Mark Spitz
The relationship between a biographer and his subject is strange. Note, I said “his” subject (or “her” subject). There’s a sense of possession there and a false familiarity that feels real. Doris Kearns Goodwin, I’m sure, became good friends with President Lincoln. Robert Caro had a nosh every day with Robert Moses. When you’re writing a biography of someone, you not only “meet” this person, you shack up for as long as it takes to complete his or her life story. They are there, even though they are, physically elsewhere. With each of the three biographies I’ve written in the past half decade, the subject has, in one way or the other, known about the book (I believe). All three subjects have been still alive. So that adds to the sense of social tangibility. In this way, I’ve lived with both Billie, Tre and Mike in Green Day (but not in that apartment in the “Longview” video), David Bowie, and for the past two years, Mick Jagger. Of the three, Mick has been the best “roommate” by far. He’s lived a long time, seen a lot and had a lot to gab about but it was never not fascinating to learn more about the dude. There’s a long stretch in the Jagger book about how he and Keith and Brian and Jimmy Phelge lived in utter squalor in Edith Grove while scientifically honing the early Stones’ sound and identity (and while Mick went back and forth from college) but when I came home and found him “watching my TV,” the place was always neat. I would simply ask “What’s the score of the game?” never “Please… go home.” and the researching and writing process and the edits all went smoothly. This isn’t always the case. Some are problem roommates. After finishing books on Green Day and Bowie, for example, I decided we needed a long break from each other. It was like that episode of Friends where Adam Goldberg (aka the Hebrew hammer) moves in with Chandler and keeps a Pepperidge Farm Goldfish in a fish bowl. “This isn’t going to work.” They’re good books and I’m proud of them, but I stopped playing their music and even put all the editions that came out of this strange one person collaboration (they inspire from a distance, seem weirdly near, I write about it) in my desk drawer. Not Mick. I would give Mick (and most of his friends) a recommendation should he decide to “move in” with another writer in the future (and surely there will be more Mick Jagger books in the future…). So today, on his 68th birthday, and every July 26, for what I hope will be many, many more years, I am sure I’ll stop to wish him a happy one. There’s another stretch in the book about what an elderly Jagger means, but let’s not dwell on that today. After all, if anyone is 68 years “young” it’s this guy. Cheers, my “friend.”


Interview with Dick Taylor
This interview was done via telephone in the winter of this year with Dick Taylor of the great British blues rock turned psychedelic pop band The Pretty Things. Dick was a very early member of the Rolling Stones, and a childhood friend of Mick’s. He’d been caught in a snow storm on his way home form playing a benefit at (and for) the legendary 100 Club in London and was good enough to carry on with the interview despite his chill. One of my favorite interviews from the research sessions. Dick has talked to a lot of writers about the Stones and I strain to find a new way to have him tell the story. Dick talks about the thrill of being a young, obsessive record geek “fan boys.”
Listen to an interview [www.mickjaggerbiography.com]

Interview with Nick Kent
Nick Kent, the legendary, former N.M.E. journalist discusses the Stones revisiting their vaults to create new material for the 2010 re-issue of Exile on Main Street, as well as what an older artist with a towering legacy has to do to stay relevant and, for good measure, a word on what’s wrong with rock and roll at the moment (hint, a lack of “good, @#$%& songs”). An outtake from an extensive interview for Vanity Fair’s website, VF Daily around the time of the release of Kent’s great memoir Apathy for the Devil. It’s always strange to interview a true hero, and I’ve interviewed a few, but this one will always stand out as a high point.
Listen to an interview [www.mickjaggerbiography.com]

Quote
GravityBoy
I think I touched a nerve.

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



Keith was right.

A few thoughts:

Mick's Dad looks like Yoda.

He is, indeed, a great bunch of guys (some greater than others).

At the end of the day, it's a damn shame the band isn't recording/touring right now.

Quote
71Tele

Quote
kowalski
[www.mickjaggerbiography.com]

Quote

"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.

This list is a joke. First of all, the throwaway track "Pass The Wine" instead of the brilliant "Plundered My Soul"? And "You're So vain" was the Stones highlight of the early to mid 70s? And for fucksakes SWEET NEO CON? It may be explicit and angry, but that doesn't make it a good song.

Agree with Tele 100%

"No Anchovies, Please"

Quote
Gazza

Quote
kowalski
[www.mickjaggerbiography.com]

Quote

"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.

This guy expects to be taken seriously with a list that has 'State of shock', 'Streets of Berlin' and the crud that is 'Sweet neocon' (which Mick believed in so much that he bottled out of performing it) listed amongst Jagger's 'best' ?

The most angry song of the Iraq war era is a song with lyrics that read like the rantings of a 14 year old with Tourettes? Really? How much music has this guy listened to?

AAh! Is that list for real?? It's not a joke? Neocon ? And SIX ! (almost seven) non-Stones performances. Soemare just BU vocals or duets. Those are the BEST Jagger performances?

Looks promising - I'll be reading it.

Dunno, what's the problem with the list? First of all, there is other list - only Stones songs - and it's here on this tread. Why not check it? Second - well, he likes something you don't, why to be so upset by this - Jagger is still Jagger, I personally like his singing and I'm glad to know that somebody likes say “Pass the Wine (Sophia Loren)”, so I go and give it one more chance(and I like it)
On my opinion what's matter it's the fact that somebody writes serious book about Jagger not the constant tabloid crap like every other book I've read on the subject. hbwriter said it better and I think he knows what he's talking about:"song picks aside, the guy can, in my opinion, write - he's funny, his references are sharp - and he's enjoying himself. This might be a fun read."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-08-06 17:48 by proudmary.

He's done that first list a disservice by calling it "the best of Jagger" - what I think he's trying to do is pick songs that were significant in Mick's career or in the history of music at the time - quality of song or performance is less important than how well they mark changes of direction or show Mick's character.

Marc Spitz Interviews Rolling Stones Manager Peter Rudge

All I remember about this interview was the band’s legendary early to mid 70s management team member, is the terrible cold I had. It was a great, long interview and truly one of the most valuable in terms of taking the book to another level but I was dead on my feet. Like Robert Greenfield, Rudge was there for the jump from 60s players to 70s myth and here, he discusses the seductive power of the Stones inner circle; how those who traveled with the band essentially “became” Rolling Stones themselves. This is what disgusted their would be tour-profiler Truman Capote but it’s also what clearly contributed to the band’s power. We all want to be Rolling Stones after all.
LISTEN: [www.mickjaggerbiography.com]

Marc Spitz Interviews blues guitar prodigy Paul Size

Paul Size was a teenage blues guitar prodigy from Texas (of course) who suddenly found himself in one of the hottest bar bands in Hollywood, The Red Devils and for a painfully brief period, as part of super producer Rick Rubin’s inner circle, backing Mick Jagger on a series of blues covers. The album Mick made with the ill-fated band remains unreleased but it’s punky, raw blues energy is both a precursor to the White Stripes and The Black Keys as well as the albums Rubin would next make with another legend, Johnny Cash. Here, Paul talks about a near-deadly trip to London to play Mick’s birthday party and the legacy of Mick’s lost album.
LISTEN: [www.mickjaggerbiography.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-08-22 12:17 by proudmary.

Marc Spitz Discusses JAGGER: Rebel, Rock Star, Rambler, Rogue

Marc Spitz, author of Jagger: Rebel, Rock Star, Rambler, Rogue, talks about why he wrote the book and some new takes on the legendary feud between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

[www.facebook.com]

listen an interview [soundcloud.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-08-24 20:53 by proudmary.

Vogue Reviews JAGGER by Marc Spitz



[www.mickjaggerbiography.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-08-24 20:50 by proudmary.

BOOKS OF THE TIMES
[www.nytimes.com]
Settling a Score, and Matters of Manhood, on Behalf of Rock Royalty

JAGGER
Rebel, Rock Star, Rambler, Rogue
By Marc Spitz
Illustrated. 310 pages. Gotham Books. $26

Bob Bonis/2269 Productions, via Not Fade Away Gallery
Mick Jagger with James Brown backstage at the filming of the 1964 concert film "T.A.M.I. Show."
By JANET MASLIN
Published: August 30, 2011

The Rolling Stones’ “Bigger Bang” album included a song called “Oh No, Not You Again.” A lot of readers may join in on that refrain at the news that the Stones are back on the bookshelves with “Jagger,” another rehashing of grievances between a certain snake-hipped singer and a louche guitar man. Next year these two will hit their golden anniversary and be able to celebrate 50 years at each other’s throat.
When Keith Richards’s “Life” arrived last year, nice things were said about Mr. Richards, whose book said nasty things about Mick Jagger. Mr. Jagger has not struck back with his own side of the story. But Marc Spitz’s “Jagger” is an eager hagiography that takes aim at Mr. Richards while trumpeting Mr. Jagger’s overlooked fine qualities. Although Mr. Spitz calls himself a neutral party, “Jagger” is out to settle scores.
It begins with bait and switch. What if Mick Jagger is “a man whom we don’t really like anymore?” And “how did this guy remain a constant presence in popular culture for 50 years and not, for one instance in that half-century, seem like ... our pal?”

This line of questioning should not be taken seriously and is quickly revealed to be disingenuous. Mr. Spitz’s real intent is to tick off the main complaints that have been leveled against Mr. Jagger over the years, then to explain how wrongheaded they are. He credits Mr. Jagger with backhanded brilliance that has been missed and dissed.

Mr. Spitz (an occasional contributor to The New York Times who blogs wittily on his own site and Vanity Fair’s) used to write for Blender, a music magazine that stuck Mr. Jagger between Yanni and Yngwie Malmsteen on its list of all-time worst rock stars. So he is hard-core about musicians’ rivalries. In that spirit, he has used the Mick/Keith dichotomy as the basis for “a parlor game for my rock-snob friends and peers,” which poses the question of which Stone they would rather be. Most are suckers for Keith.

“But if you explore the facts and hear the stories beyond the public images, it’s Mick in a blink,” Mr. Spitz writes.

A blink? Not exactly. The reasoning in “Jagger” takes more strenuous acrobatics than that. Wasn’t it braver, this book asks, for Mr. Jagger to choose a rock ’n’ roll career than it was for Mr. Richards, who lacked other options? Mr. Jagger had to drop out of the London School of Economics, where the Latin motto is “Rerum cognoscere causas.” Mr. Spitz translates that as “to know the cause of things.” He further translates it to mean that Mick cared about serious economic studies, not about making money, though he has been accused of having mercenary motives and a dearth of philanthropic ones.

To his credit, Mr. Spitz knows enough about the Stones’ history to pick good shots and leave out the dull stuff. So this book has a full chapter about “T.A.M.I. Show,” the mind-blowing 1964 concert film in which the Beach Boys, the Stones, Chuck Berry, Lesley Gore, the Supremes, Gerry and the Pacemakers and James Brown (among others) all turned up on the same stage. Mr. Spitz talks to Steve Binder, who directed “T.A.M.I. Show,” and tackles the enduring impression that the Stones almost committed career suicide by following Brown, whose theatrics and fancy footwork on this occasion were arguably his very best. According to Mr. Binder, Brown, when told that the Stones had top billing, just smiled. Then he said, “Nobody follows James Brown.”

But the Stones had to do it. (They also had no choice.) And Mr. Spitz has an insightful take on this pivotal moment in Mr. Jagger’s career. He perfectly captures the rest of the band at that event: “Brian burned with hard charisma. Keith looked geeky. Charlie and Bill looked like gargoyles in training.” But Mick was transformed.

“You can see him experimenting with his own body,” Mr. Spitz writes. “Here, perhaps, the Mick Jagger of ’69 was truly born.”

Among the book’s other claims: that the 1965 incident in which the Stones were caught urinating outside a gas station was a “water-passing, watershed moment”; that the druggy Mr. Jagger “used acid to develop the mind in the same way he used exercise to develop the body”; that Mr. Jagger discovered “in an honest and commendable way, by actually trying and failing to fight,” that he was better off singing about a street-fighting man than being one; and that Mr. Jagger knew how to use potentially Stones-unfriendly developments, like the advents of punk rock and music video, to his advantage.

His marriage to Bianca Jagger is seen here as a stroke of genius, the apotheosis of Mr. Jagger’s quest for a high-low aesthetic or something along those lines. As for Mr. Richards’s hostility to Bianca: “Her campaigns for human rights get high marks from the elderly [sic] Keith, but the young pirate’s style was cramped. He was unable to breathe for all the jet-fuel fumes.”

Mr. Spitz also equates the Stones’ fighting over Anita Pallenberg, eventually Mr. Richards’s longtime companion, with William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies.” He says that Mr. Jagger’s accepting a knighthood created a nice occasion for him to bring his children to Buckingham Palace. And he supplies evidence to debunk Mr. Richards’s well-publicized assessment of Mr. Jagger’s manhood.

“Let’s call it average,” Mr. Spitz says, citing a nude photo of John Lennon as a point of comparison. In other words, no detail about Mr. Jagger is too small to be debated here.

EXCERPT
‘Jagger’
By MARC SPITZ
[www.nytimes.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-08-31 10:49 by proudmary.

To set the record straight: Greenfield, often a good writer, was hardly around the Stones as much as he seemingly takes credit for.

And while Peter Rudge was certainly there at a certain point at a hired hand,his personal wealth came from managing Lynyrd Skynyrd. It was Rudge who hired the plane with its less than admirable pilots that brought that Ronnie Van Zant to his death. And it was Rudge who made a cursory stop in Jackson, Mississippi, where four hospitals held the broken survivors of that flght and hightailed it out of the state and soon out of the country. The Stones never hired him again.

I think some people just get it wrong. Mick never ever left the establishment, he always was a part of it and used in a very intelligent way.
Don't forget that it is still somehow or less important in the UK where you come from and where you live. Class is like Kaste in in India. So don't get me wrong, but only Rock and Roll and forming a band made it possible that Keith and Mick found together. And nothing more.
In normal jobs they would have not met again.

And once again it is by far not Keith who digged the Rolling Stones out of the shit in the seventies it was Mick and mostlikely Charlie.
I do grant the great ability of Keith, but stay modest and see reality.

btw, the book has a Facebook Page
[www.facebook.com]

>>This is what disgusted their would be tour-profiler Truman Capote but it’s also what clearly contributed to the band’s power. We all want to be Rolling Stones after all.

I know a fair bit about Capote and it was plain old sexual jealousy and a dented ego that led to him leaving in a huff, and then disparaging the Stones, including Mick's sexuality. He and his cohort Princess Lee Radziwill were just seen by the others on the tour as the old, uncool, sycophantic hangers-on they actually were.

>>He says that Mr. Jagger’s accepting a knighthood created a nice occasion for him to bring his children to Buckingham Palace.

It may have supplied a memorable occasion for the Jagger children, but that was hardly the point of the event. I recall an interview from very early on where Mick mentioned his ambitions for a knighthood. I would say the majority of English middle class achievers, at least of his generation, aspire to a gong.

Imagining the Rolling Stones Without Keith Richards
By BEN RATLIFF
[artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com]
Today in The New York Times Janet Maslin reviews Marc Spitz’s new book, “Jagger: Rebel, Rock Star, Rambler, Rogue.” She liked the book, and so do I. It argues against the prevailing and increasingly boring theory that Keith Richards is the Stones’ main claim to authenticity, the soul of the band, the principal force of their sound and songcraft, and that Mick Jagger is a shallow socialite poseur. If you were persuaded by Keith Richards’ strong attitudes in his memoir, “Life” — which has sold a million copies worldwide in under a year, according to a recent statement by its American publisher — you may believe in this theory yourself.

I understand that Mr. Jagger and Mr. Richards have been writing songs together since 1964. I like the way Mr. Richards has worked with the other guitarists in the Stones, and I like that when their gigs are flagging he turns his back on the audience, places himself in front of Charlie Watts’s bass drum and bears down on the groove. But sometimes I imagine a fantasy version of the Stones in which Keith Richards is not a member.

Mr. Spitz’s book doesn’t go too far into it, but there are a number of Stones songs allegedly written entirely — words and music — by Mick Jagger alone, or with other people who are not Keith Richards, or with minimal input from Keith Richards. They are not trifles: they’re among the Stones’ greatest, an alternate canon.

For amusement, here’s at least a partial list, an album’s worth.

Much of the information comes from Jann Wenner’s interview with Mr. Jagger, published in Rolling Stone in 1995. Other sources include Mr. Richards’ Life; a 2001 book of interviews with the band members, compiled by Dora Loewenstein and Philip Dodd, called “According to the Rolling Stones”; timeisonourside.com, which compiles various band members’ public comments about every track the Stones recorded; and the database compiled by the Swiss researcher Felix Aeppli, online at aeppli.ch.

“Yesterday’s Papers” (Mr. Jagger, in Wenner interview: “The first song I ever wrote completely on my own for a Rolling Stones record.”)
“Sympathy for the Devil” (Wenner interview: Mr. Jagger asserts that he wrote it himself, and Mr. Richards suggested it be played in “another rhythm.”)
“Street Fighting Man” (Wenner interview: “I wrote a lot of the melody and all the words, and Keith and I sat around and made this wonderful track…”)
“Brown Sugar” (Wenner interview: Mr. Jagger asserts that he wrote it all.)
“Moonlight Mile” and “Sway” (Wenner interview: Mr. Jagger asserts that he wrote both with the guitarist Mick Taylor; in Life, p. 283, Mr. Richards concedes that “Moonlight Mile was all Mick [Jagger]’s.”)
“Star Star” and “100 Years Ago” (according to Mr. Taylor’s and Mr. Richards’ comments quoted at timeisonourside.com)
“It’s Only Rock and Roll” (“Life,” p. 369)
“Miss You” (Wenner interview: Mr. Jagger asserts he wrote it with Billy Preston)
“Some Girls,” “Respectable,” “Lies,” “When the Whip Comes Down” (Wenner interview)
“Emotional Rescue” (written mostly by Mr. Jagger with Charlie Watts and Ron Wood, according to timeisonourside.com)


It argues against the prevailing and increasingly boring theory that Keith Richards is the Stones’ main claim to authenticity, the soul of the band, the principal force of their sound and songcraft, and that Mick Jagger is a shallow socialite poseur.

Just about time!

Marc Spitz Interviews Peter Asher of Peter and Gordon
Peter Asher was one half of Peter and Gordon, the British invasion duo who hit with the McCartney-penned "A World Without Love." I met Peter in a Starbucks on the Upper East Side of Manhattan on a rainy Spring day. Over coffee and breakfast sandwiches, we traveled back to the London of the early 60s. Here Peter discusses going to see the very early, pre-fame Stones. Later in the book, he will discuss the party where Mick, Keith and Andrew Loog-Oldham first met Marianne Faithfull; an encounter that would lead to the first, great Jagger-Richards composition "As Tears Go By." Asher went on to be an important music industry figure and it was a thrill to discuss rock n' roll history with someone who has lived it. Note: if you listen closely you can hear Jackie Wilson in the background. Well, maybe you don't need to listen too closely.
listen [soundcloud.com]

Marc Spitz Interviews British Music Journalist Vivien Goldman
I did this interview in an Indian restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens (hence the ambient noise). Vivien Goldman, a veteran British music journalist, and I discuss the relationship between white British music fans of the Stones generation and the subsequent punk generation, and their long relationship with Jamaican music and Rude Boy culture: all of which informed the Stones music, rebel stance. In the late 70s, their relationship with the Toughest of the tough, Mr. Peter Tosh (who Goldman has written about extensively) helped them weather punk rock.
listen [soundcloud.com]

GIVEAWAY: What is Mick Jagger’s greastest Stones lyric?
by Jed Gottlieb
Nearly ever Rolling Stones song is credited to “Jagger/Richards.” But a lot of Stones fanatics still insist Keef’s the heart and soul of the band. I disagree.
Richards gets big love from Johnny Deep and Jimmy Fallon and a million young guitarists — and he deserves all the love. But to put Jagger behind him is just silly. This is Mick #@!$@# Jagger we’re talking about!!! Would Robert Plant know how to shake his tail feather without Mick? Would Steven Tyler own single scarf without Mick? Would the Black Crowes even exist?
So I’m on the hunt for Mick’s greatest lyric. I’m not interested in getting into who wrote or co-wrote this or that song, so this is a de facto “Best Stones lyric” contest. Send me your favorite Mick line and I might send you Marc Spitz’s “Jagger: Rebel, Rock Star, Rambler, Rogue.”

Please do two things for the win:
First, post a comment below letting me know your favorite lyric and why you love it so.
Second, e-mail me at guestlisted@bostonherald.com with your name and comment and I’ll pick a winner on Tuesday (you’ve got the whole long weekend to think Stones).
Now here’s my obvious starting point…




[www.bostonherald.com]

I like some comments

Jagger’s greatest lyric? Well, of course, it’s from the unheralded “Let It Loose” off of 1972’s “Exile on Main St.”. As follows: Who’s that woman on your arm all dressed up to do you harm / And I’m hip to what she’ll do, give her just about a month or two / Bit off more than I can chew and I knew what it was leading to / Some things, well, I can’t refuse / One of them, one of them the bedroom blues / She delivers right on time, I can’t resist a corny line,
But take the shine right off you shoes / Carryin’, carryin’ the bedroom blues. He paints a beautiful, delicate picture of longing here. It’s tops.

Comment by Chris Sargent - September 2, 2011 @ 1:25 pm

You’re doing such a wonderful job
You’re a natural at working with dogs
Keeping everyone awake at night
With a touch of the prods
-”Dangerous Beauty”
Because Mick showed his disgust with a real world situation when he could have phone it in.

Comment by Tom G - September 2, 2011 @ 1:32 pm

Best Stones Lyric is from “Miss You.”

I’ve been holding out so long
I’ve been sleeping all alone
Lord I miss you.
I’ve been hanging on the phone
I’ve been sleeping all alone
I want to kiss you.

It’s the best lyric because it is SO 3-dimensional. You can picture these lyrics, you can feel these lyrics, you can taste them. The lyrics literally invade your senses and make you experience the concept of wanting somebody that bad.

Comment by Tony B - September 2, 2011 @ 11:57 pm

Paint him bad
How Mick Jagger was turned into rock’s most dangerous man


Read more: [www.nypost.com]

JAGGER: Rebel, Rock Star, Rambler, Rogue
JAGGER is available tomorrow!
[www.amazon.com]




RESPONSE TO MIRACLE WORKER BY SUPERHEAVY
Check It! The first single from SuperHeavy’s upcoming debut album is out today, available on iTunes UK. “Miracle Worker,” is the title and these are some first thoughts written during my initial listen. Not a review, literally just a second by second, line by line response. The choice to release a reggae single in July is smart. Seriously. I am drenched in sweat from just going out to buy the New York Post and came back to have a listen and the heated, sultry vibe is right. Mick is always a good reggae guy. There’s a long passage in my book about the Stones’ relationship with the late, great Peter Tosh… the Stepping Razor, the Toughest, the Rudest of the Rude, etc. While you can read their cover of Eric Donaldson’s “Cherry Oh Baby,” as camp or the reggae-tinged originals like “Luxury” or Mick’s shout out to those working under the hot sun out in Jamaica on the disco track “Hot Stuff,” as ironic but there’s also a bit in the book about the long relationship with Londoners of their generation and the strong bond they had with Rude Boy fashion and attitude and the Jamaican ska, rock stead and later reggae music. Even “Start Me Up” began as a reggae track, didn’t it? It’s a real love. One love. What? Anyway, point is, I am digging this more than I would had it come out in say February. A climate curve. The track opens with a toast from Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley: “To all the lovers who might be thinking of breaking up or maybe even making up…” and the first singing voice you hear is Joss Stone’s which is also smart. She brings the pop soul, sets the tone. Marley toasts between the riffing. The players are clearly tops and the sound is big budget. Mick comes in and quite literally takes over. He seems to push everyone to the side with those lips and that tongue. He shouts his verses, with the dirty, nitty gritty Mick voice: “There’s nothing wrong with you that I can’t fix. I’ll come running with my little bag of tricks.” You would think that’s it for Joss, but they duet on the hook and sound right together. Speaking of that hook, I think it’s real. Some songs, especially the umpteenth singles by rock super-veterans, search for the hook as they go. This one is found quickly. It’s authentic, Smokey Robinson-esuqe. “Mick Jagger… Joss Stone,” Marley observes, bringing us to a tidy end. I can see this track getting remixed dozens of times, but it’s short and sweet as is. “Imagine… I mean think about it,” Jr. Gong offers. And the more I think about it, the more I realize this is a seriously smart move for him as a solo artist. For one thing, SuperHeavy already seems to be about the mysteries of chemistry, something that threatens to explode but instead makes beautiful colors, and feels like that much more of a triumph because it seemed so ragged and unsteady… and so is the best Stones material.

As a professional writer since the age of 17, I am really leery of biographies of living subjects put together by authors who have not spent quality time with their "subject." Reading "clips" on the internet or going to a few concerts do not make them authorities on the "subject." No matter how good their sources, part of being a solid author is building a relationship with the subject and maintaining an objective perspective.

Just admiring a "star" and feeling that you somehow have innate knowledge of this person is not enough of a credential as far as I'm concerned. Having seemingly "good sources" is just not enough.

But Stonesrule, wouldn't that result in the dreaded "authorized" (read: sanitized) biography? Not too many artists would really open up to a writer and then have no expectations about influencing - even controlling - the outcome of the book.

Yes, those kind of books are usually pathetic.

If a writer has a good professional background, a classy publisher and a fine agent, a meeting usually can be arranged.

Often writers or would be new writers think their enthusiasm for the subject -- or some front money entitles them to write someone's life story.

I have a friend who is a solid writer who picks "people who intrigue me" for her books. One of them was a notoriously private movie star who said to her as she buttonholed him at a film festival: "I know who you are. You've sent me several letters. But if there is to be yet another book on my life, I'd prefer to do it myself, and I'm in no hurry. I won't stop you but I will not cooperate." Me? I would have thanked him for his honesty and turned to another subject. It really is presumptious to write a book about someone who doesn't want to help. Just my opinion.

Quote
stonesrule
Yes, those kind of books are usually pathetic.

If a writer has a good professional background, a classy publisher and a fine agent, a meeting usually can be arranged.

Even if an interview with Mick Jagger could be arranged, do you really think anyone could get to know the real him via one interview? It's unlikely even via 50 interviews...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-09-07 19:53 by Sleepy City.

are the pictures in the book any good?

Quote
stonesrule
As a professional writer since the age of 17, I am really leery of biographies of living subjects put together by authors who have not spent quality time with their "subject." Reading "clips" on the internet or going to a few concerts do not make them authorities on the "subject." No matter how good their sources, part of being a solid author is building a relationship with the subject and maintaining an objective perspective.

Just admiring a "star" and feeling that you somehow have innate knowledge of this person is not enough of a credential as far as I'm concerned. Having seemingly "good sources" is just not enough.

I can't agree.
Regardless whether you know your subject personally or use sources close to him, the most important thing is the writer's perspective and what he / she tries to convey (why he / she chose to write on the subject). Good biography is a thorough research work, and it doesn't depend on the fact whether one drank tea with his/ her subject. Therefore biographies on people who are already gone are better in their majority because they are mostly concentrated on the research and the main idea of the book and don't seek to share one's personal opinion and dirty linen on the subject. As far as I can judge Schpitz writes about Jagger from a different and unusual angle that's why he is worthwhile reading in my opinion.

I agree with much of what you just posted ProudMary. However, I limited my remarks to subjects currently living.

Many IORR'ers were highly complimentary on Jagger's 1995 interview with Jann Wenner. Lot of honesty and good insights. Valuable information. Speaking only for myself, I'd rather have read that interview than the Spitz book.

I see. But this interview is only one and it's unlikely that something like this will emerge in the future.
I'd rather Tom Stoppard would write a book about Jagger - he is a great writer and longtime friend and admirer of Mick. But instead of writing Jagger bio he wrote the play Rock 'n' roll

A Jagger biography sure to provide some satisfaction
Marc Spitz’s biography of the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger aims to boost sagging profile of the rock icon.
By Eric Been
September 9, 2011

Mick Jagger is perhaps rock’s greatest frontman, but over the past few decades he’s played second fiddle to Rolling Stones colleague Keith Richards. Whereas Richards has been largely viewed as the backbone of the band, Jagger is often portrayed as being uncommitted to the group and to rock ’n’ roll in general.
That’s the type of popular opinion Marc Spitz attempts to challenge in his new biography-cum-critical analysis, “Jagger: Rebel, Rock Star, Rambler, Rogue.’’ More specifically, Spitz contends that the singer-songwriter has been wrongfully caricaturized as the Stones’ “lone miser and cynic.’’ This depiction, according to Spitz, has obscured Jagger’s influence and role in the band’s success and his contribution to the development of rock.

Not surprisingly, given that the number of books written about the Stones could topple a hefty bookcase, it might seem like an impossible task to say something new about Jagger. Yet, Spitz does an admirable, if sometimes strained, job coming up with fresh perspectives on the singer and his times. Rather than offering a comprehensive account of Jagger’s life, Spitz selects several key moments in his career to create a narrative that demonstrates that his history is every bit as compelling as the one portrayed by Richards in his recent autobiography, “Life.’’

Among other against-the-grain claims, Spitz argues that Jagger’s performance “matched’’ James Brown’s in the 1964 concert film “T.A.M.I. Show,’’ that he shouldn’t be singled out for the tragic Altamont concert at which one fan was stabbed to death by a member of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang who was working security for the group, and that he’s kept his revolutionary edge by “bringing the establishment’’ to him rather than railing against it. Elsewhere, Spitz says that Jagger’s calculated decision to enjoin screenings of Robert Frank’s documentary of the band’s 1972 tour helped mythologize the film (which goes by an unprintable title) and paved the way for modern viral culture.

More interestingly, Spitz makes a strong case that Jagger’s public image was largely shaped by the women in his life. Jagger’s girlfriend in the late 1960s, Marianne Faithfull, is credited with pushing him to stand out among his British Invasion peers by cultivating an image of himself as a “mod Lord Byron’’ who could still “talk trash with the boys.’’ Anita Pallenberg, who briefly dated the late Stones member Brian Jones before moving on to Richards, emerges in the work as a Dionysian muse whose decadence and fashion sense (the Stones “wore her clothes’’) influenced their dark, pansexual persona. Moreover, Jagger’s alleged fling with Pallenberg, and Richards’s subsequent liaison with Faithfull, fueled their often volatile relationship.

Even the usually vilified Bianca Jagger (Mick’s first wife) is credited for helping distinguish the band in the 1970s from their arena-rock counterparts, giving them “a celebrity sheen and an air of high society that mixed very nicely with their nitty-gritty, torn, and frayed image and created, essentially, a brand-new rock and roll aesthetic.’’

Some other attempts at new points of view, however, fall flat. Perhaps the book’s most questionable statement concerns Jagger’s attitude toward the past. “Mick is perhaps the least sentimental of rock stars,’’ Spitz writes, “and one gets the feeling that trafficking in nostalgia in any way is painful to his psyche.’’ While there’s a case to be made that Jagger’s embrace of musical trends helped keep the Stones relevant, it’s a stretch to suggest he’s retrophobic (indeed, this is the same singer who has enthusiastically performed “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’’ on almost every tour since 1965).

Ultimately, though, these and other blemishes don’t hinder the book’s chief project: giving Jagger his sympathetic due. Spitz says Jagger has fallen off the “the list of icons that each new generation feels compelled to explore and welcome as one of their own.’’ Spitz’s book should place him back on track for making that list.

[www.boston.com]