Although
legend has it that Keith Richards and Mick Jagger hooked up on a station
platform in Dartford, the Rolling Stones as we know them were born above a pub
in Soho.
The Bricklayers Arms in Edward Street (since renamed Broadwick Street) was where Brian Jones held auditions to form a rhythm and blues group in 1962. Some of the hopefuls replied to his ad in Jazz News, while others - including Mick and Keith - came from Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated sessions at the Marquee in Oxford Street.
The Rollin’ Stones played their first gig at the
Marquee in July ’62, and rehearsed different line-ups until Brian, Mick and
Keith were joined by Bill Wyman on bass and Ian Stewart on piano. Drummer Charlie
Watts climbed aboard last in January 1963. Another regular gig for the Stones
in this period was at Studio 51 in Great Newport Street, where Ken Colyer ran
his jazz nights.
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De Hems. |
Meanwhile,
down the road apiece, journalists from the music papers in Denmark Street and
Shaftesbury Avenue did their quaffing in De Hems bar in Macclesfield Street. It
was here, in April ’63, that New Record Mirror editor Peter Jones tipped off
pop publicist Andrew Loog Oldham about a certain group playing sensational
R&B at the Crawdaddy club in Richmond. Over a vodka & tonic, the suave
Mr Jones told Oldham that his paper was running a big piece on the Rollin’
Stones in the forthcoming issue, predicting they will “soon be the leading
performers of R&B in the country” – incredible for a group that didn’t yet have
a record out.
Those heady
early days are captured in the photographs of Terry O’Neill and Gered Mankowitz
in the book Breaking Stones, 1963-1965, A Band on the Brink of Superstardom.
O’Neill, who was then Fleet Street’s youngest photographer, walked the
Rolling Stones around Soho carrying their brand new bags. They look every inch
the travelling troubadours on their way to a recording session in Regent Sound
studio (where the group cut their debut album and 1964 single Not Fade Away).
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Breaking Stones, 1963-1965, A Band on the Brink of Superstardom. |
The black-coated Stones lined up in front of Tin Pan Alley’s red and yellow
Members’ Club is a quintessential snapshot of Soho in the early 60s, with the
band already exuding locked-out cool.
O’Neill’s half of the book is a
reportage-style account showing the life of a typical pop group – where the
boys had to thank their lucky stars for plates of egg and chips in the BBC
canteen, and the makeshift dressing rooms where Keith ran his shaver from a
light fitting, while Mick wears a hair net with a fag on the go. The fateful
New Record Mirror article, written by Norman Jopling and titled Genuine
R&B, is also reprinted inside.
The second
half of Breaking Stones features the work of Gered Mankowitz, the son of writer
Wolf Mankowitz (author of Expresso Bongo, based on the 2i’s coffee bar scene in
Old Compton Street). Gered’s portraits have a strong sense of creative
direction and image building – from the band looking through a cage in Ormond
Yard (they were dubbed ‘animals’ by the Daily Mirror) to the cover of 1965
album Out Of Our Heads. By the closing frames of the book, when Gered joins the
band on their ’65 US tour, the Rolling Stones can no longer walk the streets
unmolested.
Their view of the world is from the back of limousines, with cops struggling to control thousands of screaming teenagers causing pandemonium everywhere they go. One heart-stopping moment shows Keith out cold on stage, electrocuted by a microphone stand. We see the band taking control of their own destiny as Mick and Keith become songwriters. The irony is that, by writing their own hits, the Beatles and the Stones started a trend that took the shine off Tin Pan Alley’s song merchants and hastened the end of an era. But, when midnight comes around, the streets of Soho will always echo with the sound of pointy-booted footsteps. Claudia Elliott.
Website: https://claudiaelliott.contently.com/
Twitter: @Claudia_Elliott
Blogger for BBC Radio 2 Sounds Of The 60s http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006wqlv