27: Brian Jones Read Online Free PDF Page A

be a star.
    Meeting the Beatles was psychologically important for the Stones. It also greatly impressed Andrew Loog Oldham, a 19-year-old slick and stylish hustler who had worked on publicity for ‘Love Me Do’, the Beatles’ first single. In partnership with Eric Easton, an old-school manager of such music acts as guitar maestro Bert Weedon, he offered to manage the Rolling Stones.
    At Easton’s offices off Baker Street on 6 May 1963, the Rolling Stones management contract with Oldham and Easton was signed by Brian Jones on behalf of the group for a term of three years. Mick and Keith waited nearby in one of London’s ubiquitous Lyons corner houses. Before Brian signed, he nipped across the road to confer with his compadres. Back with Andrew Loog Oldham and Eric Easton, he made a deal on the side that he would be paid £5 a week more than the other members.
    Radical changes were mooted by the group’s new management team. Eric Easton had only become involved in the project because he wanted to drop Mick Jagger as vocalist, and get in a ‘proper’ singer. At first Brian seemed perfectly amenable to this. According to Bill, there was dark plotting by Brian Jones about this potential change: Stu had overheard Brian telling Easton that Mick’s voice was not strong and they should be careful if they needed him singing every night, and that, if necessary, they should get another singer. ‘As soon as the group started to become in any way successful, Brian smelled money,’ said Bill. ‘He wanted to be a star. He was prepared to do anything that would make it happen and bring in money immediately, whereas Mick and Keith weren’t into that.’ Andrew Loog Oldham, however, was insistent that Mick should remain in the group.
    Yet Stu’s having overheard this was like a portent of his own doom. Andrew had no doubt who it was who should leave the group. The same night that Brian had signed the contract, the Rolling Stones played another live show – at Eel Pie Island just down the Thames from the Station Hotel, the second show of a weekly Wednesday night residency. That evening Andrew Loog Oldham announced to the rest of the group, in the absence of Stu, that Stu could no longer be a member of the Stones. The piano-player, with his prognathous jaw and paternal air, didn’t ‘look right’, he decreed. He instead suggested that Stu should play on the group’s records and become their road manager. Stu did not know about this plot against him.
    Brian and Keith returned together to Edith Grove from Eel Pie Island. Keith told Phelge that they would have to let Stu know that he was no longer a group member. When Stu finally came round to the flat two days later, he was told how his particular land lay. And he agreed to stay on as road manager. All along Brian had promised Stu that he was a sixth of the group. Stu, Phelge thought, seemed on the verge of tears. According to Bill Wyman, Stu now became extremely bitter towards Brian Jones: ‘. . . the tensions between group members began to increase.’ ‘Brian’s relationship with Mick blossomed temporarily, but there was an underlying feeling that ruthless determination was replacing idealism,’ considered Bill. ‘I thought that the “sacking” was a strange way to repay Stu’s incredible loyalty.’
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    In June, the Rolling Stones released their first single, a relatively tepid version of Chuck Berry’s ‘Come On’. Plugging the record on their first Thank Your Lucky Stars television appearance, on 13 July 1963, the Rolling Stones had left the studio and charged the length of England to play at the Alcove Club in Middlesbrough, two hundred and fifty miles to the north. Also on the bill in that tough north-eastern city were the Hollies, a group from Manchester they had never previously heard of who were the headlining act. The immense harmonic competence of the