Present at the Creation

"I got involved in this as an enthusiastic amateur who liked the real black rock and roll — Chuck Berry, R & B, the older jazz (Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins). 1 liked to play a little, and I have always disliked the really insincere, greedy, self-congratulatory side of show business. If my face ever appeared in Cash Box or Billboard I would die." –Ian Stewart, 1975

Ian Stewart began the Rolling Stones with Brian Jones in 1961 and has been with the band ever since. He has played piano on their albums and with them onstage, co-ordinates recording sessions, has the official title of "Road Manager" and refers to himself as "company secretary." It is impossible for anyone who has spent any time around the Stones to imagine the bqnd without "Stu." Throughout the 1975 U.S. Tour of the Americas, 1 pestered him to do this interview, the only one he's ever done. The following remarks were made on two occasions; in Atlanta on July 31, 1975, and in New York, August 13, 1975. (L. Robinson)

LR: How did you originally become involved With the Stones?

Ian: I met Brian in 1961,1 think, and he was very keen to start a sort of purist blues group. He had been playing traditional jazz, he could play Django Reinhardt guitar quite well. In England there's always been a large following for different styles of jazz, and the only style of jazz that had not been well known was the Chess Records type blues. Largely because there was no real outlet for labels like Chess and Vee Jay and Excello in England. So it was a real collector's thing, and Brian worked hard, dug things up, and had gotten all hot on this. He was trying to find musicians that were also keen on it to start a group. I knew a little bit about it because I'd always liked the style, and had one or two really obscure records. and through Alexis Korner—who was a sort of meeting point really — we eventually met up with Mick and Keith. We had another guitar player, but Mick didn't want to do anything unless Keith came as well. They brought Dick Taylor in as bass player, and we used to use odd drum players...

Onstage, '75: Ian never has to worry about his trousers falling down.

LR: Who was the other guitar player? Ian: Jeff Bradford, he's a friend of Ronnie Wood's. I saw him the other day, he plays very well. But he's not a guy who would ever leap about the stage and play rock and roll, he's a real purist. He's one of these guys who always sits down when he plays and concentrates and goes into a real trance. Anyway, there was a sort of line between rhythm and blues as we were playing it and rock and roll, and the actual line was really drawn at Chuck Berry. Basically Jeff Bradford didn't like Chuck Berry because he thought he was too commercial, and Keith loved Chuck Berry. I had almost all of Berry's records, but I had never seen that style played. As soon as Keith

"The Beaties... I think they are nice lads who write pretty songs, hut they're horribly overrated."

started playing "Sweet Little 16" it just had to be. We just started to gig around and play in pubs, and rehearse and play about, not doing anything really. I mean the only serious side was the rehearsal, we didn't do that many gigs. LR: When was this, 1962?

Ian: Well, this would be like 1963 now, I'm talking about a three-year period, from 1961 right through the end of 1963.

LR: What were you doing during the day?

Ian: I was working at an office, for ICI, which is England's answer to DuPont. I

Ian's one rock musician whose mug's youthful glow has not been dimmed by the years: below, early Sixties Glenn Gould impression; at left in the middle of the '75 tour, modeling threads not by Giorgio di S'antangelo.

was the only one with a phone, so I would stay in contact with the people who ran these clubs, and you know, organize things. I was the only one who had a vehicle...

LR: When did Andrew Oldham get involved?

Ian: Well Andrew must have shown his face...it was certainly summertime, I can't remember whether it was 1963 or 1964. Andrew came around when we first started to stir things up in Richmond, and a couple of daily papers came down and printed things. Andrew turned up, and he was a publicist,basically. His whole dream was, you know, the Beatles had taken off by then...

LR: What did you think of them?

Ian: The Beatles. . .1 think they are nice lads who write pretty songs, but they are horribly overrated. In fact most of the Liverpool groups were overrated, they were all musically inept completely. Some of them could sing, but they could never play their instruments.

I mean you could count the number of good musicians who came out of Liverpool on one hand.

LR: The Stones were definitely from London, though...

Ian: Oh yes, Brian was the only one who came from outside London. So Andrew's basic idea was to find his own Beatles, and either at the end of 1963, or the beginning of 1964 or something, the Stones really took off and it was obvious that they were going to have the same kind of following that the Beatles had got. But Andrew thought that they couldn't go on playing Muddy Waters material and maintain it, so he had to alter the repertoire and the approach and everything of the group. He wanted them looking right, he was really more interested in what they looked like, and how they timed things in their music. Andrew was basically, I don't know, you could call him musically barren, really. He knows nothing about music whatsoever, all he can do is take a product and push it. He's an ad man, 1 mean he's a good merchant, almost a bit of Andy Warhol.

LR: Did he present a conflict within the band?

Ian: Well, the thing is that Mick and Keith got along with Andrew personally, and they soon became friendly and the three of them started sharing a flat together. Brian used to think he was the leader of the group, I mean he was a bit strange in a way. He started off potentially being a good musician, but as soon as he had the slightest snip of success or money, he just wanted to be a Rolling Stone and play as little as possible. He still wanted to be the leader of the group, so he would go along with anything Andrew told him to do because there was money involved. And Bill and Charlie, they weren't exactly founding members of the group, they had been brought in fairly early on, but they had been brought in When it was reasonably sure that the Stones were going to be successful. So they were prepared to go along with what Andrew said as well.

LR: How did you feel about it?

Ian: Well I was pushed out, so...

LR: By him? [Andrew]

Brianjuat got himself messed up very quickly: l think Brian was just a very weak and sort of easily led character.

Ian: Well,.there's a lot of things here... First of all there was still the sort of pop star image. Where you had a clear stage and five guys in the band, and these were the five Rolling Stones, and anybody else would've gotten knifed,

I imagine, if they had tried to play with them.

LR: Was there a. time when you were bitter about this?

Ian: I don't know, I mean I guess if you're going to be really practical about this, then Andrew was probably the best thing that ever happened to that group. Andrew Oldham or not, you have to own up to the fact th'at at the time, Andrew handled the group perfectly. Now of course, what I see is that even though Brian and myself started this group, there probably would've been a Rolling Stones in some form with Mick and Keith, because that pair — with other musicians — were going to make it anyway. So I don't feel that apart from losing a lot of sleep and buying hamburgers, when they were broke...I mean I really haven't gone and done all that much. I mean they had to go through a hell of a lot just being the Rolling Stones. Like in the screaming era, I wouldn't have been them for all the tea in China.

LR: Why?

Ian: Well, they didn't really make all

The buck started here. Brian, ever a voracious reader, perusing Swinburne's love sonnets,

that much money anyway. They couldn't walk down the street, they got the clothes ripped off their backs... LR: Didn't they like it though? They must have...

Ian: You can get a terrific kick out of like the Coliseum in L.A. having 15,000 screaming girls all dying to get their hands on you, but it just never stopped. And you know, you had to put up with all sorts of crap with normal people who resented you. I mean the first couple of times we came to S America, you have no idea what it was | like. -

d LR: Everyone treated them like pigs... 1 Ian: Like long-haired animals, unwashed, dirty, you know. If you went | anywhere on any street in any town it 1/5 would be the loud-mouthed Americans saying, "Oh, look at those bums" and all that.

LR: That never happened in England? Ian: No, not really...

LR: I guess the British are more polite. They probably said it behind their hands, or something.

Ian: Oh yeah.. .1 mean there certainly is something lacking in the sort of American breeding or education. I megn they do breed some very noisy, rude people...

LR: Well, did the group suffer because of a lack of private life?

Ian: I've seen both Bill and Charlie in tears because of it.

LR: What about Mick and Keith and Brian?

Ian: Well, Brian loved it, in the way that he was a Rolling Stone and all that rot but he forgot every so often that he was supposed to be playing guitar, and he just lost interest in that. Brian just got himself incredibly messed up very quickly. I think Brian was just a very weak and sort of easily led character, LR: Was he a friend of yours?

Ian: No, not really.

LR: Do you think he's ever been^ replaced, or ever will be able to be replaced in this band?

Ian: Oh musically certainly, because he played up until about 1964 and he got himself a bit ill on something.. .but by 1967 when all they wanted to do was record all the time, he would come to the studio and wouldn't play guitar. You know, nearly all those records are just Keith taped over three times. Brian used to like to dabble at keyboards, and percussion and reed instruments. But he seemed to get a mental block about guitar and got frustrated over his inability to write or compose songs. And he's the only person that's ever gone around saying, "I'm a Rolling Stone, I want this and I want that." I mean Mick and Keith don't do that, and neither do Bill and Charlie. But Brian did — he was really ridiculous as soon as he got any inkling of like money or fame. By the middle of 1968, having had a year off just recording, it was felt that it might be nice to play live again. But Brian had no desire to and he was in no shape to do so, so while he was never forced out, it was agreed that another guitar player was going to be introduced. In a way he seemed relieved, and had started playing a little and was going to form a more bluesy group again, and he had sessions at his house with Alexis Korner, Mickey Waller, and I seem to remember, John Mayall.

TURN TO PAGE 62.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 28.

LR: Who else have you played with? There's that "Boogie with Stu" on the Zeppelin album...

Ian: They were probably scraping the bottom of the barrel, looking for material for a double album. I only played with the Yardbirds on one session when they had Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck. And I also played on some Immediate things that were basically two guitar tapes with Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page.. .They came out under these British Blues re-issue things. There's a thing called The London Howlin" Wolf Sessions which I got a little bit lumbered with in that the producer came over and phoned me and asked me to help him set it all up. People do this, they come and pick your brains, they want you to help, and they say well — if you do it, you can play piano. You know, rhubarb, rhubarb, so I played piano on all of that and then he went away and took the tapes to Chicago and got hold of Stevie Winwood and said "Would you overdub piano because there's no piano on it?'... Then I had a couple of things with B.B. King in London, and I've done some things with smaller groups.

LR: What do you miss most when you think over your involvement with the Stones over the past fourteen years? Ian: Well, one thing is if I hadn't been pushed out, and it wasn't very nicely done but that's water under the bridge.. .if I was still part of the group I would have been a lot better piano player than I am now. That's the only thing I regret — there are really a lot of guys going around who are really mediocre piano players. But the thing was that I stopped playing with this band in 1965, and I didn't really touch a piano for three or four years, whereas if I had continued...

LR: What did you do during those years?

Ian: I did just about everything else but

play.

LR: If you had to describe yourself as something.:.

Ian: I always put company secretary. LR: But wouldn't you really say you're a musician?

Ian: No, because I'm not really good enough to call myself a musician.

LR: Aren't you being a bit too modest? Ian: No, not really.

LR: Well all I know is that so many other musicians talk about you...John Paul Jones tells a story about how he couldn't play this ratty old piano and you sat down and did wonders with it... Ian: Yeah, but I mean John Paul Jones is a schooled musician and it would be totally beneath him to sit down and play and instrument like that piano at Hedley Grange. I mean that thing is just history, but is the sort of thing that a lot of these old blues records were made on. I mean if you would ever see the original Chess piano, I mean it's a ludicrous instrument, and somebody like John Paul Jones who is a schooled musician probably wouldn't want to do much with it...

LR: Do you still admire the Stones? Do you feel they are the best band at what they're doing?

Ian: l think that you've got to admire Mick for sure because of what he takes on in that every other band will just go onstage and be done with it. I mean Mick is totally involved with every aspect. Most groups get onstage and play and everything else is left to managers, record producers, accountants and other staff members. Mick literally supervises everything, he has most of the original ideas and he usually wins his arguments with advisors that tell him what he can and can't do... many have been proven wrong. He takes on nearly all the responsibilities for the Rolling Stones and I mean obviously he's got his legal people and he's got his financial people and all that, but Mick is always on top of everything, more or less on behalf of the other three. Yet he could trot away and probably make a lot more money doing movies, he could do a single album with other people and he could probably do a tour with Billy Preston and some other people if he wanted to. And I sometimes wonder why he takes all the responsibility for the Rolling Stones. I mean I know he loves doing it, but it means really that he has to work 365 days a year.

LR: Is he involved with as much of the music as is Keith?

Ian: Oh, sure. You see Keith plays and that's the end of it, he doesn't want to know about anything else. ■

LR: He writes...

Ian: OK, so he plays and writes but ! mean you have got no idea of the legal side of this. The various hassles with the

various, establishments of this world. The Altamont thing that goes on and on, etc. etc....I promise you, Mick never stops. .

LR: All that alluded-to socializing that he does?

Ian: Well, they're forever writing things like that and I mean Mick is very fond of his stomach , and often the first place he wants to go is to the best restaurants. Those restaurants are the places that you are usually seen in, and get written • about to be in, and so — you know, you do tend to get a name...but Mick likes all that, he really does. But it's not too often that he gets the time to do much of it.

LR: Do you think Peter Rudge has helped them?

Ian: Oh sure, I think Peter is ideal for them...

LR: What about Keith's involvement? Ian: I think you've got to admire Keith in a lot of ways because Keith is very singleminded. I mean he really is like the pulse of the Stones, and he leads the band and he's never displayed any flashy guitar techniques or anything. And Keith is the best rock and roll guitar player there is. Yet people don't realize that because he doesn't do a lot of solos.

LR: He's said that he likes to keep it short and sweet...

Ian: Oh yeah. Keith has always been great and laid it down and he's always left gaps. He's great at tempos and things like that. It doesn't matter what he gets into, because when it comes down to playing onstage, he's unbeatable, really.

LR: What about Mick Taylor?

Ian: I think he fit in quite well and that they made some of their best records at that time.

LR: What do you think are the best records?

Ian: Well* when I'm saying their best, I'm talking about records that are accepted as being their best. Not necessarily my favorites.

LR: What are your favorites?

Ian: In the form of singles, I think "Brown Sugar"

LR: You played on that> didn't you? Ian: Yeah, but that's got nothing to do with it. I mean I played on "Honky Tonk Women" and I don't rave about that.

LR: What about albums?

Ian: I think Let It Bleed was good... Satanic Majesties I've never played since they did it. A lot of people like it, but I think it's awful. I think the best album really is Exile on Main Street which is everyone else's most unfavorite.

LR: Funny, these few years later, that album seems right. I really like it now, and never listened to it before.

Ian: I think that's more a key to the Rolling Stones than a lot of other albums. On that album are two or three of the best tracks they've ever done. One in particular, which no one seems to have caught onto called "Loving Cup," and that is excellent. I also like the pseudo country and western things like "Sweet Virginia" and "Dead Flowers."

LR: Why don't they play them onstage? Ian: Well we have played them onstage but it's just too much pissing about with acoustic guitars really.

LR: How involved are you with the recording?

Ian: Well usually in the studio it's me and the group and the engineer and that's it. I'll normally arrange everything, like booking the studio time and E the hotels and the flights. Or Anna [Menzies] will do that or we'll sort it out between us.

LR: Do you like that better than touring?

Ian: Oh, absolutely. It's quite nice really, to go down for a couple of weeks to Munich and get settled in at the Munich Hilton, and spend about twelve hours a day in the studio; and play a little bit and generally keep pretty busy becuase you've got everything to do, literally everything. On this past tour I had very little to do, except for playing a number or two...

LR: Do any of the tours get to you, I mean after all the ones you've done? Ian: Well, there's only two or three things that get to me...but on a good night, you get to realize how good a band they are, and a concert that sort of swings the way a good one does sometimes, I mean that would get to me. What doesn't get to me is all the bullshit that goes with it. All the sort of huge entourage and kind of caravan following the Rolling Stones about, all the little egos running about.

LR: When would you say that started?

I mean when do you recall there being an abrupt change, that they started having a huge organization? Was it with Rudge?

Ian: I suppose it was in a way, but there again, Peter believes in it all, in fact Mick believes in it all. So I mean they are obviously right, but the trouble with this is, at least to me, when you've got a good deal of people going around and it's a union thing the way it is, and it all moves around like a big machine — albeit an efficient one — it just all becomes a big routine. It certainly takes away some of the excitement.I mean before when we used to go out on tour and it used to be chaotic, I mean I wouldn't want to see that again either. But at least all sorts of unexpected things used to happen and you'd get yourself in a lot of trouble and you'd have riots and all this kind of thing, but it used to keep it interesting. But this is

like a big machine. In 1965 and 1966 we did two American tours a year, and they said "Let's not tour anymore, and concentrate on making albums." Because in 1966 they were still getting screamed at, you could virtually get up onstage and play what you want, and it hardly made a difference. At that point Mick was talking about knocking it on the head altogether, and he said, "Well, I just don't want to do it anymore, I just want to make records." Before 1967, recording was anything you did on odd days when you did not have an engagement or in the afternoons when there was a concert in the London area. It occurred to the Stones that good records could be obtained if weeks or months were set aside especially for recording purposes.

LR: Do you feel that this tour (1975) had less bullshit than others?

Ian: I think the previous tour (1972) had the most bullshit, that's when the bullshit reached its highest level.

LR: Truman Capote...

Ian: Yeah, and especially that. This tour was like a refinement of the last tour, there was a lot of unecessary things thrown out.

LR: You Said that you felt there were still some unecessary things..,

Ian: Well yeah, when you consider that you've got all these people around and yet Bill Wyman can't even get tickets for Howlin" ]Wolf in Chicago, and if Bill wants a car he can seldom get it. And yet Wolf comes to the show in Chicago and Bill who is one of the Stones can't get tickets for him.

LR: He couldn't?

/an: Wolf in Chicago sat in the dressing room and then they wanted to take him up to the pressbox because there were no tickets, and to get to the pressbox you have to climb a lot of stairs. And he couldn't do it because he's got a bad heart and so eventually he sat in the dressing room and he never saw the concert. There's lots of little Playboy scrubbers who got tickets and/ whose friends are they? Not even the band's... just this endless bloody party of people who get all the tickets they need... LR: Whose fault is that?

Ian: I don't think it's anybody's fault but the fact remains that when Bill wanted seats for Wolf so he wouldn't have to climb a lot of stairs he couldn't get them...

LR: A lot of people have said that they thought the band was better in 1969... 1972...what do you think?

Ian: I don't think they were better in 1969, or 1972...I think they are playing as well now as they've ever played. The thing really is that like when they started out they were like rebels and non-conformists and the like and obviously you can't be like that all your life. But when you go out and do a tour

with union guys, basically, you've gone back to the type of legit-theater situation. I mean they are getting to be sort of part of show-biz now which I don't think was ever the idea in the first place but this is the way Mick wants it, he wants to have a theater production. I mean I don't know if it's worth it, the stages in'New York and LA...it was very funny and great to see it all happen but I really don't know why. I mean I suppose that one cdn be very proud of it all, they spent a million dollars and it opened up and the kids loved it and at the end the Stones were on the stage and it closed again and it is the best rock and roll propj but so what. The 1975 was probably the best rock and roll production ever, I'm not knocking it, and I'm certainly not knocking the skill and application of the crew that made it possible. But if I went to a Stones concert or a Count Basie concert for that matter, I would want to enjoy the Stones or the Basie band without distraction. And afterwards I would be knocked out by Keith Richards or A1 Grey as the case may be, and if the stage went up and down at the corners well that would be interesting at best, but a distraction at worst. And I just wonder if it is really worth it. Mfck believes it is and that people want to see a total production, maybe they do and I am probably completely in the minority.

LR: how much do you think Mick controls the show?

Ian: Oh, I think he controls everything. Not so much the music, Keith leads that really. See, basically Keith can't be bothered to go to any of these meetings where people have to decide these things. And although he'll tend to bitch a little bit afterwards, he's quite happy to let Mick and Charlie go over these things and draw the stage and say, well, do it. Because Keith is certainly not worried about the money thing. I mean Mick doesn't worry about it either, but he just wants to do it the best way he possibly can. He wants the money that's due him, but making sure he's got that, after that he's not worried about spending it on stages. In the past he spent it on taking people like Ike and Tina Turner around* and I mean that's an expensive pastime — but very worthwhile.

LR: You know, during that tour everyone assumed that the Stones took a lot of time getting onstage after Tina because they didn't want to follow her... now I realize how they're usually late;.. Ian: Well they were always late in those days. No they didn't mind following Tina Turner at all, in fact that was one of the ideas of getting her on the concert. I mean she is a difficult act to follow, and they really had to work at it, but she really got the crowd excited and at it.

LR: Did they; watch her?

Ian: Oh sure. I mean Mick got quite a bit from Tina Turner. Her and Inez Foxx, that's where a lot of his movements came from. Anyway, about the money, they didn't make anything on the 1969 tour, and I doubt they made any on the one in 1972. One tour in England with Ike and Tina, and the one with Chip Monck in Europe they made no money. I mean you can squawk about money, but the money they've made hasn't really done them much good either. It's really gotten them into some trouble...they can't even live in their own country now. They just have to go around from hotel to hotel, and big house to another, cart an entourage with them...I suppose they've got Ferraris and things but I don't know.. .1 personally have never had any desire for money for the Sjake of it. I mean there's been times when I've thought, "Christ, I should be getting more money than l am," but if you think about it, Madison Square Garden really gets filled on the strength of Jagger and if not on the strength of Jagger, then on the strength of the Rolling Stones — and it's got nothing to do with who's playing piano. I mean Mick and Keith and Bill and Charlie could've done this tour by themselves and still it would've been sold out.

LR: Mick could probably do Las Vegas on his own and sell out...

Ian: I'd be very surprised if he did that. LR: Do you feel as though they're your friends, this band? Do you see them when you're not recording, or touring? Ian: I think Bill and Charlie are certainly friends. WJhen Bill and Charlie were living in England I would see them, and when Charlie comes to London , which he does fairly often, I would see him too. Keith lives a rather strange life, strange to me anyway. When he sort of comes to London he is usually around with Woody quite a lot, and Woody lives quite close to me, and I, would go around to Woody's a lot anyway.

LR: Were they close prior to this tour? Ian: Oh sure. But in fact, less than a month before we came to Montauk, they were still arguing about who was going to be the guitar player. And Keith was really not sure about Woody, because he felt that Woody played too much like him and that it wouldn't sound good. But Mick wanted Woody and I did, and the other guys were rather undecided, and there was a fair amount of support for Wayne Perkins. I mean Wayne is a lovely guy and all that, but it was difficult to imagine him onstage as part of the Rolling Stones. And I had been at that concert in Kilburn...you know, when Keith and Woody played together, and it was great actually. It got panned

largely because it had the Faces sound team doing it and of course their idea of a good sound is just lots of volume for the sake of it!!!.. .And the acoustics of the place are horrendous... so the sound was a bit painful, but the feel was there. The approach was great, and the two-guitar thing was fine...so eventually Mick put his foot down and said, "Right, it's either going to be Woody, or no tour."

LR: Did you ever think of leaving the Stones?

Ian: Sometimes, but then again, what else would you want to do? I mean this sort of life has a lot of advantages. I certainly wouldn't go and work for another band, because there's only about three other bands that I can enjoy listening to.

LR: Which ones?

Ian: Well, Zeppelin, the Who, and the Faces...of the better known groups. However, I think some of the lesser known groups are superb, particularly J. Geils, Little Feat, and Charlie Daniels to name those seen most recently.

LR: It's strange that you would like Zeppelin because you've told me that as far as rock and roll is concerned, you only like very familiar rock and roll... Ian: But with Zep, although some of the numbers are unusual, everything rocks and rolls. John Bonham, who is probably the best drummer in rock and roll, will always see to that. And Page is probably the most gifted guitar player to emerge from this whole thing...

LR: Well, it's not really the music you like best, is it? I mean given the choice, to go see Zep dr to a jazz1 club...

Ian: Yeah, in all seriousness, I would probably go to see Count Basie.