to do that....maybe in accepting the knighthood he's rebelling against people like you (& Keith) who want to put him him in a box labelled rock'n'roller or suchlike which itself just a concept of your minds.......

or maybe not....maybe he just does what he wants to do............for whatever reason......

P.S. I do agree with you about the Royal family though myself.....as Keith did say...wouldn't let them near me with a sharp stick let alone a sword



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2011-07-06 17:45 by EddieByword.

Some lame excuses for "Sir" Mick.

He's a sell-out.

The honors system makes me want to puke.

Also, anyone got that video Mick made for the marketing team before one of the tours (1989?) where's he's banging on about all the merchandise he's going to sell and how he wants it sold?

Mick Jagger is anything but a rebel and hasn't been for over 40 years.

[www.mickjaggerbiography.com]

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"The best of Jagger playlist"


Jagger: Rebel, Rock Star, Rambler, Rogue is a look at Mick Jagger as you have never seen him before. From bluesy teenager to hardened legendary rocker, Jagger explores the highs and lows of over 50 years of rock n’ roll (with a little glam rock, punk rock, soul music and cocktail party mixed in). Combine with author Marc Spitz’s “Best of Jagger” playlist and you will find yourself on the Mick side of the Glimmer Twins.

1. “Down the Road Apiece” (1965)
A great example of Mick’s improbably credible interpretation (and with his own Cockney affects, hybridization) of the African American vocal style. In less than two minutes, The Rolling Stones version of Amos Milburn’s boogie woogie party starter, made it forever-okay for scrawny white boys to sing lustily about chicken cooked in bacon grease.

2. “As Tears Go By” (1965)
In ’64, Mick and Keith were reluctant to bring this “girly” ballad to the other Rolling Stones and gave it to Marianne Faithfull instead. By ’65, pop seemed to require emotional sophistication and baroque melancholy overnight and Mick bravely manned up to his female side. This is the bridge song, allowing the Stones to compete with the Beatles, Dylan and the Kinks.

3. “Memo From Turner” (1970)
Memo to Turner: keep it in your pants. Why doesn’t Keith Richards appear on what might have been the Rolling Stones’ contribution to the soundtrack for Mick’s film debut, the perverse and still brilliant British gangster film Performance? As they say on Facebook, it’s complicated. Co-star Anita Pallenberg, provocateur director Donald Cammell, enough drug casualties to fully stock a Victorian loony bin all contribute to the first and still un-mended rift between Mick and Keith. But at least we have this gem with Ry Cooder’s sinister guitar and disturbing, cut and paste lyrics indebted to William S. Burroughs. Great on its own but definitely check out the video.

4. “You’re So Vain” (1972)
He comes in on the second verse, just after the guitar solo. He’s not credited, but it was impossible to hear Carly Simon’s number one single and not know who the mystery man was. Maybe the song is about Warren Beatty, maybe it’s about Kris Kristofferson or James Taylor. But the singing… is all about Mick Jagger. The hands down highlight of the Stones early to mid 70s “flakey” period (thanks Lester Bangs).

5. “(You’ve Gotta Walk) Don’t Look Back” (1979)
What do you do when the punks call you a ponce dinosaur and put you on their villians list? You make an album full of stonking, two and a half minute songs about heroin and hustling, and for insurance, you align yourself with the Stepping Razor himself, the Toughest of the Tough, Mr. Peter Tosh; who got crazy respect from even the most vicious of punk rockers. Mick did both and somehow survived the rampant iconoclasm. This reggae-fied version of the Temptations classic is cynical synergy, or if you prefer, image damage control and a little kitschy but the sheer star power of the two makes it a must.

6. “State of Shock” (1984)
At the time Michael Jackson could have guzzled a liter of Pepsi and belched the alphabet and it would have moved vinyl. A song from his teenage years “Farewell My Summer Love” was a top 10 hit. He’d sung the hook on Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me’ (later immortalized in a Geico insurance commercial) and the track went to number 2. This, however, was the best of the post-Thriller cash in singles; a sexed up Stonesy-riff stunt cast with a real Stone. Mick replaced Freddie Mercury (no small feat) and made the track his own.

7. “Evil” (1993)
Over a year before Rick Rubin patented his stripped down/return to form approach with Johnny Cash and later, Neil Diamond, he paired Mick with Hollywood bar band The Red Devils for a never-released album full of Mick’s favorite blues songs, like this Howling Wolf classic. Evil is goin’ on!

8. “Streets of Berlin” (1997)
During the opening scene of the brutal and homoerotic, Holocaust-set 1997 indie film Bent, Mick croons this cabaret ballad in Dietrich drag, while swinging on an oversized parakeet perch, out decadence-ing and out-Berlin-ing his old cohort David Bowie in one fell (and actual) swoop.

9. “Sweet Neo Con” (2005)
In ’68, Mick marched with the students in protest of the Vietnam War and wrote “Street Fighting Man” in the offing. A decade on, with Thatcher in power, many assumed he’d long made peace with the establishment. Which is why this, easily the most explicit and angry protest song of the Iraq War era, shocked many fans. Hypocritical Christians, Halliburton and W. and Cheney get the gimlet eye.

10. “Pass the Wine (Sophia Loren)” (2010)
Senior citizen revisits undisputed 40 year old masterpiece, armed with digital technology, under pressure to stimulate catalog and somehow does not suck. One marvel of the new Exile on Main Street tracks (this the War-indebted, funky highlight) is that they did nothing to sully the legacy. The other = makes you wanna dance.

I think I touched a nerve.

Mick can write "rebellious" lyrics all he likes, it's his actions that speak louder.



Keith was right.

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GravityBoy
Some lame excuses for "Sir" Mick.

He's a sell-out.

The honors system makes me want to puke.

Also, anyone got that video Mick made for the marketing team before one of the tours (1989?) where's he's banging on about all the merchandise he's going to sell and how he wants it sold?

Mick Jagger is anything but a rebel and hasn't been for over 40 years.

I offer no excuses..that implies I think he's done something wrong......as I said he's done what he wants to do, he's a grown man.......I'd say the same about Keith if he took up smack again....it's his decision for better or worse..they both know the pros & cons......personally I would do neither...............but also as I said there's more to rebel against in this world than the establishment.(although I can't abide the proposal that I'm subject either)....peer pressure is in my opinion just as oppressive...

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GravityBoy
Some lame excuses for "Sir" Mick.

He's a sell-out.

The honors system makes me want to puke.

Also, anyone got that video Mick made for the marketing team before one of the tours (1989?) where's he's banging on about all the merchandise he's going to sell and how he wants it sold?

Mick Jagger is anything but a rebel and hasn't been for over 40 years.

Keith is that you? Watch out, the "system" is out to get you.

Grow up man.

"I don't want to step out onstage with someone wearing a coronet and sporting the old ermine," Richards told British music magazine "Uncut" in an expletive-rich interview.

"I told Mick it's a paltry honor...It's not what the Stones is about, is it?"

Keith "the rebel" is such a tired cliche. I mean, what's rebel about being a millionaire living in a bubble in a drug-haze spending thousands of dollars on heroin every day?

Well in a rebel contest I think the winner is not the one accepting honors off the establishment they railed against in a previous incarnation, hanging out with Presidents with war crime blood on their hands, or the one calculating how to maximise profits from tax-dodging, mega-tours and merchandising.

Call me old fashioned.

They railed against the "establishment", when, in 1967? By the time that they went in "separate ways" so to speak in the early 70's, they were both living "up there" in their own world.
And Presidents with "war crime blood on their hands"? I don't even know what you're talking about but what about Keith supporting the Iraq invasion?
Tax dodging? Yeah, it was only Mick who moved out of England in 1971 to avoid paying taxes.

Did I claim Keith was a rebel? Keith's just an idiot, well read but an idiot all the same, his piratey knifey drugs gun stuff is just stupid. His support of the Iraq war is stupid.

Mick certainly isn't stupid.

And he certainly isn't a rebel for the reasons I stated.

Oh and google "Bill Clinton" "war criminal".

Well, you quoting Keith and stating some things made it seem (to me) like you think Keith's the rebel as opposed to Mick. Sorry if I misinterpreted that. We can agree that neither of them are rebels.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-07-06 19:25 by stones78.

Keith got that one right.