Ain't It Time We Said Goodbye (5 page)

Clad as always today in a blue nylon windbreaker and a pair of plain cloth pants that make him look for all the world like just another roadie, Stu begins negotiating his way out of the city. Turning to Jo Bergman, he points out the window and says, “See that grotty transport caf over there? We literally had to force them to turn on the TV in 1963 when we were on
Thank Your Lucky Stars
for the first time. We walked in there and everyone said, ‘What? A bunch of longhairs like you on the telly?’ And I can tell you this, that TV never worked properly either.”

A cautious and canny Scot whose drug of choice is good malt whiskey, Stu definitely becomes someone else again when he gets behind the wheel of a car. Putting the accelerator all the way down to the floor as soon as we leave Newcastle, Stu begins driving like his namesake, the world champion Grand Prix racer Jackie Stewart. Going at what he would call “a vast rate of knots,” Stu attacks each and every treacherous curve on the narrow winding road that leads through the towering range of hills known as the Pennines like he is trying to better the current world land speed record for this particular course.

Bracing myself in the far corner of the backseat, I hold on tight for what has become a terrifying real-life version of “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.” Feeling as though my bladder is going to burst, I wait
for as long I can before blurting out that I really need to go to the bathroom. Muttering darkly to himself, Stu just keeps right on driving. Before I can ask the question again, he suddenly slams the car to a skidding stop in the middle of nowhere and points to the side of the road. After relieving myself as quickly as I can in the green and purple bracken and heather, I slide back into the car and off we go again.

That Stu did not particularly like me, I already knew. As I would later learn, none of it was personal. What with my American accent, long hair, beard, blue denim work shirt, and jeans, I simply reminded him of all those dreadful hippies who had persuaded the Stones they would encounter nothing but peace, love, and flowers when they took the stage during the free concert at the Altamont Speedway in northern California in December 1969.

With nothing to do to pass the time but talk as we headed toward Manchester, I started telling Jo Bergman about all the time I had spent backstage at the Apollo Theater in Harlem while doing my master’s thesis on the storied music hall that even for the Stones had always been the high palace of American rhythm and blues. Naming just a few of the performers I had seen there week after week while standing in the wings, I talked about the great Joe Tex, Patti LaBelle, the Five Stairsteps, the Delfonics, and of course, “The Hardest Working Man in Show Business,” “Mr. Dynamite,” “Soul Brother No. 1,” the inimitable James Brown.

Going into far too much detail, I then described the day when the disc jockey who had been scheduled to emcee the first show at the Apollo failed to appear and I suddenly found myself
being shoved toward a backstage microphone on which a list of all the acts had been taped. In a voice I could barely recognize as my own as it boomed through the theater up to the balcony where only winos and glue-heads ever sat for the early show, I then proudly announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Apollo Theater.”

As the legendary rock promoter Bill Graham once said about having won the Wednesday night amateur Latin dance contest at the Palladium Ballroom in New York City, “Why should I ever want to be President of the United States?” Much like him, I also felt like I had already done something better by getting to announce that show at the Apollo one afternoon.

What I did not know at the time was that just like me, both Mick and Keith had made their own obligatory white boy pilgrimage to the Apollo. Journeying up to Harlem on their first visit to New York in 1964, they had watched James Brown do his mad “Jump back, Jack / See you later, alligator,” shimmy on one leg while exhorting the crowd to madness by falling in utter exhaustion to the stage and being led off into the wings wrapped in a purple cape, only to miraculously return once more dancing even harder than before.

The effect of Mick and Keith’s visit to the Apollo can be plainly seen in
Charlie Is My Darling,
the documentary of the Rolling Stones’ tour of Ireland a year later. Perched on one leg as he performed on the bare stage of a movie theater with no theatrical lighting, Mick looked for all the world like a white and skinny version of none other than the great James Brown himself.

The point of all this being that at a time in the music business when all credentials were entirely personal and what mattered
most was whether or not you really loved the music, I had just introduced myself to Ian Stewart as someone whose life had also been irrevocably altered by the power of rhythm and blues.

Never once turning around to look at me, Stu just keeps right on driving with both hands on the wheel and his eyes firmly fixed on the road ahead. Long before he is ready to stop the car again, I say, “Stu, I don’t know how to tell you this but I really have to go to the bathroom again.” This time, his reaction is entirely different. Shaking his head as he begins to laugh, Stu says, “God, you’re just like Brian, ain’t you? He always had to stop as well whenever we were headed somewhere.” And from that moment on, for reasons I did not then understand, I am okay with Stu.

When at long last we pull up in front of the Manchester Free Trade Hall, a gaudy Italian palazzo of a building built in the 1850s, a long-haired freak standing outside the front door is asking everyone who passes by for tickets. Brushing past him, I follow Jo Bergman inside the hall only to find that Keith Richards is already there. Shockingly on time for a change, he sits by himself in a garish, fluorescently lit dressing room, plunking away on a guitar.

With showtime drawing near, Mick sits in a chair staring at himself in a mirror as Bianca, still wearing her outrageous wide-brimmed hat, carefully makes up his eyes. Having finished applying mascara, she then goes to work on his cheeks with a wide brush.

Although the Stones are only twelve minutes late for the first show, a bit of slapstick that could have come right out of the English music hall takes place in the corridor outside their dressing room. Two ancient geezers who look as though they have worked
in this building since the hall was built start talking about why Mick Jagger is not yet onstage.

Like he knows this for a fact, the first ancient geezer says, “E’s ’avin’ a quick jump with his girlfriend before the show.”

“Naw,” the other replies. “E’s ’avin’ his left ball tattooed.”

“His left one? Why’s that?”

Leaning in close, the first one says, “E’s only got one, y’know.”

Decked out in checkered cloth caps, ill-fitting jackets, and trousers that were now much too big for them held up by suspenders, or “braces” as they were called in England, old men just like them could be found backstage wherever the Stones went on this tour. Wizened relics from another age who would not have known one Rolling Stone from another if their lives depended on it, most of them were civil employees who had held their jobs for years and so were not about to do anything that might cost them their weekly pay packet.

Asked to perform even the simplest task before a show, their response was always, “Oh, I can’t do that. It’s more than me job’s worth.” Having somehow managed to survive two world wars as well as the terrible food rationing in England that had kept Ian Stewart from ever getting to eat a banana until he was seven years old, they were all members in good standing of the generation that had always considered the Stones an affront not just to national dignity but moral rectitude as well. Since it was utterly pointless to argue with them about doing anything for the Stones before they performed because it was always more than their job was worth, no one ever even tried.

Onstage before a packed house during the first show in Manchester, Mick Taylor takes two soaring blues solos in “Love in Vain.” After the Stones do a twelve-minute version of “Midnight Rambler,” Jagger attacks Chip Monck with an open bottle of champagne to wish him a happy thirty-second birthday onstage. As always, Mick then ends the show by flinging the basket of flower petals as he leaps into the air.