an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published by Elm Tree Books/Hamish Hamilton 1984
Paperback edition published by Penguin Books 1993 Updated edition by Sidgwick and Jackson published by Pan Macmillan 2001
This updated edition published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2012
FIRST EDITION
© Philip Norman 1984, 1993, 2001, 2012
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
Philip Norman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Source ISBN 9780007477067
Ebook Edition © September 2012 ISBN: 9780007477074 Version 2016-11-01
To Angela Miller
CONTENTS
Copyright
PART ONE
1 ‘I was schooled with a strap right across my back’
2 ‘Well, the joint was rockin’ …’
3 ‘I belong to you and you belong to me, so come on’
4 ‘Beatle your Rolling Stone hair’
PART TWO
6 ‘Everybody’s got something to hide’
7 ‘It’s down to me; the change has come …’
PART THREE
10 ‘Sing this all together – see what happens’
11 ‘There’s just no room for a street-fighting man …’
12 ‘He hath awakened from the dream of life’
13 ‘We’re gonna kiss you goodbye’
14 ‘The Stones like France tremendously’
16 ‘God Speed the Rolling Stones’
18 ‘Some girls give me children …’
Plate Section
I began researching The Stones in 1981, just after publication of my Beatles biography, Shout! I’d never been a particular admirer of the Rolling Stones, quite the opposite in fact, but chronicling the Beatles had shown me how closely the two bands’ histories were intertwined; so, having ‘done’ the Liverpudlians it seemed logical to move on to the Londoners.
As a journalist I’d interviewed the Stones only once, in 1965 when I was on a small evening paper in north-east England and they appeared at the ABC cinema in Stockton-on-Tees. It was the zenith of their British notoriety, just post-‘Satisfaction’; I expected surly Neanderthals but, even to a provincial nobody like me, they were perfectly nice. I talked to Mick Jagger sitting on a cold backstage staircase (he wore a white fisherman’s-knit sweater and swigged from a Pepsi-Cola bottle; such different days!), then to all five in their dressing-room.
Brian Jones was the friendliest, telling me in his quiet, educated voice about the constant hassles they faced between gigs in hotels and restaurants, not for any real bad behaviour – that didn’t come until later – but ‘just because we’re us’. When I requested an autograph for my sister, they all obliged, then former graphic designer Charlie Watts drew a decorative border around their signatures, adding ‘the Rolling Stones’ in case there should be any confusion.
In later years, as a roving correspondent for the Sunday Times Magazine, I’d written about rock, soul and blues legends from Johnny Cash, Bill Haley, the Everly Brothers, the Beach Boys and Fleetwood Mac to James Brown, Little Richard, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Wilson Pickett, B. B. King and Sleepy John Estes – but never a word about the Stones. There seemed far too many experts on the subject