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| © Ethan Russell |
| Mick Jagger shares a laugh backstage with Chuck Berry, one of the Stones' inspirations, who was among the backup acts on the tour (along with B.B. King, Terry Reid, and Ike and Tina Turner). |
JC: And they hired you to do the Let It Be album cover and booklet?
ER: Well, they hired me to be a photographer for one day, and I said I wouldn't work for one day -- which was like [makes crazy motions and laughs] -- and I said three days. And they said okay, and I went to show those pictures and they were on the sound stage for the early part of the Let It Be filming. And when I went to show those pictures, they were all in the same room together with Billy Preston, and somebody said, "Let's do a book!" And then I was with them every day until filming ended.
JC: Could you tell that they were at the end of their ropes with each other?
ER: Well, yeah, you can see it in the film. I mean, I loved every Beatles record except Let it Be. They were crabby with each other, and it was pretty obvious that it was the absence of Brian Epstein, somebody outside of them to say, "Do this." So McCartney was leaping into the breach, and George and John resented it. McCartney wasn't doing a bad thing, from his point of view -- he felt they needed leadership. But what's remarkable is that these guys were showing up on a sound stage at 8 a.m. in the winter. I mean, musicians, going to work at 8 a.m.!
JC: Did it burst your bubble a little bit, to shoot such big stars and find out it's not as glamorous as you might have thought?
ER: No, because to me it was always -- and it seems to be a point that's often missed -- these people worked hard. To this day, a Stones fanatic might think all they do is shoot drugs, and sort of nod out, and then miraculously tour 80 days a year and make records. It's not without its remarkable quality, I admit, but they work hard. And the Beatles worked hard and I worked hard, and it's really all about work. I was excited to be there, of course, but it was the fact of it that was exciting rather than the experience of it.
JC: The Stones tour was in November of the same year, and you have all these behind-the-scenes images of it. What were these guys like off-stage?
ER: They could be funny, and the events could be funny. But they were different kinds of guys. By all accounts Keith Richards and I should've been tight, because we're very much alike, but we were not. I was always sort of intimidated by Keith, and I don't know why that is. A lot of people I really liked really liked him. And he was not the druggie then that he later became.
JC: Could Keith be intense?
ER: He's intense, but then, so am I. So I don't know ... whereas I got on with Jagger pretty well. Mick was much easier for me, because he's a little more cosmopolitan, and I shared that with him. But then, Mick is very chameleon-like, a very positive person. But also very good at not being pinned.
JC: It seems like Mick would be image-conscious.
ER: Yeah, aware of it but not unpleasant with it. He tends to be able to engage with who he's around. So it's like, Sir Mick here, and Blues Brothers here, he can do them both, which is pretty good, but one wonders where the core is. But it's just that: He's a person who changes his colors as he moves forward. Charlie Watts was always the one -- if you talk to anybody -- he was down to earth. I'd go stay with him at his house and we would talk about furniture and horses. You couldn't believe that somebody who was a Rolling Stone was that down to earth. Was and still is. Brian Jones wasn't with them for long when I was there, but he was pretty messed up.
JC: You shot a series of pictures of Brian at his house -- were those the last pictures made of him?
ER: They weren't the last pictures taken of him because the Rock and Roll Circus was after that. And I shot that. Anyway, I always liked Bill Wyman. Bill's a straightforward guy. His story is generational -- he really is the generation before, he was born in the '30s -- and he said that was really a big difference.
JC: Is that partly why he stopped touring with the Stones?
ER: He did, but I don't think it was because of his age, because he's still out there playing. I think he got uncomfortable traveling that much. But he's still an active guy, and a good guy.
JC: What about Mick Taylor -- did he seem like an odd man out?
ER: Well, he was so quiet. I think musically he was brilliant. But very quiet. I would always try hard, when I would shoot somebody, to pull it out. And I did the first photos of Taylor as a Rolling Stone. But he kept being sort of expressionless, and as a photographer that will drive you crazy. It was such a placid exterior, you don't know what's going on. But a lot of it is, they're musicians. If you want to know what they're about, listen to what they play.
JC: Which is what people were doing ...
ER: It was such a funny time for that. It's like, after a lot of our political leaders were assassinated, musicians ended up filling that void. But they weren't really leaders. There's a line I put in the book's epilog: "We chose musicians as leaders who in turn chose not to be chosen." The musicians didn't really want to be leaders.
JC: They were even resentful -- or at least felt put-upon.
ER: Yeah, when they stopped cashing checks [laughs]. But I don't think they particularly minded the limelight. It just what happened. But they would say over and over, the Stones in particular, they didn't understand what was going on in America. They never did want to play the political game -- they wanted people to dance.
JC: They weren't into the "message"?
ER: No, I think Jagger's an entertainer. But he was writing "Sympathy for the Devil." Which was based on a Russian novel, I later found out, so it was ... it was theater.
JC: They stopped playing that song for years after Altamont. Did you get the feeling that they wanted to retreat?
ER: Well, later Jagger wrote, "It's Only Rock and Roll." You know: Don't put too much stuff on it. And by the time of the '72 tour, it became clearly entertainment. The political bit was over. It was fine for them to retreat, but then what were we going to do as a generation? Because we were so associated with it.
JC: It was like, who do we follow now?
ER: Right, and people sort of drifted. A lot of drugs, and people got into that fog, and there were a lot of drugs for a long time and it didn't really help.
JC: What about the debauchery on the tours -- were you partaking in that?
ER: No, I was a drinker, but I would've been a drinker whether or not I met the Rolling Stones. It's in my family. And I smoked dope -- back then. But I was not a big debaucher. And again, I was working. But THEY got pretty debauched [laughs]. But I wouldn't chase them into a room, or say, show me your tracks. And they wouldn't want me to do that either.
JC: Bill Wyman talked to you for the book -- did other group members?
ER: Mick Taylor did. Jagger was approached, and we're still approaching him, but for the moment, no. I thought Keith and Charlie would participate, but the Rhino people felt they would get Mick and then it would kick in, and at the end of the day it didn't. But they're all in the book because others talk so much about them. I'd love to talk to Jagger about what he was thinking. It was clear that he was frightened out of his wits at Altamont, and he should've been. I don't know that he ever will talk about it.
With all the people I interviewed, I said: I want you to tell me about what it was like for you, as a human being. Not as a Rolling Stone, and not as the driver for the Rolling Stones, but as who you were and what it was like for you to be there. And what were you thinking when you do this?
JC: How do YOU answer that question? What was it like for you?
ER: When we started the tour I was prepared not to like it -- but I did like it. I got used to going to the shows, and I got great access, and I could be on stage and people would rush up -- and it was very exciting. But the ones who really get the payoff in that are the musicians, because they're looking at that and playing music, and the energy was tremendous and the music was amazing. So I felt great about it. I didn't like being on the road or being in motel rooms in the middle of nowhere. And Altamont, of course, was horrible -- it had a horrible vibe and it was scary. But the tour itself was great. I liked the people. Some of them were really good friends, still are, and I still love the Stones. We had a good time.
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