ok let's start with there time in new york and los angeles just before the tour began
While critics were constantly analysing our appearance, we looked ahead to the US trip. Brian said: ‘It’s people I want to see, not so much the places. I want to meet up with people who have the same ideas on music as we do. I like Bo Diddley and the great Muddy Waters. Muddy’s said some really great things about us and has been an idol of ours for a long time. The Ronettes too, lovely girls. At this stage, we don’t want to say too much about what we hope for in the Stones. I don’t believe in anything good until it happens. Don’t forget, we had a lot of disappointment in the early days and it’s made me rather cautious. Obviously, we hope we’re a success.’
Mick: ‘I’d like to go to the deep south and see some of the blues singers there, but we won’t be able to on this trip. On a tour like this, you don’t get time. I’ll chase up some musicians I’ve heard about and whose records I collect. To see and hear them work in person will be a big thing for me.’bill wyman - stone alonejune 1 at london airport before leaving for the us
On 1 July 1964 I went by car to London airport, accompanied that far by Diane and Stephen, en route to America on the Stones’ first USA tour. Eric reckoned it would earn us over $100,000. We arrived first, and there were about a hundred screaming girls charging about everywhere. Stephen looked a little alarmed when he saw this. The police did their best to guard and protect us as girls swarmed around. The plan had been to drive us around the back as we arrived, but we got there separately and all of us except Brian were spotted by the fans. Screaming girls surrounded Mick and a policeman tried to guard him. Keith was pulled away from his police guard by girls; finally they got us into a private lounge where we could relax. Mick and I sat on the floor and played toy cars with Stephen. We eventually said our goodbyes and flew BOAC flight 505 (Mick and Keith wrote a song two years later unknowingly using this title) direct to New York. Brian, Charlie and I sat together, and Brian and I spent a lot of time in the cockpit. As we landed in New York Brian, asked what he thought of his first glimpse of the city, replied: ‘It looks like a bigger version of Balham.’ Arriving at 3.30, we were shocked to find the temperature in the high 80s and 500 screaming fans waiting. What they lacked in numbers they more than made up for in noise, which drowned the jet engines! I was amazed, having thought we were practically unknown in the US, with no hit record.* Fifty policemen tried to hold the screamers back, but they broke through and two fans presented us with carnations from their gardens. One of the boys said: ‘The natives appear to be friendly. We don’t need the beads and trinkets after all.’bill wyman - stone alonebeing greeted by fans at jfk after arriving in the us for the first time

Teenage Crowd at Airport To Greet the Rolling StonesAnother British singing group, this one a rock ‘n’ roll quintet called the Rolling Stones, arrived in New York by plane yesterday from London for a threeweek singing tour of the United States and Canada.
The young men with shoulder?length haircuts, were greeted at Kennedy International Airport by about 500 teen?age girls. About 50 Port Authority and New York policemen were on hand to maintain order.
Most of the teenagers had been informed by the arrival of the singers by announcements made over the radio by disk jockeys.
Those arriving were Mick Jagger, lead vocalist and harmonica player; Brian Jones, vocalist and harmonica and guitar player; Keith Richards, vocalist and guitar player; Bill Wyman, guitarist, and Charlie Watts, drummer.from the nyt june 2, 1964We were a long time getting through immigration, where we had a health check - something that no other English group had been subjected to. There was also a protracted search for some of our luggage, which seemed to be missing. When it was found we proceeded through customs. Airport workers and passengers obviously couldn’t believe their eyes, and there were many cries of ‘Get your hair cut’; ‘Where are the razors?’ and ‘Are you the Beatles?’ In a large lounge we held our first American conference, presided over by disc jockey Murray the K; the audience included two English sheepdogs, many high-school-girl magazine editors and fan-clubs presidents. We were presented with bouquets of flowers and presents, and Charlie was given a cake with twenty-two candles for his birthday the following day (although it was in fact his twenty-third birthday).bill wyman - stone alonejune 2 exploring ny

The first time the Stones went to America, we felt we'd died and gone to heaven. It was the summer of '64. Everybody had their own little thing about America. Charlie would go down to the Metropole when it was still swinging, and see Eddie Condon. The first thing I did was visit Colony Records and buy every Lenny Bruce album I could find. Yet I was amazed by how old-fashioned and European New York seemed--quite different to what I'd imagined. Bellboys and maitre d's, all that sort of thing. Unnecessary fluff and very unexpected. It was as if somebody had said, "These are the rules" in 1920 and it hadn't changed a bit since. On the other hand, it was the fastest-moving modern place you could be.keith richards - lifeA little later, we gave a press conference in the hotel, then radio interviews and photo sessions. Brian fooled around, taking photos of the photographers. We tolerated a lot of silly questions again, then fought our way through fans, jumped into cars and were driven to do a radio show hosted by Murray the K. We were on the air live for three hours, talking, joking, asking each other for fags (which freaked everyone out) and reading commercials.
After the show Murray played us a single by the Valentinos (Bobby Womack) called ‘It’s All Over Now’, and suggested that we cover it for our next single. We liked it, later recorded it, and it became our first Number One single.bill wyman - stone aloneAndrew and I walked into the Brill Building, the Tin Pan Alley of US song, to try and see the great Jerry Leiber, but Jerry Leiber wouldn't see us. Someone recognized us and took us in and played us all these songs, and we walked out with "Down Home Girl," by Leiber and Butler, a great funk song that we recorded in November 1964. Looking for the Decca offices in New York on one of our adventures, we ended up in a motel on 26th and 10th with a drunken Irishman called Walt McGuire, a crew cut guy who looked as if he'd just gotten out of the American navy. This was the head of the US Decca office. And we suddenly realized the great Decca record company was actually some warehouse in New York. It was a card trick. "Oh yes, we have big offices in New York." And it was down on the docks on the West Side Highway.keith richards - lifeholding a press conference at the hotel astor

dancing at the peppermint lounge


After the show Murray the K took us to a New York club called the Peppermint Lounge (where Joey Dee and the Starlighters had made their name around 1961 with ‘The Peppermint Twist’). We had drinks and watched a very good trio called the Younger Brothers, who did great musical impersonations. They joined us after their set and we chatted for a while. We finally left there, feeling jet-lagged and tired, and returned to our hotel for the night, getting to bed at 1.30.bill wyman - stone alonejune 3 appearing on hollywood palace with dean martin and there first vist to california and los angeles
rehearsals

But earlier we'd had the experience of Dean Martin introducing us at the taping of the Hollywood Palace TV show. In America then, if you had long hair, you were a faggot as well as a freak. They would shout across the street, "Hey, fairies!" Dean Martin introduced as something like "these long-haired wonders from England, the Rolling Stones.... They're backstage picking the fleas off each other." A lot of sarcasm and eyeball rolling. Then he said, "Don't leave me alone with this," gesturing with horror in our direction. This was Dino, the rebel Rat Packer who cocked his finger at the entertainment world by pretending to be drunk all the time. We were, in fact, quite stunned. English comperes and showbiz types may have been hostile, but they didn't treat you like some dumb circus act. Before we'd gone on, he'd had the bouffanted King Sisters and performing elephants, standing on their hind legs. I love old Dino. He was a pretty funny bloke, even though he wasn't ready for the changing of the guard.keith richards - lifeOn Day Three, rising early, we did our packing and checked out ofthe hotel. Keith discovered he’d lost his passport, which became a problem later. We got through some fans and were taken by limousines to Kennedy Airport for the five-hour flight to Los Angeles. On arrival we again found fans waiting to give us a great welcome. Limousines took us to the Beverly Hilton Hotel where we checked into our four double rooms and settled in. This was the high-life! In the afternoon we went to the TV studios for rehearsals for the important Hollywood Palace Show, with Dean Martin as compere; his kids came over for our autographs. It was odd; we sensed an almost hostile attitude by everyone and we felt we were being treated like a comedy act. In Teenbeat magazine Jackie Kallen wrote: ‘NBC, CBS and Ed Sullivan turned the Stones down. They could appear on the Hollywood Palace Show on condition that they would not perform on another TV show for twenty-one days before or after their appearance. Consequently their appearance on a show headed by an alcoholic who takes pride in mentioning how he can drink and hold his liquor, was anything but helpful for their popular image. Besides terrible treatment at the hands of Dean Martin, who vilified and degraded them in a vindictive manner for some reason, their hit record “Not Fade Away” was cut out completely.’
We performed ‘Not Fade Away’, ‘I Just Want To Make Love To You’ and ‘Tell Me’, playing live. Unluckily, Keith broke a string halfway through ‘Not Fade Away’ and had to play the rest of our set like that. The only act on the show that we’d heard of was the Kaye Sisters. Other acts included performing elephants and a trampolinist. It quickly transpired we’d been set up for ritual slaughter by Dean Martin, who seemed inebriated throughout the show; he persistently insulted us on the air to grab cheap laughs, and between songs and commercial breaks he made such jibes as: ‘Their hair is not long, it’s just smaller foreheads and higher eyebrows, and, ‘Now don’t go away, anybody, you wouldn’t want to leave me with those Rolling Stones, would you?’ Introducing a trampoline artist he said: ‘That’s the father of the Rolling Stones; he’s been trying to kill himself ever since.’*
Before the show the producer had given us money to ‘go out and buy uniforms’. We said: ‘We don’t wear uniforms.’ The whole atmosphere was just awful. Dean Martin and our tour manager Bob Bonis began arguing, and Keith was about to pop Martin one with his guitar.
Stu said at the time: ‘Unless you’ve been with the Stones, you would never believe the insults they have to face from prejudiced people just because they have long hair and dress unorthodox. Everybody seems to expect the worst.’ Very dejected, we returned to our hotel where we found Joey Paige, the Everly Brothers’ bass-player, waiting to show us some of the local clubs on Sunset Strip. 1 got chatting to a pretty twenty-five-year-old waitress at one of them, and when she got off work she joined me. We got back to the hotel and off to bed late. After the misery of Dean Martin, the night had at least ended well.
Soaking up Hollywood for the first time was a magical experience. Joey Paige and his friend Marshall Lieb (who sang with Phil Spector in the Teddy Bears’ song ‘To Know Him Is To Love Him’) took us to Malibu Beach for a sunny afternoon, and in the evening we went with Andrew to the RCA recording studios and met Jack Nitzsche, Phil Spector’s arranger. Jackie De Shannon and Darlene Love were doing backing vocals on a new record. After dinner and a tour of the clubs On the Strip 1 met my waitress friend again and she returned to the hotel with me for the night.bill wyman - stone aloneEdited 4 time(s). Last edit at 2024-06-15 11:13 by ProfessorWolf.