The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones
The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones
Stanley Booth, a member of the Rolling Stones’ inner circle, met the band just a few months before Brian Jones drowned in a swimming pool in 1968. He lived with them throughout their 1969 American tour, staying up all night together listening to blues, talking about music, ingesting drugs, and consorting with groupies. His thrilling account culminates with their final concert at Altamont Speedwaya nightmare of beating, stabbing, and killing that would signal the end of a generation’s dreams of peace and freedom. But while this book renders in fine detail the entire history of the Stones, paying special attention to the tragedy of Brian Jones, it is about much more than a writer and a rock band. It has been calledby Harold Brodkey an
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The World’s Greatest Rock and Roll BOOK,
Okay, I am a huge fan of classic rock and punk music and I have a great time searching for new rock biographies, histories and memoirs to read. The Stones are one of the three bands I consider to be the “holy trinity” of British rock music (along with the Beatles and the Clash) and, after collecting 41 different albums of their music (yeegads!) I picked up a copy of this book, simply because I had heard it was good from another Stones fan.
What an understatement that turned out to be. “The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones” is not only the best book on rock ‘n’ roll I have yet read, and there have been many, it is also one of my top five books. Ever. As another reviewer already already stated, this book is many different things rolled into one. It is a deeply interesting document of the Stones’ 1969 American tour (which included both Altamont and the recording of ‘Get Yer Ya-Yas Out!’ at Madison Square Garden). It is also a precise history of the band up to the point of its writing, a dreary and drug-soaked eulogy for the ’60s and a deeply personal journal from the pen of Stanley Booth.
There isn’t really anything else like this book. Unlike many rock biographers, Booth did not base his book on sketchy interviews and the “facts” presented in other people’s books. He traveled with the Stones on the ’69 tour and writes the story from his own point of view. This creates a very interesting situation for the reader because you get to see the Stones’ world from Booth’s eyes: as an outsider looking in. Each one of the Stones are captured beautifully through dialog and actions that Booth witnessed. You get to see everything from Keith’s wry sense of humor to Mick’s complexities as he tries to befriend Booth and keep him at arm’s length all at once.
I can’t stress to you how much you need to read this book if you are a Stones fan. As I read it, I was constantly stopping to admire the incredible writing of Stanley Booth. When you read this book, you will get to know him just as well as you get to know the Stones. With so many rock biographies written by hacks with no clue, “The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones” is a diamond in the rough. Buy it.
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|Why in tarnation is this book out of print?,
I read this book well over ten years ago, and while it is not fresh on my mind, I can say with certainty that it’s the best rock bio (or, more accurately, rock group’s history) I’ve ever read. From the formatioin of the Stones to Brian Jones’s death to the horror of Altamont, this book is completely engrossing and satisfying. But it isn’t merely a biography or a fan’s droolings; Booth has a great sense of sanity among all the insanity, and he is appreciative and critical at various points. Booth’s persona is, I think, honest and even amiable. I consulted amazon.com to try and order it; while I’m not completely surprised to find that it’s out of print, I’m saddened by the fact. I wish some publisher would lift it out of oblivion.
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|The World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Book,
Talk about a masterpiece; this is one! Stanley Booth was a struggling rock journalist who managed, through persistent effort and good timing, to land a regular slot on the 1969 “Let It Bleed” tour of the Rolling Stones across these United States. What was supposed to be a simple, intelligent chronicle of a rock band’s work became a chilling time capsule of the end of an era, and possibly, of a dream as well, when the band’s disastrous appearance at the Altamont concert rang down the curtain on the Sixties hippie dream of world peace and brotherhood. This is not just a book detailing the Stones’ many misadventures with the law, with drugs, with reckless groupies and sycophants and promoters, as you might expect; nor it is simply a grisly blow-by-blow of the tragic events of that December night in the northern California wilderness, when a vicious pack of Hells’ Angels stabbed a young concertgoer to death, literally a few feet from where Mick Jagger sang “Gimme Shelter” and “Sympathy for the Devil” as Keith Richards and the other Stones churned out those classic songs behind him. You will find those contents in here, but they are only a fraction of the treasures this book contains. (Booth freely admits that his womanizing during this tour cost him his marriage, and he is as unsparing in his critiques of the Stones, whom he truly loves, as he is towards his own failings.) You can almost see, hear, feel the chaos, the majesty, the confusion, and the power of the events he’s describing; each character comes wonderfully to life, through his use of interwoven, somewhat kaleidoscopic scene changes, flashbacks and flash-forwards, stream of consciousness and grimly bare-boned narrative. Brilliant, hilarious, loathsome, mesmerizing, harrowing, glorious…many such adjectives could apply to the events and personalities depicted in this epic book of rock excess and human misadventure. I’d like to write another review, just so I could give it five more reviews – it’s that good!
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