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| Lazy Bones |
STONES SNAPPED!
A collection of THE ROLLING STONES' most intimate photos are to published in an extremely limited edition book.
'Stu'- limited to 950 leather-bound copies - compiles the photos and the tales of one of the band's founding members, Ian Stewart, who stepped out of the spotlight in 1963. He continued to be The Stones's pianist and road manager until his death following a stroke in 1985.
The book will be privately published by Out-Take Limited and will also include more than 500 illustrations, including rarely seen photos of the band at work and at play.
According to Rollingstone.com, guitarist Keith Richards says about Stewart in the book: "It was basically his band."
Stewart is best known for playing on such Stones records as 'Aftermath' and 'Let It Bleed' right through until 'Emotional Rescue' in 1983. He also played on Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti, Pete Townshend's 'Rough Mix' as well as blues legend Howlin' Wolf's 'The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions'.
For information about 'Stu' contact out-take.co.uk |
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| MarthaMyDear |
Another article on the Stu book (sorry if posted before but can be deleted by admins, etc., if you want... Or just tell me to delete it, etc.!!!  ):
Then there were six
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,1183498,00.html
Despite being dropped from the Rolling Stones, founder member Ian Stewart remained a steadying influence - and roadie - for the band until his early death in 1985. Richard Williams examines a new book that pays tribute to him
Saturday April 3, 2004
The Guardian
For almost a quarter of a century, until his untimely death in 1985, Ian Stewart kept the Rolling Stones honest. In the early days he drove the van, humped the gear, set it up, checked the power supply, told them when it was time to go on stage and let them know when a performance had fallen below the standards he expected of them.
Ian Stewart (foreground) and Mick Jagger. Photo: Ian Stewart Collection/ Out-Take
He did those things when he was still a member of the band, pumping out muscular blues and boogie-woogie piano while they played the songs of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley to their original audience of a few dozen. And even after they removed him from the line-up at the behest of an ambitious manager who could see a future of stadiums and limousines, he continued to fulfil a role that was part older brother, part father confessor, part friendly uncle.
"OK, my little three-chord wonders, you're on," he would say, as the curtain went up anywhere from Aylesbury Granada to Madison Square Garden. "It was," Charlie Watts remembers, "a levelling thing to say to someone who's had a number one that week."
Now, with the Stones touring the world every couple of years and grossing hundreds of millions of dollars in the process, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger are in no doubt about the enduring nature of Stewart's influence. "The fact is that he's still on stage with us every night," Richards says. "We have great fun," Jagger adds, "knowing that we do some things that he didn't like, as well as some things that he did."
In the words of a friend, Stewart was "an ordinary person in extraordinary surroundings", which makes the form and content of Stu, a privately published, limited-edition book devoted to tributes from his friends and associates, all the more remarkable.
More than 400 large-format pages contain not just previously unseen pictures from all stages of the group's evolution, many of them taken by Stewart himself, but also a selection of his memorabilia, including diary pages and set lists from the early days. Printed on fine paper and bound in Nigerian goatskin, each of the 950 copies will cost the equivalent of more than �1 a page.
The most unpretentious of men, devoted to golf, ale, well-hung meat, cars and steam trains as well as music, Stewart might have found it all a bit over the top. But to those who remember how he got his wish that his vast contribution to the Stones should go unnoticed outside their inner circle, a little excess at this point might not go amiss, particularly since it contains such rich new anecdotal evidence from a time and place whose allure remains apparently undimmed.
As a 23-year-old clerk in ICI's shipping department, he used the office phone to summon Jagger and Richards to auditions in Soho in 1961 and persuaded Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman to give up better paid engagements to join the outfit. It was, Richards says, "Stu's band".
Long before Andrew Loog Oldham took over their management, Stewart understood that the sexual magnetism of Jagger, Richards and Brian Jones needed to be stabilised by a rhythm team made up of older and more experienced men who could hit a groove and not let it go.
His knowledge of blues and jazz were at the core of the group's early repertoire as he taught the callow youngsters about the work of such giants as Meade Lux Lewis, Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell. "When those names came out of Stu's mouth," Richards says, "it was poetry." He could put his passion to good use, too. "When he was playing," Jagger notes, "the band always swung a lot harder."
For Stewart, and for others in the Thames delta of the early 1960s, the music was a passion and a calling, imposing its own rules and restraints. Jeff Beck, a younger member of the circle, called him "Mr Blues" and says: "He actually made you feel guilty about thinking about liking any other kind of music."
Once Jagger and Richards had started writing original material, encouraged by Oldham, to whom rhythm and blues meant "something that never went above No 45 in the Top 50," Stewart refused to play on songs containing what he called "Chinese chords" - anything, in fact, that wasn't recognisably grounded in old-style R&B.
Not long after Oldham took them on, it was agreed that Stu would have to go. "Look," the 18-year-old manager told the others, "from the first time I saw you I felt... I can only see... five Rolling Stones." His point was this: who remembered the individuals within the overpopulated ranks of the Tornados or Emile Ford and the Checkmates?
What he was really saying, however, was that Stu looked wrong, and the rest of the group could only agree, somewhat shamefacedly. Next to the wispily androgynous front men, the pianist was a burly figure with hair swept back in a distinctly 1950s style. "He didn't look like the other guys," Keith's mum remembers fondly, and indeed he had no interest in wardrobe issues.
When their first records were released, all the Stones (like the Beatles) were wearing jackets and ties, but whereas the rest of them contrived to do so with the air of a Delon or a Belmondo, Stu still resembled a shipping clerk.
Luckily for the rest of the Stones, he took the news of his ejection without fuss or bother. He agreed to stay on, loading the gear into the battered pink VW bus and driving from Lowestoft to Aberystwyth in a day, for instance, or setting off for Germany with a broken starter motor before replacing frayed guitar strings or doggedly setting up Charlie's drums the way he himself would play them. "I never ever swore at him," Watts says, with rueful amazement.
Once the group's social circle started to widen, Stewart became an increasingly anomalous figure. His existence surprised newcomers who had no idea of the crucial nature of the work done by this unprepossessing figure in ensuring that the Stones could tour the world in the right conditions and with the right equipment.
Yet although he had nothing but contempt for the likes of Truman Capote and Andy Warhol, he recognised that Jagger and Richards were also part of that world. As long as he could book the band into a hotel near a championship golf course, he was happy.
The group's formidable intake of drugs left him untouched, although he was never censorious. "I think he looked upon it as a load of silliness," Mick Taylor, who replaced Jones as the group's lead guitarist, said. "I also think it was because he saw what had happened to Brian. I could tell from the expression on his face when things started to get a bit crazy during the making of Exile on Main Street. I think he found it very hard. We all did."
His insider-outsider status made him a particular comfort to the women who passed through the Stones' world in those years. Anita Pallenberg, Astrid Lundstrom, Jerry Hall and others testify to the importance of his imperturbable, non-judgmental presence. Marianne Faithfull recalls his "tremendous tolerance and compassion" for their behaviour.
"He was also one of the few people who could say what he thought," she says. "He was very funny about Mick, which was terribly good for me, to get another perspective and see how funny it all was. Stu understood us both. I think he could see in me something that didn't really appear until later, which was a sort of decent side."
The Stones themselves loved his prickly refusal to compromise his own opinions or values, and his inability to suffer fools lightly. While they floated on the swirling breezes of fashion and experiment, he represented a core of integrity. His closeness to Richards and Watts, in particular, shines through these pages.
"Some of the things that I stick to now are only because of the way Stu stuck to his guns," Richards says. "I want to keep these guys together. Stu started it, and I'll finish it."
� Stu, compiled and edited by Will Nash, is published by Out-Take, price �570. www.out-take.co.uk
Related article
11.10.2002: Richard Williams on seeing the Rolling Stones for the first time
Useful link
Rolling Stones official site
*** Martha ***
[Edited by MarthaMyDear] |
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