27: Brian Jones Read Online Free PDF Page B

entitled to this extra payment. Everybody freaked out. That was the beginning of the decline of Brian. We said, “Fuck you.”’
    Anxious for a new song, the Stones had covered a Lennon-McCartney tune, ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’, for their second single, released in November 1963. But the success of the Liverpudlian songwriting team had fired the ambitions of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards – and motivated the mind of Andrew Loog Oldham. The first fruits of Mick and Keith’s efforts to emulate Lennon and McCartney were essayed at Regent Sound on 20 and 21 November. The Stones recorded demos of six songs written by the pair at Mapesbury Road. They included ‘That Girl Belongs to Yesterday’, which soon became a hit when recorded by Gene Pitney. Tucked in at the end of the sessions was another song, ‘Sure I Do’, one of two numbers demoed by the Stones that bore the credit ‘B. Jones’. No other artist, however, picked up Brian’s song.
    At the end of January the Stones went back to Regent Sound to record ‘Not Fade Away’. Armed with glasses of Scotch and Coke, the group transformed the session into a party. Buddy Holly’s ‘Not Fade Away’ had a Bo Diddley-like arrangement – the Stones took it and emphasized that beat, with Keith on acoustic guitar, Brian on harmonica and Stu on piano. Alan Clarke and Graham Nash of the Hollies, whose crafted harmonies had inspired the Stones to import something similar into their own sound, were on back-up vocals, and Phil Spector, the most revered of record producers, was shaking maracas. With Mick Jagger, Spector also came up with ‘Little by Little’, the B-side, a song they dashed off at the session, which was credited to Phelge-Spector. Spector’s presence certainly added sharper focus to both songs; although Andrew Loog Oldham was nominally at the production helm, the Stones essentially had their third single, a blast of high-end energy, produced by the most visionary pop music producer of the day.
    Four days after recording ‘Not Fade Away’, with Brian Jones on the tune’s distinctive harmonica parts, the Stones returned to Regent Sound studio on 25 February 1964 and recorded three more songs, including ‘Good Times, Bad Times’, a song which Mick and Keith had written. Brian was visibly disturbed that this was a Jagger-Richards composition. Although he was writing in Windsor, Brian never showed the rest of the group his material – his inferiority complex was too great. ‘It was a pivotal moment in Regent Sound when Mick and Keith presented their first wares for the Stones to record,’ said Andrew Loog Oldham in his autobiography Stoned .
    Soon the Rolling Stones were off on their fourth tour of the UK, one that ran from 1 April to 31 May 1964. For two shows in Bristol the Stones played with the magnificent, black leather-clad Gene Vincent. Perhaps a harbinger of coming events, Brian missed the first Bristol show.
    On 26 April 1964 James Phelge went round to Mapesbury Road, for a trip to Wembley’s Empire Pool, where the Rolling Stones were performing at the annual New Musical Express Poll-Winners’ Concert. At the flat he told Keith that Brian had complained that he and Mick wouldn’t consider recording any of his songs. Keith laughed, calling out this news to Mick in the kitchen: ‘Fuckin’ Jonesey’s been moaning to Phelge that we won’t record his songs. Fuckin’ typical.’
    â€˜They’re fuckin’ crap,’ called out Mick.
    â€˜Everything he writes ends up sounding like a fuckin’ hymn. They’re all dirges of doom. You’d need a fuckin’ Welsh choir to record ’em,’ continued Keith.
    In May 1964 Keith started going out with Linda Keith, a top British model. Brian’s response to Keith’s first proper relationship was to behave with extreme pettiness. One night on tour Keith