Ethan Russell Photographs

Everybody knows by now that there’s a gazillion books on me either out or coming out in the near future. So I’m encouraging anybody who’s ever met me, heard me or even seen me, to get in on the action and scribble their own book. You never know, somebody might have a great book in them. — Bob Dylan

William Manchester

The Rolling Stones “Get Your Ya Yas Out” - Ethan Russell

(At the request of a Twitter friend — @hairinmycoffee — below are the liner notes I wrote for the re-release of Get Your Ya Yas Out last year (c) Ethan Russell. Buy the CD/DVD here: )

THE BEST OF TIMES - Ethan Russell

Photograph & Text (c) Ethan Russell. All rights reserved.

The Rolling Stones’ Madison Square Garden concerts in November of 1969 might very well have been - at least for the 1960s - as good as it was ever going to get.   The Stones’ performances came at the end of an unprecedented ascendance of music’s influence over an entire generation. It is probably fair to say that never in the history of America had music played a more important role than our music did for us.

And the most extraordinary music it was.  The Stones 1969 tour was the latest wave of the so-called “British Invasion,” which stood on the shoulders of American rock and roll back to Little Richard, Chuck Berry (and American blues before that). The “British invasion” revitalized an American rock n roll that had grown soft and fluffy until Bob Dylan’s rocket fueled lyrical, social, and electrical revitalization – some say reinvention - of it all. There was no reason for those assembled in Madison Square Garden to believe that we – with our music - wouldn’t continue on our heady course upward, and rise ever “higher,” a word with a lot of currency at the time.

But you never know.  The Rolling Stones tour launched on the West Coast less than 3 months after the Festival at Woodstock.  Those who were at Woodstock as well as those whose sympathies were aligned  — a much larger number — were famously dubbed the “Woodstock Nation” in a phrase attributed to Abbie Hoffman, a “Yippee Activist.” Hoffman would come backstage before the Chicago concert to visit “Mick and the boys,” try to borrow money, be rebuffed, and wander out muttering “bunch of cultural nationalists.”    It was a clever phrase “Woodstock Nation” grouping us as it did into a political and social entity as if we had power.  Nations had their own armies, right?  And national anthems?  Certainly, no nation ever had a soundtrack like ours.  1969 was an extraordinary year, there can be no doubt about it.  Now in the 40th anniversary we have reason to remember it: the Rolling Stones in Hyde Park on July 5th (prior to Woodstock the largest of the mushrooming “free concerts”), July 21st the landing on the moon August 15th-17th Woodstock, and (although unknown at the time) the last Beatles’ performance, to name a few. 

In that year a barrage of unbelievable albums was released, as rock and roll continued to peak.  A writer in Slate magazine in December of 2003 would call late December 1969 the “greatest week in rock history,” citing the Billboard chart at the time which had in its top 10 The Beatles “Abbey Road,” The Rolling Stones “Let It Bleed,” Led Zeppelin’s “Led Zeppelin II,” Santana’s “Santana,” Blood Sweat & Tears, “Blood Sweat & Tears,” and Crosby, Stills & Nash, “Crosby, Stills & Nash.”  Not listed, perhaps because they didn’t have albums out that month, were Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, the Doors, and Jimi Hendrix.

It was against this backdrop that the Rolling Stones arrived in Los Angeles in late October.  They almost didn’t make it. To work in the US they needed U.S. work permits, and in the years between the last tour (1966) and the current, the Rolling Stones had three drug arrests between the five of them. The charges against Mick and Keith were dropped (though Keith spent a night in prison) but Brian Jones had been arrested twice, and would probably be convicted at least once.  And that, as Americans say, would have been the ball game.  Not for that reason, but perhaps not in complete ignorance of it either, Brian Jones was asked to leave the group.  He did and (by some accounts) happily. Not long after, on July 3rd he was found at the bottom of his swimming pool. Efforts to revive him failed.   Mick Taylor had already replaced Brian, and the 2nd iteration of the Rolling Stones was now set to tour. They rented two houses in Los Angeles – the “Oriole House” high in the Hollywood Hills above sunset Strip and Steven Stills’ house off Laurel Canyon on the Valley side of the hills. The Rolling Stones rehearsed at the Stills’ house in a small basement studio, not assiduously as Bill Wyman recalls, “We didn’t do a lot. It was mostly party time. You know what the Stones are like.”

I knew the Stones from work we had done together in 1968 and again in 1969.  After working with them I went to work with the Beatles on “Let It Be,” but left them after their last photo session (not knowing it would be their last) and went back to my family home in San Francisco.  Later I heard the Stones were in LA – I don’t remember knowing about it before - so I drove down and found my way up the winding streets to the Oriole House.  Inside was a small group — the people that would make up the tour. Phones rang and a somewhat frantic energy pervaded, but for all of that it was a remarkably small and self-contained scene.  Out of a back room ambled Mick, who said hello, and somewhere in our interaction he asked me if I wanted to join the tour. I said yes.  

The Rolling Stones now found themselves in a musical landscape that had grown and changed dramatically since their previous tour. In 1966 they would go onstage in front of roiling, screaming fans and generally rush off in 20 minutes. Often, they couldn’t hear themselves play. Ronnie Schneider (who would be on both the 1966 and 1969 tours) describes the pre-show lighting instructions, “During Lady Jane we told them to put a pink spot on Mick.” 

“1969 was the first time that an audience listened,” remembers Bill Wyman.  Not only did they listen, but they spent at least part of the time sitting down. “At first we were worried that we had lost the energy from the audience. But we were always good onstage so we were able to quite easily deal with it.” 

“I wonder what are they like now,” asked Keith. “I mean do they watch TV or turn on in the basement?”  Both, it turned out. But it was the latter that had changed drastically since 1966.  As the opening date for the tour approached the basement studio at Stephen Stills was replaced by a larger stage on the Warner Bros lot (where they practiced amid the remnants of the set for “They Shoot Horses Don’t They” under a sign that read, “How Long Will They Last?”)  Then, on November 7th, we went to Fort Collins, Colorado where we set up for the first show at Colorado State University gymnasium.

When I got there the gym was filled with folding chairs below a massive American flag.  By nightfall the flag was gone, the stage was up, the audience was in the chairs, and the Rolling Stones were being introduced by Sam Cutler for the first time as “the Greatest Rock n Roll band in the World!” (“Mick didn’t like it.  Said it was over the top,” remembers Sam)  At the intro, however, the band walked onto the stage and launched into “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” And so began the tour, the kinks were still to be worked out little by little.  At the end of the set, the Stones rushed off stage on the echoing notes of “Street Fighting Man,” ignoring the clamoring for an encore. By the next morning everyone was back in LA and ready for more.

The first shows were Ft Collins, LA, Oakland, San Diego, and Phoenix with a return to Oriole House after every curtain.  After Phoenix we left the house and ventured off into deepest middle America, slowly traveling East: Moody Coliseum, Dallas, then the Coliseum in Auburn Alabama, then up to the University of Illinois, then the International Amphitheater Chicago, on to the Olympic Stadium in Detroit, and then to the Philadelphia Spectrum.

Once we hit the road a certain grey predictability took over: flat, undifferentiated landscapes and parking lots full of identical cars, hotel and motel lobbies, all much the same.  But the days always ended like a star being born in the darkness as the Stones hit the stage and Chip Monck’s light snapped on. The audiences jumped to their feet as Mick came strutting out, Keith pulled the guitar strap over his shoulder, Charlie played a few, quick riffs, Bill and Mick Taylor a few notes, and then “I’m Jumpin’ Jack Flash.  It’s a gas, gas, GAS!”

The shows now take on a steady shape, opening with “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” then “Carol.” Slowing down for “Stray Cat Blues,” and “Love in Vain,” acoustic numbers with Mick sitting and Keith playing his National guitar.  Then Mick stands up as the Rolling Stones chunk into “Midnight Rambler.”

Shortly, Mick asks for the house lights to be brought up, and, as if on cue (which it was), the audiences leave their seats and come swarming toward stage, in a mixture of anarchy and delight. Until, at the end, the band sets up the swaying, klaxon-like rhythm of “Street Fighting Man” driving it to a height of dizzying energy, until it stops, Charlie’s drums hit the last note, and the Stones rush off the stage and out of whatever auditorium they’re in.  No encore.  

In the Midwest it started to feel like winter, cold, with the occasional snow shower. It had been November in Los Angeles too, of course, but how would you tell? Walking down the street in Chicago I felt strangely comforted to be back among substantial buildings that reminded me of London, my new home.  In Chicago the Stones played the amphitheater and that is where Abbie Hoffman showed up, trolling for money, somehow getting backstage even though his ruse of impersonating Col. Tom Parker – Elvis Presley’s manager – had fallen flat.  By the time we got to New York City, the Rolling Stones had played fifteen shows at twelve venues. Despite Chicago’s more sophisticated, urban feel, New York ratchets it up a notch. 

We check into the Plaza Hotel under vaulted ceilings, surrounded by people in suits.  One night the Stones return to the hotel, meandering through the remains of a debutante party.  The boys are in white tie, the girls in gorgeous gowns.  (The well-to-do young Americans know the Stones. “Playing with Fire” is my favorite,” says one girl.) The Stones, especially Mick, are comfortable amidst the cosmopolitan trappings, always a surprise to me. En route to the press conference Mick emerges dressed in an all-white Tom Wolfe suit.  But there are subtle shifts occurring.  
Now Jon Jaymes, the man that never made sense, who came to the Rolling Stones purporting to work for Chrysler and offering free cars (and who tells Chrysler he works for the Rolling Stones) starts to exert himself further.  He brings in what Tony Funches calls the “torpedoes.”

Tony, our traveling security, was hired in Los Angeles as temporary help to sit in his Volkswagen bug by Mick and Keith’s gate. But everyone likes him, and he comes on the road with us.  Tony was a Vietnam vet, although when he decides to drop everything and go on the road with the Rolling Stones he’s back in America and student body president of his class at Santa Monica City College.   

“The torpedoes were good. I think I was the only one outside of their number who recognized the capability that they had. I had to admire it, from a professional standpoint. In Southeast Asia, there were guys that were called “LRPs.” LRP was an acronym for Long Reconnaissance Patrol. These guys would leave a base camp with rifle, ammo, a few survival tools and be gone for weeks. They’d live off of the land. They’d snipe VC, or do anything else. LRPs are different from other soldiers. They have a different look in their eye. That was the look that I recognized in these torpedoes when they showed up. Not because they were built like me, but by how quietly they blended in. They disappeared from sight, unnoticed by everybody else, but they were always there, always close by.”  

In New York the torpedoes began to accompany the Stones everywhere; opening doors for them, walking near them down the street on the way to the press conference at Rockefeller Center.  At the conference reporters ask Jagger if he’s satisfied.  “Sexually, yes,” he says.  With Allen Klein leaning over his shoulder, he responds, “Financially, unsatisfied. Philosophically, trying.”  

At the same press conference, the question of whether the Stones will give a free concert is raised again.  This time Jagger says “yes.”  There are no firm dates, nor an exact location, just that it will be in San Francisco.

“Why San Francisco,” the New York press wants to know? 

“Because there’s a scene there, and the weather’s nice.”  With those fateful words the press conference ends.

 As chance would have it the press conference – the day before the Madison Square Garden show - was also my birthday. I had just turned 24. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were 26.  Bill Wyman was the oldest, with a public age of 30. But he lied about his age when joining the group and was in fact 33. At the end of the tour, but before Altamont, Mick will opine “We can’t go on doing this forever. We’re so old.” 

Out of the press conference, into the street. The next thing I remember is being told that the Stones were going to that night’s gig (Baltimore) by Lear Jet and there will be no room on board for Stanley Booth (in the beginning of his fifteen year odyssey to write “The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones” considered by many the best written book on the Rolling Stones ever published), Michael Lydon, (writing for the New York Times) various assorted heavies, or me.  We are told we’ll go by bus –- a 7.5 hour round trip it turns out.

Stanley and Michael start, but opt out.  In a fit of professional responsibility, I stay on the bus with the heavies, arriving just as the Baltimore show is closing, where I witness a smoke bomb being thrown into the orchestra pit, take a few pictures and return.    

Except for the opulent rooms, the views overlooking Central Park, and a more renowned set of people hanging out, the Plaza in New York is like every hotel on the road.  We each have a room, and Ronnie and Jaymes’ is command central, the place you wander by to find out what’s going on. It’s as usual except there’s more people and the heavies.  Jagger asks me to join him in his room where Leonard Bernstein is waiting.  Mick hands him to me, and the entourage leaves for the Garden.  I escort Leonard Bernstein to his seat and then wander backstage, past the front rows and to the dividing line to backstage, where, as ever, someone is trying out some lie to gain entrance and, as ever, being denied. 

The Garden, too, is like everywhere else: concrete and corridors. Except now Jimi Hendrix is backstage and the Maysles brothers are filming. I fail to encounter Janis Joplin who by all accounts is a little unsteady on her feet.  Reports differ: that she’s troublesome and refuses to leave until lured out by the presence of a known West Coast bag man, and/or she never gets in to begin with because as Sam Cutler tells it, “The boys were changing, but no one told her.”  Either way, it sets up a simmering resentment.

 Whatever, the show goes on. My familiarity with the shows makes this performance seem, a little, like every night, but of course it is manifestly not like every night.  It is “The Garden,” and as if that weren’t enough it is being filmed and recorded.  Neither Mick, nor Keith, nor Charlie, Bill or little Mick say anything to me about the pressure of it.  They must feel it.  Sometimes, in a generic way, Keith will mention it. Once, responding to a story that BB King has gotten drunk after putting on a bad show Keith says, “It’s a good thing he still gets upset. You got to be able to do it every night, and it ain’t easy.  Especially if you ain’t done it for three years.”

Though I never hear it, and I seldom see it, the stress is there. The Rolling Stones deliver with enormous consistency, but it’s not pre-ordained.

In the dressing room before the show Stanley Booth, watching and attuned, is aware of stories about which I have no idea.  Jagger has just been told that a  woman is about to have his baby, and that another woman was about to leave him.  This is what’s inside him as he goes through the curtain, faces the 16,000 at Madison Square Garden and the band launches into “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”  You would never know.

The show begins and as always I feel the rush of excitement, a surge, as the energy from the speakers and the audience cheering sweeps over me.  But soon my attention turns to shooting my photographs, and I retreat into a somewhat hermetic state, as if the heating up of my visual sense steals energy from the rest of my senses.  I am aware of the pounding and the excitement, aware that the crowd in the Garden is swiftly on its feet, and stomping at the arrival of the Stones onstage, but not a lot more than that as I focus to get the pictures.

After the fact we can say – by all accounts – that the Madison Square Garden shows were some of the best ever.  You can hear it on these discs.  Especially, as Lester Bangs, says in his review for Rolling Stone, once they hit “Live With Me”  (“You haven’t got the balls,” Joplin yells from the audience, resentment still simmering) and start to kick it up, they never look back.  The energy sweeps over the Garden, reverberating through and even outside, the building. 

“I remember it very clearly,” says Glyn Johns legendary English engineer and producer in New York to record the shows. “Madison Square Garden is on the third floor above the street or something. It’s well above ground level. And in those days, they didn’t have remote units with all the kit. You didn’t have a huge track with a recording control room like they do now. We used to rent equipment.

“I flew mine out from Wally Heider’s in LA because I knew his stuff was good. And you’d put it in a removal truck – a Hertz rental truck in fact - and we’d set up the control room inside the truck.  That’s just how you’d have to do it.

“So I can remember being in the truck and at one point, I don’t know exactly where we were — it was probably at the end of the show – I started thinking that there was somebody on the roof of the truck because the whole truck was bouncing up and down. I jumped out, and I look up, and there’s nobody on the top of the truck. The building was moving above me. I was petrified. I thought it was going to collapse. The whole building was moving.” 

Stanley Booth standing by the side of the stage remembers: “I couldn’t see anyone who wasn’t smiling. The smiles came from the stage and rolled all the way to the back of the Garden. Keith was resting his guitar against his thigh, ripping it up and down like a gunfighter drawing faster and faster, over and over.  Mick, by the edge of stage right, started moving backward in reverse-motion picture fashion. Then he sailed the basket of red rose petals high out over the crowd where they hung for a moment. Then they started slowly to descend, floating on the high ringing howl rising from the crowd. Keith, his eyes closed, was controlling with nods and shakes the rhythm of the entire building. Jagger was grinding his hips, his mouth wide open in a big orgasmic smile. Hendrix was smiling as if saying, ‘This is it: the real rock n roll soup.’”

History and performance. This is what you hold in your hands. True, analog, non-digital, live rock and roll. In the playing and recording of it not a bit nor a byte involved, not an obsessively tweaked waveform. This is the pure, fermented stuff.  The Rolling Stones. The Greatest Rock n Roll Band in the World.