A Prince Among Stones (26 page)

Keith has never shied away from delivering a pungent quote. During the
Bridges to Babylon
tour, in the immediate aftermath of Princess Diana's death in 1997, he was asked for his view on Elton John, and told the interviewer that Elton was a second-rate musician who had only become famous by writing about dead blondes . . . to which Elton responded that he was not worried by the remarks of an arthritic monkey.

I had lunch with a Herald at the College of Arms, Sir Henry Paston-Bedingfield, who was also the genealogist of the British Association of the Order of Malta. I was looking forward to seeing him to discuss a suitable grant of arms for Mick: perhaps a cricket bat rampant and a guitar couchant, I thought. Sir Henry offered to show Mick around the College of Arms, but I knew that was the one thing Mick would not want: the news cameras would be there en masse and he absolutely would not wish to be seen, least of all by Keith, swanning around the College discussing the design of his knightly coat of arms.

For many people Mick's knighthood still seemed amazing, although the path had been prepared by Sirs Paul McCartney and Elton John, but it was not nearly as strange as some of the honours handed out. I can remember a time when the clubs of St James's Street seethed with rage about John Gielgud's knighthood and when the architectural historian James Lees-Milne was rumoured to be about to appear on the Honours List, a similar seething scuppered his chances. Mick's knighthood was another small triumph for heterosexuality in the arts world.

I tried to initiate one fine art project along the same lines as the portraits of Mick which Andy Warhol had created in 1975. This time my idea was to produce portraits of Michael Jackson. I had a long chat with John Branca, Michael Jackson's lawyer, who came back and said that Michael would love to be involved. I then consulted Desmond Corcoran and Martin Summers of the Lefevre Fine Art gallery in London, and asked them who they considered to be the most prestigious portrait painter alive in America. They told me that in their view it was Andrew Wyeth.

So we arranged a meeting in the lovely house where Andrew Wyeth lived in Brandywine, Maryland. The estate was owned by an acquaintance of ours, George Weymouth, also a painter, known to everyone as ‘Frolic' Weymouth. John Branca arrived, along with Wyeth's agent from New York. Michael Jackson brought with him his macrobiotic chef, a pimply young man from California dressed in a robe and turban, and a charming security man in his seventies, who had obviously been fulfilling that role since Michael had been a child.

During lunch Andrew Wyeth, who was getting along famously with Michael Jackson, said, ‘You must work out what sort of costume you would like to wear for the portrait.' They were both costume freaks. Michael said, ‘Oh, I think I'd like to wear a Civil War US Cavalry officer's uniform.' ‘What an excellent idea,' said Wyeth. ‘You must come up to my place by the sea in Maine and we will do the portrait up there.'

Andrew then asked Michael who his favourite painter was. ‘Piero della Francesca,' he answered without missing a beat. I was so surprised I could have dropped my fork. ‘Do you like the Impressionists?' Andrew continued. ‘Yes, I do like them, but not Cézanne.' I was staggered by this interchange. Michael clearly had a highly educated approach to great painters, and was both talkative and charming, all in striking contrast to my expectations.

I was equally surprised when I asked Andrew Wyeth whether he had ever seen the Piero della Francesca paintings in some of the little churches in Italy, at Borgo Santo Sepolcro and Arezzo, absolutely lovely works of art which I had seen on a recent visit. He said, ‘No, I have never been abroad.' I found it extraordinary that a world-renowned painter should never have been to Italy.

Alas, the project was stillborn. Wyeth's wife Betsy discovered that he had had an affair with Helga, the artist's great muse, and to pay him back she stopped him from doing the Michael Jackson portrait, which she knew he wanted to do. It would doubtless have been Wyeth's last major portrait since he died in January 2009. Michael Jackson – whom I had seen a few times after the visit to Brandywine, going to his concerts both in LA and London and chatting backstage; we got on well – died six months later.

Jon Benjamin and his Foreign Office colleagues continued to be of great help as we had new markets to tackle and I still saw to it that the Stones attended the embassy receptions in each country we visited. During the
Voodoo Lounge
tour of 1994–6, the British Ambassador in Buenos Aires, Sir Peter Hall, was delightful: he had been to Pembroke College, Cambridge, and was obviously highly civilised, notwithstanding him being a dedicated Stones fan. He persuaded us to call on the President of Argentina, Carlos Menem, which I got the band to do with no difficulty and the whole visit was a great success, especially compared to our previous problems in Argentina. The Argentinians who were camping outside the hotel screamed with hysteria like the wild fans of the 1960s and during the concert 800 had to be taken to the Red Cross tent, and 1,800 on the second night.

Our first attempt to appear in China, in 2003, had to be postponed. When news about the SARS epidemic first broke we were in Singapore, on the
Forty
Licks
tour, and so I took myself off to the lovely British High Commission. Mick also called a few times to watch the cricket on the High Commissioner's television. We depended entirely on the advice from the Commission, and tried, as always, to balance the difficulties of commercial complications and moral imperatives.

I discussed the situation with Michael Cohl, the tour director. I kept Mick apprised of the state of play (of the SARS, not the cricket) from the first contact with the High Commission. The principal issue in this kind of situation was to discuss how, where and when we would be replaying the concert, whether it was a question of staying on a few more days or going somewhere else. If it was going to be difficult to find alternative dates in the gap we might need to do a couple of extra shows in Germany, for example. Mick was always very keen on not letting down the fans. There is no doubt that the Rolling Stones have always had a friendly respect for their fanbase.

We had never previously attempted to go into China when Mao Tse-tung was still in power because we had sufficient warnings from the Foreign Office in London not to bother trying. Unfortunately we did not have an equivalent of George St George, who had been so assiduous in helping me explore the possibility of performing in Russia in the 1970s. However, I did have some friends who were very powerful in Hong Kong, scions of British families that had provided the taipans, or business leaders, and I was able to seek their advice.

We finally made it to China in April 2006. In this country of over a billion people we only just managed to sell out 8,000 seats in the Shanghai Grand Stage, and most of those sales represented the expat community. We were still required to have all the song lyrics translated into Chinese for approval. I asked my daughter Dora to see whether or not they had followed the lyrics: she reported back that the translators had made them rather dull and, of course, cut out any tendentious moral laxity.

Nonetheless, the authorities asked the band not to perform a number of songs, including ‘Brown Sugar' and ‘Let's Spend The Night Together'. Keith suggested playing them as instrumentals, ‘to give Mick a break', and Mick had a good line at the press conference, saying, ‘I am pleased that the Ministry of Culture is protecting the morals of the expats and their girlfriends that are going to be coming.'

 

Although there were many tempting new venues and countries that wanted the Rolling Stones to perform there, the Stones always had such a large production to move around that, whenever we looked at the possibilities, the critical question was whether it could generate the appropriate income to make it worthwhile.

New opportunities opened up because of the change in world politics, in the footsteps of which rock'n'roll followed, never causing change to happen however much it might believe it did. Following the raising of the Iron Curtain, which had allowed the Stones to play in Prague during the
Urban Jungle
tour, the band went on in the 1990s to give debut concerts in Belgrade, Bucharest and Kiev after reaching Moscow, at last, in 1998, nearly thirty years after my first attempt (when the Russians I met knew the name of Mick Jagger but thought he was one of the Beatles).

The Stones performed in India for the first time in 2003, in Bangalore and Mumbai, and experienced the usual confusion that awaits anyone doing business there. Our royalties in India were blocked in rupees but we were able to use those same rupees to buy air tickets, so we were able to justify the trip.

I had been to India back in 1970, when Josephine and I stayed for a few days with Her Highness the Maharani mother of Jodhpur who sent us to Jaisalmer for an outing with an overnight stay: it was some five hours distant over the desert. We were taken there by her personal ADC and stayed as guests of the local highness of this amazing state in the mountains made of yellow sandstone. I believe its main commercial interest was smuggling. His Highness received us in his braces in a large hall with a broken roof and broken silver furniture from the 1890s. He had glazed eyes and was surrounded by a few odd dogs and chickens and a startlingly good-looking ADC.

When we got back to Jodhpur Her Highness asked, ‘What did you think of His Highness of Jaisalmer? I am afraid he has been somewhat ruined by drink and girls.' I said in as humble a voice as I could muster, ‘I thought it was drugs and boys', whereupon she laughed loudly. The ADC who had taken us on the journey then took me aside and said, ‘You see, Your Highness, in India we breed a special sub-caste who provide female concubines for some of the Princes and sometimes' – a little cough – ‘young male attendants for the other ones.'

Mick had always been keen on playing in South Africa, interested as he was in the cricket. On the
Voodoo Lounge
tour it turned out that a visit to South Africa would fit in with one of the trips we were making to the Far East. We heard from the South African promoter that they were expecting 100,000 people at Ellis Park in Johannesburg.

I said to Mick, ‘How many black people do you think will be in that audience of a hundred thousand? Apart from anyone in the touring company, that is.' Mick looked a bit bewildered, and said, ‘Well, a decent amount, I expect.' ‘More than five hundred?' He looked amazed, so I said, ‘Do you want a bet on that?' We had a small bet and I think in the event the number was only a hundred. This was February 1995, five years after the release of Nelson Mandela. Changing deep-rooted social divisions can still be extraordinarily slow.

12

 

 

‘When you can spend your life doing something you love, you are living a very fine life'

 

Ahmet Ertegun

 

 

 

In late 2006 Ahmet Ertegun gave a dinner party for us in New York, two weeks before the Stones were to play at the Beacon Theatre in New York, a venue where Martin Scorsese would be filming the performance for his documentary
Shine a Light
.

I asked Ahmet whether he and his wife, Mica, would like to come along. He said yes, so they joined our party. We headed to the backstage area which, unlike the rest of the theatre, had not yet been fully restored. There were rather large stone stairs but no banisters. For once, nobody had really taken a good look at the backstage area, apart from setting out some tables and organising the catering. We sat down at a table and had some drinks.

Ahmet said he would go to the lavatory. Mica asked him if she should come too since the stairs were steep and Ahmet, now in his early eighties, was quite frail. But he said he would be all right. Nonetheless, Josephine said she needed to accompany him anyway, so they headed off down this rather scary staircase. When Josephine came out of the lavatory she told Ahmet she had noticed that the lock on the door was not working. He said he didn't mind.

He walked in and a couple of minutes later had what we think must have been a short blackout. In normal circumstances he would have slumped back against the door, but this time there was nothing to catch him. As the door was unlocked, it flew open as he fell backwards and he hit an unforgiving stone floor with the back of his neck.

Although we had the very good Rolling Stones doctor on hand we immediately contacted Ahmet's own doctor: an ambulance came quickly and took him to a hospital. The concert – in true show business tradition – went on, as Ahmet would doubtless have insisted. He never recovered from the effects of the fall, and died in hospital a few weeks later.

Ahmet had been a partner – and occasionally a sparring partner – throughout my Rolling Stones activities for over thirty-five years. In the early days his deep knowledge of the record business, especially in America, and the advice that he gave me based on that experience, had been invaluable – one of his maxims was that ‘the music business is not just music, it's also business'. His sudden and so unexpected loss was a hard and deeply sad blow.

Earlier that year I had a health scare. In January I had a bad cough, which saw me wheezing away, making a sound rather like a small provincial symphony orchestra tuning up. I missed the Stones' free concert given on Copacabana beach in Rio the following month: nobody has yet managed to work out how many people were actually there: the lowest estimate was one and a half million, the highest two million. It was rumoured that the police came to an arrangement with the local gangs whereby, in return for peace, the police would not look too hard at the commerce that was being carried out in the audience.