Albert Watson photos

PEOPLE
June 26, 1978 Vol. 9 No. 25




Mick Jagger Has a 'thing' for Jerry Hall, and Bianca Has Seen Her Lawyer
By Martha Smilgis


I prefer to concentrate on one relationship," confides towering Texas model Jerry Hall, 21. "When I'm really in love, I'm faithful." That, presumably, is good news for Rolling Stone Mick Jagger, 33, Jerry's main event for more than a year. "Mick is gone over Jerry," says a friend. "He's never had a 'thing' that lasted so long."

Except, that is, for one "thing"—the one involving Bianca, his angry wife of seven years, and their 6-year-old daughter, Jade. Bianca filed for divorce last month in London, and Mick, already edgy about the terms of a settlement, has been pleading for a moratorium. "She still listens to him," reports a mutual pal, "and Mick is shrewd. He doesn't let anyone know how much money he has." But even if the Jaggers get back together, says another friend, "they would be fighting again in two months. Mick is very close with Jerry. Love or whatever, it's real."

Understandably, Hall isn't talking—at least not about her favorite singer. Though they met two years ago (when she was the fiancée and roommate of another British rocker, Bryan Ferry), only recently have they gone semipublic. In New York they sometimes share a two-bedroom suite at the Pierre or the Carlyle, helicopter to soccer games in New Jersey, and disco—but generally not at Studio 54, which is Bianca's turf. Last month, with Mick preparing for a U.S. tour and Bianca in L.A. promoting her yet-to-materialize movie career, Jerry babysat Jade in Woodstock, N.Y. Mick, meanwhile, dropped in on Jerry's widowed mother in Texas. "He seems like a nice young man, but he made fun of my accent," reported Marjorie Hall, 53, who resents the notion that Jerry broke up his marriage. "Scandal publications made her seem like a Jezebel, but she's a good Christian girl and I'm proud of her. I don't know if they are planning on getting married someday, but she enjoys being with him, and of course the publicity isn't really bad for her career."

Jerry's career is her other satisfaction. With 40 fashion covers to her credit, she commands fees of $1,000 a day. She's also done TV spots for Dr Pepper and Metropolitan Life. "If I'm not working," says Hall, "I think I get ugly." Observes British Vogue photographer Willie Christie: "She's got one of those faces that if you look at it in a bad light without makeup, she's ugly as sin. It's a horsey face. But in a good light, she looks better than anyone."

A savvy businesswoman, Jerry is building a house for her mother on a 200-acre ranch in Lone Oak, Texas. "But I wouldn't live in Texas myself," she says. "The men are always drinking, while their women go around brokenhearted." To Jerry, her own income means never having to say she's sorry. "In the past, some models would marry guys who could keep them in the same style," she explains. "But if you take money from someone, you never enjoy it. If you have your own money, no one can buy you. Personal gifts are okay. I give men nice presents like they give me nice presents." A toss of her waist-length blond mane reveals a pair of diamond earrings—from Mick.

The youngest (with her twin) of five girls, Jerry was raised in Mesquite, a Dallas suburb. Her father, a chicken farmer turned truck driver, died last year. His widow, a medical records consultant, raised her brood on positive thinking and Frederick's of Hollywood. Weed-thin, with size-nine feet, Jerry was nicknamed "Tall Hall." "Everyone laughed when I wore my sister's falsies," she recalls. "But later I was the first Cosmo nipple cover."

At 14, Jerry was selling cones at the local Dairy Queen. The next year a minor auto accident brought her a nose job and $800 in insurance money—enough for a ticket to Paris. Putting up at a Saint-Tropez youth hostel, she was discovered by Claude Haddad (now her Paris agent) while sunning topless on the beach. Soon she moved in—platonically—with fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez, who taught her how to pose and dab on makeup. "For a while I was into the sleazy nightlife of Paris," she says. "I'm tired of gay men now, but then it was interesting." After spotting her on the cover of Italian Vogue, Bryan Ferry asked her to pose for an album cover. She did ("I charged a lot"), then moved in with him until she absentmindedly lost his engagement ring. "At parties now, the oldest, richest men always make a play for me," she says. "They offer me things. I laugh." Still, the attention is welcome. "I never had a boyfriend when I was young," she sighs. "I spent so long being icky."

GABRIEL LUKE BEAUREGARD JAGGER
Sir Mick's last child (left) with wife Jerry Hall (second from left) was born while
he was on tour with the Rolling Stones. Though still a teenager,
Gabriel is rumored to be a very gifted painter

Credit: Richard Young/REX/Startraks
Updated: Tuesday Jul 26, 2016 | 05:00 PM EDT By: Jordan Runtagh




LUCAS MAURICE MORAD-JAGGER
The product of an affair with Brazilian lingerie model Luciana Morad (right),
Lucas' birth prompted Hall to end her relationship with Jagger. The boy was
the subject of a two-year legal battle over child support, but today shares
a close relationship – and close resemblance – with his famous father.

Credit: Broadimage/REX/Shutterstock
Updated: Tuesday Jul 26, 2016 | 05:00 PM EDT By: Jordan Runtagh






BABY JAGGER TO-BE
In early July, reps confirmed that 29-year-old American ballerina Melanie Hamrick
is more than three months pregnant with the 73-year-old rock icon's baby. The pair began
dating after the suicide of Jagger's longtime partner, fashion designer L'Wren Scott, in 2014.
Jagger's bandmate Ronnie Wood welcomed twins at age 68 just two months prior.

Credit: Picture Perfect/REX/Shutterstock
Updated: Tuesday Jul 26, 2016 | 05:00 PM EDT By: Jordan Runtagh

Rolling Stones' Sax Player Bobby Keys Has Died at 70
ESTATE OF KEITH MORRIS/REDFERNS/GETTY



BY ASSOCIATED PRESS 12/02/2014 AT 03:00 PM EST
Bobby Keys, a saxophonist and rock 'n' roller known to millions for his blasting solo on the Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar," has died at his home in Franklin, Tennessee. He was 70 years old.

Michael Webb, who played keyboard with Keys, said the musician died on Tuesday after a lengthy illness. Keys had been out on tour with the Stones earlier this year before his health prevented him from performing.

"The Rolling Stones are devastated by the loss of their very dear friend and legendary saxophone player, Bobby Keys," the band said in a statement. "Bobby made a unique musical contribution to the band since the 1960s. He will be greatly missed."

Known for his heavy jowls and forceful style, the Texas native was born on the same day as Keith Richards – Dec. 18, 1943 – and the Stones' guitarist would often cite Keys as a soul mate and favorite musician.

Besides "Brown Sugar," Keys also played memorable solos on such Stones favorites as the seven-minute jam "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" and the country-styled "Sweet Virginia." Other career highlights included John Lennon's chart-topping "Whatever Gets You Through the Night."

"I have lost the largest pal in the world, and I can't express the sense of sadness I feel, although Bobby would tell me to cheer up," Keith Richards wrote in a statement.

Keys' career dated back to the 1950s, when as a teenager he played with Buddy Holly and the Crickets. He joined the Stones in the late 1960s and was with them off and on over the following decades. He also played on Richards' solo album Talk Is Cheap.






Beatle George Harrison with Pop group Delaney and Bonny and the friends. Picture at Colston Hall, Bristol. December 1969

Beatle George Harrison with Pop group Delaney and Bonny and the friends. Picture at Colston Hall, Bristol. December 1969
l-r Carl Radle, Bobby Keys, George Harrison, Delaney Bramlett, Bonnie Bramlett, Jim Gordon with Eric Clapton seated Z11590-001 (Photo by WATFORD/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images)




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Rolling Stones' saxophone player Bobby Keys dies at 70


Bobby Keys of The Rolling Stones performs on stage at the Ernst-Merck-Halle on September 14th 1970 in Hamburg, Germany.
(Photo by K & K Ulf Kruger OHG/Redferns)

Bobby Keys, a saxophonist and lifelong rock 'n' roller who played on recordings by Buddy Holly and John Lennon and performed one of the all-time blowout solos on the Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar," has died at his home in Franklin, Tennessee. He was 70 years old.

Michael Webb, who played keyboard with Keys, said Keys died Tuesday after a lengthy illness. Keys had been on tour with the Stones earlier this year before his health prevented him from performing.

"The Rolling Stones are devastated by the loss of their very dear friend and legendary saxophone player, Bobby Keys," the band said in a statement. "Bobby made a unique musical contribution to the band since the 1960s. He will be greatly missed."

Known for his heavy jowls and raw, raucous style, the Lubbock, Texas, native was born on the same day as Keith Richards — Dec. 18, 1943 — and the Stones guitarist would often cite Keys as a soul mate and favorite musician. Besides "Brown Sugar," Keys also played memorable solos on such Stones favorites as the 7-minute jam "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" and the country-styled "Sweet Virginia." Other career highlights included John Lennon's chart-topping "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" and albums by Richards, George Harrison, Barbra Streisand and Eric Clapton.



"I have lost the largest pal in the world, and I can't express the sense of sadness I feel, although Bobby would tell me to cheer up," Richards said in a statement.


Keith with Bobby Keyes and his manager on a Tennessee farm, 1979


Keys' career dated back to the 1950s, when as a teenager he played with fellow Lubbock native Holly and The Crickets. He met the Stones in the mid-'60s while they were on the same bill at a state fair in San Antonio, Texas, and was distraught that the British rockers had recorded a cover of Holly's "Not Fade Away."

"I said, 'Hey, that was Buddy's song,'" Keys recalled in Richards' memoir "Life," published in 2010. "Who are these pasty-faced, funny-talking, skinny-legged guys to come over here and cash in on Buddy's song?"

But once Keys listened more closely, he decided the Stones were playing "actual rock and roll," an opinion the Stones more than shared about Keys. He first recorded with them in the late 1960s and toured and recorded with them off and on over the following decades, his work featured on three of the group's most acclaimed albums: "Let It Bleed," ''Sticky Fingers" and "Exile on Main Street."

In some ways, he was too close to Richards, developing a heroin addiction that led to his temporary estrangement from the group. But he was with them on every major tour over the past quarter century, dependably stepping up for his solo on "Brown Sugar."

Keys' memoir "Every Night's a Saturday Night" was published in 2012, with a foreword by Richards. Keys recalled that he was first exposed to rock 'n' roll through Holly's music — not on the radio, but at the grand opening of a Texas gas station near the home of Keys' grandparents. It was the first time he had heard an electric guitar played live.

"And right then and there I knew I wanted to have something to do with that music," Keys explained. Holly "just kinda lit a fuse that started burning then, and it's still burning now."





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Bobby Keys performing with Ronnie Lane at The Limelight.
New York City on April 19, 1987.
(Photo by Ebet Roberts/Redferns)


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Jimmy Lovine, John Lennon and Bobby Keys, NYC 1974

Timing Is Everything

by Ron Wynn


Bobby Keys has mastered the art of the crackling, memorable sax solo in rock and R&B just as superbly as the great jazz musicians he idolizes. While best known for frenetic contributions to classic LPs by the Rolling Stones, the Who, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Joe Cocker, and John Lennon (for starters), Keys has also appeared on albums by artists ranging from B.B. King and Dr. John to Donovan and Barbra Streisand. Yet, despite an impressive legacy that dates back to the ’50s and stints with Buddy Holly and Bobby Vee, Keys never wanted to be a saxophonist.
“I got hurt playing baseball and couldn’t play any contact sports,” Keys recalled. “In Texas, everybody wants to play football. The only thing left was to join the band. By the time I got there they had one instrument left. It was a beat-up baritone saxophone. I wanted a guitar, but my parents wouldn’t get me one. So I was stuck with that old sax.” But Keys quickly became a terror on the instrument, even if he deviated from the normal tunes bands of that era preferred. “I used to listen to the all-night radio stations, especially the ones that played all those great R&B songs,” Keys continued. “All the rock & roll and R&B records that I liked had sax solos. Little Richard, Fats Domino, that really resonated with me.”

Keys incorporated into his approach the big sound, huge tone, and vocal effects of premier R&B horn guys like Sam “The Man” Taylor, Plas Johnson, Hal “Cornbread” Singer, Earl Bostic, and most notably King Curtis, whom he met when Curtis was recruited to play on a Vee session. “They needed someone to pick him up, so I volunteered,” Keys added. “Of course, my band director and the guys weren’t real pleased when I told them I was blowing off a football game because I was picking up this black horn player and taking him around town. But I didn’t really care, because I was meeting my idol. I got to know him, and we later played together in New York. He showed me so many things and helped me develop my own style in the process.”

Keys’ skill at dispensing magic in a handful of carefully selected notes is evident on such Rolling Stones hits as “Brown Sugar” and “Live With Me.” He began recording with them in 1969 and remains close with both Keith Richards and Mick Jagger (he was an attendant at Jagger’s wedding).

Versatility is another important aspect of Keys’ popularity. While tenor is his first instrument, he’s nearly as famous for baritone contributions to such songs as Elvis Presley’s “Return To Sender” and John Lennon’s “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night.” Keys retains a simple playing philosophy from the early days in Texas. “I’m not one of these technical wizards,” he admits. “I don’t go into a session with a lot of charts and try to dazzle or outplay anyone. I draw my inspiration from the people I’m playing with, and I don’t want to play the same thing all the time. I’m at my best when everyone’s contributing and engaged in the session. It’s always been about the feeling and energy I get when I’m playing, and being able to communicate that through the saxophone.”

Keys has played with so many different performers and bandleaders he’s hesitant to pick favorites. He’s formed friendships not only with Richards, Jagger, and Lennon, but Cocker, Ronnie Wood (whose Miami club he served as musical director during the late ’80s), Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton (he played on the immortal Derek and the Dominos sessions), and Paul McCartney. But one name he mentions might be surprising. “I really enjoyed playing with Harry Nilsson,” Keys recalled. “He was an excellent musician and a wonderful guy, a lot more talented than many people acknowledge.” He also has an interesting interlude regarding Streisand, whom he never met during the sessions for Barbra Joan Streisand. “She later thanked me for playing on her album,” Keys laughed. “She admitted she didn’t know who I was, but when I told her she was very gracious.”

A Nashville resident since the mid ’90s, Keys remains quite busy. He’ll soon head for New York to work with Richards on an upcoming solo project. He also recently released a book, Every Night’s A Saturday Night, something he says was supposed to happen years ago. “I was working with a writer and all they wanted was dirt on people and stories on everything but the music,” Keys said. “I just ended up giving the money back and saying let’s forget it. This time they let me concentrate on the music, although I was free to tell the truth about situations as I remembered them. This is not a ‘tell-all’ type of book. That’s not what I wanted to do and not something I ever would do.

“I still love to play,” Keys concluded. “There’s nothing better for me than to be part of a session where things are really jumping and it’s my turn to get in there and add something. That’s what keeps me going, the joy of playing music.”


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John Lennon 1969 with Jim Price, Bobby Keys, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Delaney Bramlett, Bonnie Bramlett, Yoko Ono and John Lennon at the Lyceum, December 15th 1969 © Chris Walter.

Lennon, Harrison, Clapton and Delaney Bramlett (guitars, with Clapton playing Rocky, Harrison's psychedelic Fender Stratocaster); Ono (vocals); Bonnie Bramlett (tambourine);
Alan White and Jim Gordon (drums); Billy Preston (organ); Klaus Voormann (bass guitar); Bobby Keys (saxophone); Jim Price (trumpet). Lennon later referred to it as the Plastic Ono Supergroup.

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Bobby Keys, Hard-Living Saxophonist for Rolling Stones, Dies at 70
By BRUCE WEBERDEC. 2, 2014
New York Times




Bobby Keys on tour with the Rolling Stones in 1973. His hard-driving saxophone playing was mirrored in a hard-partying life.
Credit Michael Putland

Bobby Keys, a Texas-born sideman whose urgent, wailing saxophone solos wove a prominent thread through more than 40 years of rock ’n’ roll, notably with the Rolling Stones, died on Tuesday at his home in Franklin, Tenn. He was 70.

His family announced the death, without specifying a cause.

A self-taught musician who never learned to read music, Mr. Keys was a rock ’n’ roller in every sense of the term. Born (almost literally) in the shadow of Buddy Holly, he was a lifelong devotee and practitioner of music with a driving pulse and a hard-living, semi-law-abiding participant in the late-night, sex-booze-and-drug-flavored world of musical celebrity.

“I’ve been smoking pot for over 50 years, and I never let a day go by unless I’m in jail,” he said in a 2012 interview with Rolling Stone magazine. “I am a devout pothead. I have been, will be, don’t see a damn thing wrong with it except the cost.”

Mostly playing tenor and sometimes baritone saxophone, he recorded with a Who’s Who of rock including Chuck Berry, Eric Clapton, John Lennon, George Harrison, Carly Simon, Country Joe and the Fish, Harry Nilsson, Joe Cocker and Sheryl Crow. He toured with Delaney and Bonnie and was recording with them in 1969 when they shared a Los Angeles studio with the Stones, who were making their album “Let It Bleed.”

As Mr. Keys recalled in his 2012 memoir, “Every Night’s a Saturday Night” (written with Bill Ditenhafer), Mick Jagger invited him to sit in on the track “Live With Me,” and thus began an association with the band that went on to include the albums “Sticky Fingers,” “Exile on Main St.,” “Goat’s Head Soup” and “Emotional Rescue” and almost a dozen tours over more than 30 years.

Perhaps Mr. Keys’s most famous contribution to rock history is his roaring, lasciviously melodic solo — not unsuited to Mr. Jagger’s sexually charged lyrics — on “Brown Sugar,” from “Sticky Fingers.” He was also prominently featured on “Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’,” “Happy” and many other Stones songs.

Mr. Keys and Keith Richards, the Stones’ legendarily profligate guitarist and songwriter, became great friends and frequent companions in, well, profligacy. The two of them famously threw a television set from a hotel window in 1972.


Chad Batka


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AUSTIN-ZEITGEIST
Bobby Keys: Rolling Stone From Texas 1943- 2014
December 2, 2014 | Michael Corcoran


Sax great Bobby Keys, who was a big part of the Rolling Stones sound during their late ’60s/ early ’70s creative heyday, died today in his home near Nashville, friends report. The last of the great Texas Tenors was 70 and suffering from various ailments, including cirrhosis. But he leaves behind sax solos- “Brown Sugar,” “Sweet Virginia,” “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” and so on- that are essential to the classics. Let’s go back, just over 50 years, when a fateful gig in San Antonio would change his life forever. But Bobby Keys was going to blow hard, with soul, no matter where he ended up:

****
The pasty little guys from England, ready to go on next, were getting a big kick out of singer Bobby Vee’s saxophonist, whose only pair of black suit pants ripped before showtime, so he was onstage playing in Bermuda shorts and cowboy boots. Hanging out later that night at the Ramada Inn, the sax man’s big West Texas drawl fascinated the Brits further. And then there was the Buddy Holly connection.
Bobby Keys was the larger-than-life Texan the Rolling Stones had hoped to meet on their first visit to the mythical Lone Star State to play the Teenage World’s Fair in 1964. The show at the Joe Freeman Coliseum, with George Jones headlining, was the band’s second-ever concert in the U.S. and the new single they played was a cover of Holly’s “Not Fade Away.”

“When they heard that I knew Buddy Holly, that’s all they wanted to talk about,” said Keys, the Lubbock County native who added honking, squealing tenor sax to the Stones’ guitar-based sound in 1969 and has been the group’s most popular sideman ever since. Almost as much as Mick Jagger’s haze-cutting vocals, Keith Richards’ driving guitar and Charlie Watt’s flawless backbeat, Keys’ robust sax work on such albums as Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main Street define the Rolling Stones’ danger soul period.
Keys had lived since the early ’90s in Nashville, where he fronted a bar band called Insufferable Bastards. He liked to keep sharp on the sax, especially since he had a stroke a few years ago and had to relearn much. Residuals from the sale of Rolling Stones records still paid the bills, he told me in 2012, but the biggest money- and most fun- came when he played live with the Stones.
“It’s a very well-paying gig and they give me free clothes,” Keys said when I interviewed him in 2012, ready and eager to play the first Stones concerts in over five years. “Plus, I know all the songs.”



With a personality as extroverted as his sax playing, Keys contributed almost as much to the Stones mythology as he had to their discography. He was Keith Richards’ best friend- they were born hours apart on Dec. 18, 1943- described by “Keef” in his book “Life” as “a soul of rock and roll, a solid man, also a depraved maniac.” With a quick wit, exuberant laugh and rich stories, Keys was a walking party, but, he said he gave up the hard stuff a long time ago. In later years, he and Richards mostly played dominoes when they hung out.
“I think at first I was a bit of a novelty in London,” said Keys, who lived in George Harrison’s house, then shared a flat with Mick Jagger in 1970. “It was like ‘meet my crazy friend from Texas. Put drugs and alcohol inside him and watch what he does.’” Jagger and Keys were both single and doing the party scene. “It was a good time to be Bobby Keys.”

Some famous Keys stories: He once filled a bathtub with Dom Perignon to impress a French woman he met at the hotel bar. He inadvertently started a fire at the Playboy Mansion in Chicago. Then, there’s the 1972 tour footage, which Keys now regrets participating in, of him and Richards heaving a TV set out of the 10th floor window of a hotel. It was the filmmaker’s idea, he said.

“To this day, that’s how a lot of folks know me. I could say, ‘but I played on all these great records’ and most people would go, ‘yeah, but you’re the guy who threw the TV set out the window.”

If Keys had never met the Stones, never played with them, he’d still have an impressive resume. As a 14-year-old he ran errands and occasionally sat in with Holly and the Crickets, then left Slaton, 10 miles south of Lubbock, for good when he took to the road with Buddy Knox of “Party Doll” fame.
Keys claimed to have played baritone sax on the Elvis Presley hit “Return To Sender” as an 18-year-old in 1962. In his recent autobiography “Every Night Is a Saturday Night,” Keys wrote that Glen D. Hardin, a friend from Lubbock making a name as L.A. sessionista, got him the Presley gig. The evidence, however, points to Boots Randolph as the sax player on the session. “I remember Elvis coming into the control room (during the session) and I was thinking to myself, “Nobody’s gonna believe me,’” Keys said, which seems to be the case. One explanation from Keys is that Randolph also recorded the part and both sax players believe it was theirs that made the record.

There’s no question, however, that Keys’ stint in L.A. soul/rock band Delaney & Bonnie and Friends from ‘67- ’69 established him as rock’s most soulful sax player- the white King Curtis. When pianist/ arranger Leon Russell put together a band for Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen, he tapped Keys, who was portrayed as a storytelling ladies man on the tour documentary.

His musical partner since D&B has been Fort Worth-born trumpet player Jim Price, who studied at North Texas State in Denton. “Jim is well-schooled and has perfect pitch, whereas I can’t read music and I’m sometimes a little off key,” said Keys. “He’ll get on me sometimes and I’ll say, “Man, that’s why we’re so good together. We’re different.” Known as the Texas Horns, Keys and Price were in-demand session players whose credits include Eric Clapton, Harry Nilsson and solo albums by all the Beatles besides Paul.




Clapton asked them to be in a new band he was forming called Derek and the Dominos in 1970. But when Keys and Price arrived in London, they were picked up at the airport by George Harrison’s assistant, not Clapton’s. It turned out that Clapton decided against using a horn section for “Layla and Other Assorted Love Stories,” but as a consolation he hooked the Texans up with Harrison, who was recording All Things Must Pass. That’s Keys and Price on the hit “What Is Life.”
“I’d have to say that a lot of the good things that have happened in my career was from being in the right place at the right time,” said Keys, who also created his own luck by hustling at London recording studios. Keys and Price would often show up to sessions, unbooked, with their horns. “The bands would play us what they’d recorded and we’d say, ‘that sounds great, but you know what would make it sound ever better?’” With “more saxophone!” as his mantra, Keys received credits on albums by the Who, Faces, Donovan, Humble Pie and many more. After his powerhouse solo on “Brown Sugar” in 1971, everybody wanted that Bobby Keys sound.
Modeling his raucous, heavily-articulated style after the Texas Tenors- a sax contingent that also included Illinois Jacquet and Arnett Cobb from Houston, Fort Worth’s King Curtis, Clifford Scott of San Antonio and David “Fathead” Newman of Dallas- Keys became in-demand by fusing the big-as-Texas tone to guitar-driven rock bands.

“King Curtis was my main man,” Keys said of the Fort R&B sax great whose most famous solo, “Yakety Yak” by the Coasters, mimicked bluegrass fiddle. Keys’ sax lines were often based on guitar, which made him especially attractive to first wave British rock bands, who all grew out of American rhythm and blues.
“Brown Sugar” was in the can, recorded in Muscle Shoals, Ala. during the Stones 1969 tour without a sax solo, when Keys joined a jam on the tune at a birthday party for he and Richards at London’s Olympic Studio on Dec. 18, 1970. “Mick said, ‘well, that sounded good, but I don’t think it’ll make the record,’” Keys recalled. A few days later, however, Keys was overdubbing what would become his most famous solo.

“I only know the first note I’m going to play,” Keys said of his improvised solos, “after that I’m taking my inspiration from the band.”
With his participation ramped up on Exile On Main Street, recorded in the basement of Richards’ rented villa in the south of France, Keys was becoming known as the Sixth Stone. But getting caught up in the lifestyle led to his exit from the band in ’73. Addicted to heroin, he left abruptly for rehab, with Richards footing the bill. “Nobody quits the Rolling Stones,” said Keys, who tried to get back in the band after he kicked junk, but was rebuffed.



He found studio work, however, with his former next-door neighbor John Lennon, in the midst of the ex-Beatle’s famous “Lost Weekend” that lasted from ’73- ’75. Lennon hired Keys for the horn section of ‘74’s “Walls and Bridges,” and when Lennon said the horn charts were almost ready, Keys was mortified. He couldn’t read music and the other horn players, studio top guns, could and Keys feared death by embarrassment. “John took me to the stairwell and, with an acoustic guitar, played me all my parts. He kept going until I had it down, one of the many reasons I loved that man.”

Featuring a Keys sax solo, “Whatever Gets You Through the Night” became Lennon’s first No. 1 single as a solo artist.

At Richards insistence, Keys was eventually let back in the Rolling Stones, though “Mick has never forgiven me,” Keys said. For 1989’s “Steel Wheels,” which would take millions of corporate sponsorship dollars to redefine the mega rock tour, Jagger hired a sax player to duplicate Keys’ famous parts.

“Keith told me to show up for the first show (at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island) and I thought he’d smoothed it all out,” said Keys. When the sax player knocked on the backstage door Jagger answered it with a stunned look. “What are you doing here?” he asked, then spun around and walked away. Keys jumped onstage to play “Brown Sugar” that night and stayed on the tour and every one since.
The Stones had occasionally gone to sax virtuosos like Sonny Rollins, but the more primitive Keys is the one that makes them sound most like the Rolling Stones. When he blows into that big sax, Lubbock comes out. You hear Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison and King Curtis and a kid from Slaton falling in love with rock n’ roll.

Eventually, Richards got Keys officially back in the Stones’ touring band, though he was originally relegated to two songs each night: “Honky Tonk Woman” and “Brown Sugar.” During the ’81 tour, he met a fellow Lubbockite, Joe Ely, whose band opened a show in Tempe, AZ. During the next eight years, while the Stones broke from touring, Keys played with Ely’s band. “With the Stones, I never


Keys with the Joe Ely Band circa 1989. Photo by Cindy Light.


touched my bags,” Keys said. “Someone packed for me and put my bags on the private jet. So it was a bit of a difference to travel in a van with seven guys. But playing with Joe rekindled the spark of why I wanted to play music in the first place.”

In Ely’s band, Keys carried his belongings in a bowling bag case. “He always kept the title to his car in the bag and I asked him why,” said Ely. “He said it was to remind him of the time he parked at the airport to do a Stones session that was supposed to last a week and he ended up gone for two years.” His car was eventually impounded and he needed the title to get it back.

A September reunion with the Ely band at the Cactus Theater brought Keys back to Lubbock, where he talked about being transformed by hearing rock and roll for the first time. Every rock musician has a story like that; Mick and Keith heard their calling in the sounds of Chuck Berry and Slim Harpo. But Keys’s inspiration didn’t come from hearing records. One morning, when he was about eleven years old, he was awakened by the sound of a loud guitar coming through his bedroom window. He ran out of the house and climbed a tree in his front yard to see a band playing on a flatbed truck. It was the grand opening of a gas station a couple blocks away and the man playing the electric guitar was Buddy Holly.
“That did it for me,” said Keys. “Rock and roll was calling and I said ‘Here I am.’”

The house in Slaton where Bobby Keys grew up has been torn down. But the tree’s still there.








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Bobby with Joe CDocker


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Bobby Keys' self-titled debut is a bit of an odd beast. He's got one of the most amazing résumés in rock music as a sideman, so it's no surprise that there's quite a lineup on this album. Appearing are George Harrison, Jack Bruce, Ringo Starr, and possibly Eric Clapton, amongst many other famous players (proper credits would have been nice). Horn charts were by Keys' cohort Jim Price (who also played trumpet and keyboards) and the album was produced by Keys, Jim Gordon, and Andy Johns. It sounds great on paper, but the sound is more like backing tracks in search of a song, and only slightly more than a jam session with nice horn charts. It's not bad, it's just a bit disappointing. The liner notes indicate that the album took almost a year and suggest that Keys was not entirely into it. He only played live on one track ("Altar Rock") and it opens and closes as a bit of a proto-smooth jazz snoozer. Keys was also quick to note that the album was not the beginning of a solo career and kind of knocks his own playing. Of course, some people are better sidemen than bandleaders, but this was also a time of notorious partying (recording began after Keys, Price, and Nicky Hopkins wrapped up the Exile on Main St. tour). That said, the album isn't bad, just a bit on the slight side. The horn charts are great and there are some nice solos, particularly on guitar on what was once side two of the album. If you like the sound of the "Apple Jam" LP from All Things Must Pass (which also featured many of the players here), you'll probably like Bobby Keys.(Review by Sean Westergaard)

Tracklist
01. Steal From A King 4:52
02. Smokefoot 3:51
03. Boot-Leg 3:45
04. Altar Rock 4:53
05. Key West 3:54
06. Command Performance 4:11
07. Crispy Duck 3:09
08. Sand & Foam 5:24

Credits
Jack Bruce - Bass
Charlie Freeman - Guitar
Jim Gordon - Drums
George Harrison - Guitar
Nicky Hopkins - Keyboards
Bobby Keys - Saxophone
Corky Laing - Drums
Dave Mason - Guitar
Felix Pappalardi - Bass
Jim Price - Horn, Keyboards
Carl Radle - Bass
Ringo Starr - Drums
John Uribe - Guitar
Mike Utley - Keyboards
Klaus Voormann - Bass
Leslie West - Guitar

AUDIO: [www.youtube.com]


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Born December 18, 1943 Slaton, Texas, U.S. (1943-12-18)

Instruments Tenor saxophone, alto saxophone, baritone saxophone

Associated acts The Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Delaney & Bonnie, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Warren Zevon, Joe Cocker, Joe Ely, Sheryl Crow, John Lennon, Leon Russell, Plastic Ono Band, Harry Nilsson, Paul McCartney

Died December 2, 2014, Franklin, Tennessee, United States

Albums John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, Some Time in New York City, Shaved Fish, Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, Live Peace in Toronto 1969







Robert Henry "Bobby" Keys (December 18, 1943 – December 2, 2014) was an American saxophonist who performed with other musicians as a member of several horn sections of the 1970s. He appears on albums by the Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Harry Nilsson, Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Joe Cocker and other prominent musicians. Keys played on hundreds of recordings and was a touring musician from 1956 until his death in 2014.





Keys was born at Lubbock Army Airfield near Slaton, Texas, where his father, Bill Keys, was in the U.S. Army Air Corps. His mother, Lucy Keys, was 16 when she gave birth to Robert Henry (Bobby), her first child. By 1946, Bill Keys got a job for the Santa Fe Railroad in Belen, New Mexico. The family moved to Belen, New Mexico, but young Robert stayed with his grandparents in Slaton, Texas, an arrangement he was quite happy with. Bill and Lucy would have three more children, Gary and twins Debbie and Daryl. Lucy Keys went on to become a state senator in New Mexico.

Bobby Keys started touring at age fifteen with Bobby Vee and fellow Texan Buddy Holly.





Keys met the Rolling Stones at the San Antonio Teen Fair in 1964. He is known for his impressive resume as a musician (his contributions include the saxophone solo on the 1971 hit "Brown Sugar") and his friendship with Keith Richards. Keys and Richards share the exact same date of birth. There is a film of him and Richards throwing a television set from the 10th floor of a hotel during the 1972 American Tour, as seen in the Stones' unreleased 1972 concert movie @#$%& Blues. Both Bobby Keys and Mick Taylor made their debuts with The Rolling Stones on the Let It Bleed track "Live With Me".

Keys and Mick Jagger became close in the early 1970s, with Keys serving as best man at Jagger's wedding. Together with Jim Price on trumpet, Keys toured with the Stones in 1970, 1971 and 1972. He formed the horn section on the first half of the 1973 European Tour, with trumpet player Steve Madaio and Trevor Lawrence (sax), before he got thrown out. According to legend, Keys filled a bathtub with Dom Perignon champagne and drank most of it. Allegedly this caused a falling out with Jagger, and Keys only guested on some shows of the 1975 and 1978 American tours, missing the 1976 European tour completely. He performed only four tracks on the 1981 tour, on which Ernie Watts was the main sax player. Keys was reinstated as main sax player for the Stones on the 1982 European Tour, together with Gene Barge. Keys toured with the Stones on all subsequent tours up to his death. In late 1969 Keys toured with Delaney and Bonnie and Friends with Eric Clapton and George Harrison.


The year 1970 was an extraordinary series of notable performances. Keys started the year working on Eric Clapton's first solo LP. With Leon Russell he supported Joe Cocker on the Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour. The live album Mad Dogs & Englishmen was released in 1970, followed by a concert movie in 1971. After work on George Harrison's All Things Must Pass and more Sticky Fingers tracks, he joined the Rolling Stones for a European tour.




The 1971 concert movie Mad Dogs & Englishmen, is the filmed record of the 48 cities American tour undertaken in 1970 by the young British blues and soul singer Joe Cocker and the largely American entourage (band, choir, friends, wives, children, groupies and a single dog named Canina) that accompanied him. The entire group numbered almost 40 people. Keys is heard on John Lennon's first American solo number 1 single hit (and the only United States number 1 in Lennon's lifetime) "Whatever Gets You thru the Night".

Keys' most famous contribution to rock history may be his roaring, lasciviously melodic solo on "Brown Sugar", from Sticky Fingers. He was also prominently featured on “Can't You Hear Me Knocking”, “Happy”, and other Stones songs. From 1973-75, Keys participated in Lennon's Lost Weekend in Los Angeles along with Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson and Keith Moon. Keys had played with Lennon in the Plastic Ono Band and, while in Los Angeles, he played on Lennon's albums Walls and Bridges and Rock 'n' Roll. Additionally, he took part in the last known recording session between Paul McCartney and Lennon; A Toot and a Snore in '74.

In 1989, Keys became the musical director for Ronnie Wood's new Miami club, Woody's On the Beach. The first week the club opened Keys booked Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino and the Crickets. In the early 90s Keys was a resident of Miami and had a band with former Stones guitarist Mick Taylor, Stones pianist Nicky Hopkins, Ivan Neville, Calvin "Fuzzy" Samuels and others called Tumbling Dice. Although better known as a session musician, Keys released two albums of his own in the 1970s: a self-titled instrumental album on Warner Bros. Records that featured Ringo Starr, George Harrison and Eric Clapton in 1972; and Gimme the Key on Ringo Starr's record label Ring O'Records in 1975.

Keys appeared on December 16, 2011, with the Athens, Georgia-band Bloodkin in their "Exile on Lumpkin Street" show at the Georgia Theater, which re-opened in August 2011 in its remodeled and enlarged space after the building had been gutted by fire in June 2009. Besides performing some of their own music, Bloodkin rocked out with Keys on numerous hits from three of the biggest Stones' albums on which Keys had performed, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main St.

In 2013 he played with the Rolling Stones at their Glastonbury Festival debut, headlining on Saturday, June 29. Keys played on their 14 On Fire tour with Roskilde Festival in Denmark being his last ever gig for the Stones.



Personal life

Bobby Keys is survived by his wife of 30 years, Holly, three sons, Jesse, Randy, and Huck, one daughter Amber, and three grandchildren, Jordyn, Ashlyn, and Chauncy.

Keys died as a result of cirrhosis at his home in Franklin, Tennessee, on December 2, 2014.


Bobby Keys & The Suffering Bastards

The Suffering Bastards is comprised of an all-star cast of renowned Nashville musicians including Dan Baird (Georgia Satellites), Steve Gorman (The Black Crowes), Robert Kearns (Lynyrd Skynyrd), Michael Webb (John Fogerty, Poco), and Chark Kinsolving (Mike Farris, Spoonful). Together, this versatile band of musicians is able to effortlessly recreate spot-on renditions of hits from Keys' storied career, as well as new compositions for an upcoming album.

From humble roots as an uncredited performer with Buddy Holly and Dion ("The Wanderer") to album-defining contributions with the Rolling Stones to his work
with each of the four Beatles and Elvis, his illustrious career has led him from studio to stage all across the globe. Collaborating with a list of musical legends you seldom see listed together outside of the Rock and Roll hall of Fame, Bobby Keys has won over the hearts and minds of both rock royalty and discerning music fans alike.

VIDEO: [www.youtube.com]
BOBBY KEYS + THE SUFFERING BASTARDS
(Great Video Clips)

Selected discography

An eponymous solo album was released by Warner Bros. in 1972. He also appears on:

The Rolling Stones: Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Let It Rock EP (UK), Exile on Main St., Goats Head Soup, Emotional Rescue, Flashpoint, Stripped, No Security, Shine a Light, Live Licks, Sweet Summer Sun
Joe Cocker: Mad Dogs & Englishmen
George Harrison: All Things Must Pass
John Lennon: Some Time in New York City, Walls and Bridges, Rock 'n' Roll
Keith Richards: Talk Is Cheap, Live at the Hollywood Palladium
Ringo Starr: Ringo, Goodnight Vienna
Ronnie Wood: 1234, Gimme Some Neck, Mahoney's Last Stand
B.B. King: B.B. King in London
Barbra Streisand: Barbra Joan Streisand
Carly Simon: No Secrets, Hotcakes
Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll
Delaney, Bonnie & Friends: The Original Delaney & Bonnie: Accept No Substitute, On Tour with Eric Clapton
Donovan: Cosmic Wheels
Dr. John: The Sun, Moon & Herbs
Eric Clapton: Eric Clapton
Faces: Long Player
Harry Nilsson: Nilsson Schmilsson, Son of Schmilsson, Pussy Cats, Duit on Mon Dei
Warren Zevon: Warren Zevon
Humble Pie: Rock On
Joe Ely: Lord of the Highway
John Hiatt: Beneath This Gruff Exterior
Kate and Anna McGarrigle: Kate and Anna McGarrigle
Keith Moon: Two Sides of the Moon
Leo Sayer: Endless Flight
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Second Helping
John Lennon and Paul McCartney: A Toot and a Snore in '74
John Lennon: Whatever Gets You thru the Night
Marvin Gaye: Let's Get It On (deluxe edition)
Sheryl Crow: The Globe Sessions
Yoko Ono: Fly
Jim Carroll: Catholic Boy
Graham Nash: Songs for Beginners



Songs

Imagine
Happy Xmas
Working Class Hero
Give Peace a Chance
Oh My Love
Power to the People
Mother
Love
How Do You Sleep
Woman Is the Nigger of the World
Oh Yoko!
Gimme Some Truth
AOS
Remember
Crippled Inside
Out the Blue
God
Isolation
I Know
Yer Blues
I Found Out
Look at Me
Cold Turkey
Well Well Well
Hold On
Intuition
My Mummy's Dead
Aisumasen
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Bring On the Lucie
The Luck of the Irish
Scared




Bobby Keys and friends in San Juan Capistrano after playing with Levon Helm's Barnburners 2000


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_________________________

Much more on Bobby Keys:
[www.adioslounge.com]

__________________________

More photos of Bobby Keyes:
[www.gettyimages.com]












VIDEO: [www.youtube.com]
Bobby Meets the Stones






Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2016-09-28 18:46 by exilestones.

Leo Sayer and Bobby Keys


My friends would kid me, "I thought you like Rock and Roll - THE STONES! Leo Sayer, he's all roll."

We went to see Leo Sayer in 1977. Appeared on stage was Bobby Keys and Nicky Hopkins! I was blown away. Nicky was beyond AWESOME and BOBBY!!!!

I was ecstatic! My friends didn't know why I was so happy. This concert rocked!

Leo is a great performer.


++++++++



Leo was now on top of the world in 1976 and the ricochet of his U.S. success echoed around the globe. Endless Flight was critically well received everywhere, and though some felt Leo had lost some of his uniqueness in the process, none could deny the instant pop appeal of the album.

The peak of his career came in 1977, when he scored two consecutive US number one hits, first with the disco-styled "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" (a Grammy Award winner for the year's best Rhythm and Blues Song), followed by the romantic ballad, "When I Need You" (1977) with Bobby Keys on sax, which reached number one in both the UK and US. Willie Weeks provided the bass to "When I Need You" with Jeff Porcaro on drums, David Bowie's guitarist Earl Slick on guitar, and Michael Omartian and James Newton Howard on keys (Omartian and Larry Carlton both show up on Albert Hammond recordings as well).

Q You take another turn with "When I Need You," written by Albert Hammond and Carole Bayer Sager.

Leo Sayer: I’d get boxes of records given to me. There was a lovely lady, Carol Pincus, at Motown’s publishing company Jobete. She turned up with a box of songs and in there was a ballad. She’d listened to me singing and she thought this might be suitable. She was damned right.

We couldn’t afford to bring my ex-wife Janice over with me so I would speak to her on the trans-Atlantic phone every other night and tell her I loved her but the lines were so shit in those days. This song comes along and all the words are what I want to say to Janice. I wrote down the lyrics and phoned her. I said all these words and she cried. It was all so emotional. She said, “That’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever said to me.” I said, “Well it comes from a song.” She said, “You have to record this song.”

We put it on the album. There was no sax solo on there but I was touring at the time and Bobby Keys was in the band. We played it every night on stage. Richard came up to see us in San Francisco. He got blown away by Bobby’s solo and he said, “I’ve gotta put that on the record.”

They cut Bobby onto the record and then released the single. It was the second big hit after You Make Me Feel Like Dancing. Some people thought it was a peculiar choice because it was a completely different song but I didn’t mind. It showed how I could sing ballads as well.

The liner notes said it came from the album Bobby Vee Meets the Crickets. When Buddy Holly died the Crickets were left on Coral Records. So Sonny Curtis and Jerry Allison, who were writing songs at the time, were put together with another Coral artist called Bobby Vee and they made an album. The record company thought it was a fine way to get them out of a jam.

The thing becomes a big hit. There we are 20 years later picking up this song. We recorded it in about three or four hours. We played the album for the record company and we said, we’ve got one extra track, we should play it for you, we don’t know what to do with it. And they all turned around and said, “That’s your hit.” And bang – that was the first single.

Later on I go to America and it became a country hit in the States. It topped the country charts at the time, which was pretty unique for me. So I walk into a Nashville station and some guy says [in Southern accent], “Here’s Leon Sayers, country star!”

Leo now had an all star band on the road, featuring Nicky Hopkins on keyboards and Bobby Keys on saxophone, Reggie McBride on bass and Steve Madaio on trumpet (both from the Stevie Wonder band), and Don Preston (from The Mothers Of Invention).





"3 December 2014: Leo Sayer has paid tribute to his friend Bobby Keys who passed away at age 70. Keys, the sax player for the Rolling Stones, also played on Leo's global hit ‘When I Need You’. In a statement Leo remembered his friend saying, "R.I.P. Bobby Keys. Bobby played the solo on "When I Need You", 20 secs of tenor sax that no other player has ever been able to emulate. We toured together in the mid 70's, and Bobby was always fun to work with, a great musician everybody now knows as the sax man with the Rolling Stones. I’m so proud to have known you ‘Texas’!"


When I Need You

1980 with Bobby in video VIDEO: [www.youtube.com]
Bobby solo 2:11

1977 Official Promo VIDEO: [www.youtube.com]
Bobby solo 2:35

I love the way Bobby play a mellow solo and builds the song in to the change, playing a very important part. More sax at the end.


Big Leo Sayer hit (no Bobby) "Long Tall Glasses (You Know I Can't Dance).

VIDEO [www.youtube.com]


+++++


Leo/Jagger

Leo Sayer: It’s all about the ripoff. A very crooked manager came along and told Warners in America that I was retired, I wasn’t going to be making music any longer and they could buy my entire catalog. So with a couple of forged signatures and some crafty lawyers he managed to sell me off to Warners.

He set up an office with a very, very pretty girl. And of course the pretty girl was working for him. I thought she was working for me. And they were just thieves! They set me up well and truly. Unfortunately he was very clever and I must say – I’m not going to give you his name because that would get too detailed – he ripped off the Rolling Stones before he ripped off me. I did get a call from Mick Jagger saying, “I’m sorry, Leo.”

But I told him where to get off [laughs]. “Thanks for helping! You’re no mate!”

- See more at: [www.rockcellarmagazine.com]

+++++


Bobby and Nicky mentioned:

exilestones

Leo Sayer and Bobby Keys

Thanks for posting exilestones...never knew this.............

__________________________

The Richard Elman piece - wow. Thanks for all these treasures Exilestones. Amazing.

Quote
NICOS
exilestones

Leo Sayer and Bobby Keys

Thanks for posting exilestones...never knew this.............

I never knew there was a video of Bobby and Leo playing together. Beautiful sax solo. It's cool how they played the song on tour before they recorded it in the studio.

Quote
Redhotcarpet
The Richard Elman piece - wow. Thanks for all these treasures Exilestones. Amazing.

Your welcome.

It's cool to see these articles again after many years.

I'm making every Stones digital. Thought I'd share as I go.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016-10-02 20:16 by exilestones.

Mick Jagger with the Rolling Stones onstage at the El Mocambo on March 5, 1977. (KEN REGAN / TORONTO STAR ARCHIVE)


The hidden history of how the Rolling Stones pulled off their legendary secret El Mocambo show
by Dave Bidini


In 1977 in Toronto they recorded a live album at the El Mocambo. They could have bolted the doors, drawn the curtains and mixed in the wild cries later. They could have played it, faked it, then left before anyone knew. But instead, they kept the event secret until right before it happened: the biggest rock and roll band on the planet playing a small club and recording a live album; shows unannounced, yet filled with fans who deserved to be there.

Mick Jagger and his manager, Peter Rudge, did some scouting, looking at this club here, that club there. Then, one afternoon in fall, 1976, they settled at a table in the Windsor Arms. Duff Roman happened to be there, too.

“I saw Mick and Peter Rudge walk in,” remembers Roman, the visionary behind CHUM FM, Canada’s first AOR (album-oriented rock) station. (Roman also has the distinction of producing the first ever sessions by Levon and the Hawks, who soon became The Band.) “I tried to play it cool, and wrote a message on my CHUM FM business card that said, ‘I’m here if you need anything.’ I called the waiter over and had him take it to Mick and Peter’s table. Rudge looked at it first and then Mick wanted to see. After awhile, they looked over and I nodded, smiled and pointed. Then they left. It was months before I heard from them again.”

Rudge called CHUM FM and told Roman what he was thinking: a secret, two-night engagement at the El Mocambo filled with diehard fans who would have to be directed there via ruse so that the club not become overrun by thousands.



“He asked me, ‘Do you think you can pull it off?’ ” remembers Roman. “I told him that we could and then started thinking about how we could actually do it without anyone knowing.” The Stones hadn’t performed in six months — the notorious, ragged, bloated spectacle of their 1975 tour (as well as some shows in ’76) had been finally been ashed — and the pop music world debated the band’s next move. Altamont, “@#$%& Blues” and riots in Vancouver had rolled under them, and Keith Richards, the band’s main guitarist, had been dogged by rumours of near-fatal drug abuse.

Dave “Blue” Bluestein was the El Mo’s booker. He staged a plan to book April Wine for March 4-5, 1977, as a smokescreen. “We had natural cover,” he says, “because if anything got out, we could say, ‘No, look, April Wine is playing. That’s the gig. It says so right here,’ ” he says, pointing to an imaginary calendar. “Another band was added to the April Wine shows called ‘The Cockroaches,’ which was The Stones’ alias. On the day of the first show, the band rehearsed upstairs and soundchecked for the live recording.”

People who passed by on Spadina Avenue outside thought they were hearing a Stones cover band rehearsing their repertoire. It was preposterous to think it would be the actual band, in Toronto, playing in the middle of the day.




“The plan that we constructed,” says Roman, “was to have a contest: ‘What would you do to see the Rolling Stones play live?’ This way we could select the 300 top entries and guarantee that real fans would be there for the event. The prize would be a chance to see April Wine at the El Mocambo. People wrote in and we cherry-picked the best ones. As you might expect, there were lots of nude Polaroids. When the band came in to judge the winners, they slipped the photos into their pockets and took them home.”

After the winners were selected, CHUM FM hired a dozen TTC buses and instructed fans to meet at the radio station on Yonge Street, where they’d be shipped to the show. “I got on the mic on one of the buses and said, ‘I have some bad news. There’s a change to the show tonight.’ People were disappointed and started to boo. I continued: ‘Along with April Wine, you’ll also be seeing a band called the Rolling … yes, the Rolling … the Rolling Stones!’ For a moment, people sat in utter bewilderment. Then there was a lot of cheering and shouting when they realized where they’d be going.”

The Stones had been in town for most of the week staying at the Harbour Castle Hilton, a residency not without its own drama or complications. In his superb new e-book about the event, Before They Make Me Run, music writer Jason Schneider tells how Keith Richards was busted for 26 grams of heroin in his hotel room. Schneider says: “In his statement, Keith disclosed he had been a heavy heroin user for four years and that he purchased the large quantity to maintain his habit for the five to six weeks he expected to be in Toronto. He also stated he’d tried to kick his habit several times, but could never complete treatment programs due to the Stones’ touring commitments. He concluded by claiming [girlfriend Anita] Pallenberg had no knowledge of his heroin stash, saying: ‘This is supposed to be daddy’s little secret.’ ”

Duff Roman remembers how “at about 7:30 p.m., all of the buses rolled down Avenue Street, came across College and, somehow, navigated behind the El Mo, in the alleyway, so no one would notice, and we could just spirit the fans in through the back door without creating a commotion or scene of any kind.” (The hulking Fedco mobile recording truck, operated by producer Eddie Kramer, was also parked there and that it was unreported is another organizational dint of luck.) “It was remarkable that it was all kept under wraps. No one knew about the show until after it ended, and fans started calling their friends.”

Blue had been told to keep the whole first floor of the club as the band’s dressing room. “When people say, ‘Margaret Trudeau was in the dressing room’ — which she was — you get the wrong impression, because there were a hundred other people there, too. It was a zoo,” he says.

Perhaps Blue understates the impact Trudeau’s appearance had on international tabloids: the Prime Minister’s estranged wife partying with the most notorious of rock bands. When Pierre Trudeau was told about Maggie’s adventures, and how she’d emerged from the limo prior to the show alongside Mick Jagger, the PM sighed, “I hope that she doesn’t [also] start to see the Beatles.”

Roman and Blue remember that the shows were great, the band tight and the crowded excited, if respectful in the most Canadian way possible. But the legacy of the evening, and the next night, was how the city’s tastemakers, radio promo types, deejays, groupies, drug dealers, writers and fans who went to the show resisted telling others until the event had played itself out, a nearly unfathomable notion against our modern social media times, where first-mention and being on the inside is everything.

“There’s no way we could have pulled this off now,” says Roman. “But back then, there was almost a shared sense of being together, witnessing what people were witnessing — a concert by a stadium band to 300 people in a club — without having to share it, or tell others. History was happening, but that it was happening was enough. It didn’t have to be all immediately announced. It could just be lived and experienced, and, look, it’s an unbelievable thing that happened. In our city. In our time.”






Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2016-10-02 20:19 by exilestones.

Rolling Stones top El Mocambo's vast musical lineage





TORONTO - It’s been a musical venue since the 1800s. But the flashpoint of the El Mocambo’s existence came in March 1977, when the Rolling Stones played a surprise gig as the ostensible opening act for Canadian band April Wine.

It wasn’t so much the surprise show but the events surrounding it that made it legendary. There was Margaret Trudeau’s supposed rendezvous with Mick Jagger. And there was Keith Richards’s subsequent heroin bust by the RCMP.

Before the band left town, Jagger was contemplating life without his songwriting partner, and openly considering replacing him.

“Obviously we wouldn’t if Keith were only in jail for a month or two,” Jagger told Rolling Stone magazine at the time. “But if he were in jail for a long period of time, I suppose we’d have to.

“We can’t wait five years. In five years, we won’t be touring at all — not much, anyway, just a few lounges.”

photos by Paul Natkin 1988 LA

Quote
exilestones
Rolling Stones top El Mocambo's vast musical lineage





TORONTO - It’s been a musical venue since the 1800s. But the flashpoint of the El Mocambo’s existence came in March 1977, when the Rolling Stones played a surprise gig as the ostensible opening act for Canadian band April Wine.

It wasn’t so much the surprise show but the events surrounding it that made it legendary. There was Margaret Trudeau’s supposed rendezvous with Mick Jagger. And there was Keith Richards’s subsequent heroin bust by the RCMP.

Before the band left town, Jagger was contemplating life without his songwriting partner, and openly considering replacing him.

“Obviously we wouldn’t if Keith were only in jail for a month or two,” Jagger told Rolling Stone magazine at the time. “But if he were in jail for a long period of time, I suppose we’d have to.

“We can’t wait five years. In five years, we won’t be touring at all — not much, anyway, just a few lounges.”

Mrs. Roller was at this show.

Rolling Stone - September 1995

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016-10-05 18:12 by exilestones.