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| Scot Rocks |
I read this in the Sunday Times a couple of days ago and forgot to post it, another Mick and Bowie incident, which has been shown to be inconclusive or is it just pure shite as we say here in these parts....
August 18, 2002
Mick�s night with manager hits his image below belt
Richard Brooks, Arts Editor
SIR MICK JAGGER has become the latest rock star of his generation to have his once-unchallenged womanising credentials examined.
The memoirs of Andrew Loog Oldham, the rock manager who honed and promoted the bad-boy image of Jagger and his fellow Rolling Stones, reveals that he once spent the night in bed with the legendary lothario.
The incident occurred in London in 1964, the year of Not Fade Away, the Stones� first Top 10 entry. Oldham says in his book that the pair were found �cuddled up� in bed together by his mother, who was none too pleased.
Experts on the Stones point out that Oldham and Jagger cultivated a sexually ambiguous image to help them get on in the rock world.
Jagger is not the only ageing rock star to have recently had his nocturnal activities raked over. Last month Pete Townshend, the guitarist with the Who, told how he had sex with two men �consciously� and with another �unconsciously� during his drug-fuelled years.
Worse, perhaps, Rod Stewart�s current girlfriend Penny Lancaster told the press he was having trouble keeping up with her sexual demands.
Jagger�s past is related in 2Stoned, to be published next month. It is the first time Oldham has described his role with the band from 1964 to 1967.
Although the bed-sharing shocked Oldham�s mother, he insisted this weekend from his home in Bogota, Colombia, that the episode had �no gay connection to it at all�.
He said his mother objected mainly because she did not like Jagger. �She preferred Keith (Richards, another of the Stones) because she�d seen him be kind to her dogs,� he said.
2Stoned relates how Oldham was close to Jagger: �We had the same wonder, awe and conspiracy as to what we were about. We seemed to be getting our way with the world.�
Oldham admits the closeness between him and Jagger �created gossip and innuendo from many and questions even from our respective girlfriends (Sheila Klein and Chrissie Shrimpton). Sheila would say that she had to shout louder to get my attention when I was with Mick, yet always knew there were some things Mick couldn�t give me.�
Stephen Davis, whose Old Gods Almost Dead is the latest biography of the Stones, agreed there was �a faux gayness� to Oldham and Jagger. �You kind of had to as a manager in those days,� he said. �So many, like Brian Epstein and Kit Lambert of the Who, actually were gay.�
Oldham�s memoirs describe how he was also close friends with Richards. By contrast, he found it difficult to work with Brian Jones, who regarded himself as the founder of the Stones. Oldham first spotted them playing in Richmond, west London, in April 1963.
�Brian may have been the founder but that did not influence my agenda,� he writes. �The Rolling Stones and I may have been childishly cruel to Brian on occasions, but he asked for it.� Jones left the group in 1969 and died weeks later.
The other members of the Stones receive less attention in the book. Oldham was indifferent to Bill Wyman but liked and admired Charlie Watts for leading a more �normal� life.
2Stoned, which follows Stoned, the first part of Oldham�s memoirs published in 2000, also looks at the band�s excesses of drink, drugs and girls. Oldham�s own life was ruined by drugs until he came off them in 1995.
The memoirs discuss Oldham�s friendship with Marianne Faithfull, whose first hit, As Tears Go By, he produced. It also describes how he fell out with the Stones during the making of the 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request, which led to him leaving them.
�You have to say Oldham was a brilliant entrepreneurial manager,� said Davis. �As soon as he had seen those lips of Mick back at that hotel gig in Richmond, he knew they would sell concert tickets and records.�
Cheers
Mark |
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