There Goes Gravity: A Life in Rock and Roll

by Robinson, Lisa

  *

  People were afraid of Keith, which appeared to suit him just fine. It was a successful method of keeping everyone at a distance. His addictions, vampire hours, elusiveness—all were intimidating. He was a world unto himself, surrounded by reggae music, the exotic beauty Anita Pallenberg, their five-year-old son Marlon, Ronnie Wood, Freddie Sessler and assorted sidekicks. On off days, while Mick toured the colonial houses of Charleston, South Carolina, Keith would do god knows what in his sequestered, incense-suffused, darkened rooms. He’d stay awake for days at a time. He lurched out of the car onto the plane. He swirled into the backstage tuning room. But then, out of the depths of what seemed to be a deep stupor, he would walk onstage and was all swing, all muscle, every night. Years later, Keith would tell me, “My life then basically was, do I have the dope to start this day off? Can I make it until the next fix? You think you’re in this elite club. You could be wallowing in the gutter and think, I’m elite. It was an adventurous experiment that went on too long.”

  *

  Whether they sold the most albums or not, and mostly they did not, the sort of royal status accorded the Stones was unparalleled. The only thing that could have challenged it was if the Beatles ever decided to get back together. But John Lennon told me many times over the next five years that he wouldn’t do it. He was having more fun, he said, working with Yoko, and also, he said, the Beatles could never live up to everyone’s expectations. Looking at photos of the Stones’ 1975 tour now, everyone looks so young. And compared to the tours of today, that 1975 Stones tour was done literally on the fly, by the seat of Peter Rudge’s pants. The band stuck to the songs that got the best response: “Rip This Joint,” “Brown Sugar,” “Tumbling Dice,” “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Street Fighting Man.” In one of our interviews, Mick told me that they didn’t do new songs in concerts because “It always dies a death. Really, the kids just sit there and stare. Then of course, when you come back the next time, they scream for the stuff they didn’t respond to the last time around.”

  *

  That summer of 1975, from Sunday, June 1st, to Friday, August 8th, there were forty-five Stones shows in twenty-seven cities. Very little escaped my tape recorder, or my pink Beverly Hills Hotel note pads. I blatantly stuck that tape recorder right in people’s faces all the time. But I wouldn’t jot things down in front of anyone. Instead, I’d race into a bathroom or someplace around a corner and furiously scribble down what someone said, what I saw, what was going on. I did make note of the fact that it was strange to wake up and see Mick Jagger and Keith Richards every day. To this day, those notes are surprisingly legible, kept in separate envelopes labeled for each city on the tour, in one of six storage spaces that house the photographs, notes and memorabilia from my four decades of experiences in rock and roll. During the concerts, Annie’s camera was always focused on Mick. All my pink pads are filled with notes about Keith onstage. Because he was so elusive, he became more interesting to me. In interview terms, he was the harder “get.” Mick did much more of the business work, of course, and as the frontman, he was the face of the band. But by the very nature of his mystery, Keith was the one I always watched in concert. I’d occasionally watch Mick and admire the way he’d draw out a word—like “soooohhh-daaa” in “Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Or, I’d cringe at one of his self-conscious, awkward, interpretive dance routines. But within minutes, I’d once again be fixated on Keith. At the indoor arena shows, I stood in the photographers’ pit, and I’d look up. For someone who was supposedly always so stoned at that time—certainly he’s owned up to it—Keith’s entire performance, his direction and control of the band appeared effortless. Every so often, I’d take a break and wander around backstage, holding an open bottle of white wine—my drink of choice that summer. But if I was backstage, and heard the strains of “Happy,” the song that Keith sang at every show, I’d say to Freddie Sessler, “Let’s go—it’s Keith’s song.” And Freddie would reply, “Are you kidding? They’re all Keith’s songs.”

  *

  When the band was in Los Angeles for a week in July for several shows at the L.A. Forum, Lorna Luft followed Bianca around the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Finally Bianca said, “I find it strange that all we ever talk about is me.” Annie said that Mick and Bianca seemed “madly in love,” adding, “That’s one of the best marriages I know,” and it might have been. Mick told me, “From what I’ve seen, your articles aren’t bitchy enough. Aren’t you going to put in my remarks about Robert Plant?” I mentioned that I wrote something nice about Bianca. “You should write something bitchy about her,” Mick said. “She’s very rude to people. If I have a photo session I don’t make people wait for four hours, and she does that all the time.” The phones in the band’s office at the hotel rang nonstop with celebrity ticket requests. Ryan O’Neal declined tickets when he was told he’d have to pay for them. A meeting was held to draw up a guest list for the party that Diana Ross and her then-husband Bob Ellis—Ronnie Wood’s manager—were giving for the band. Their party, at their big white house in Beverly Hills, was the first time I ever saw people set up bathrooms outside, on the back lawn, with no one allowed in the house. The guest list included Barry Diller, George Harrison, Berry Gordy, Sonny Bono, Lou Adler, Ron Kass, Joan Collins, Candice Bergen, Sara Dylan, Joan Didion, Elliott Gould, Sue Mengers, Elton John, Bette Midler, Cat Stevens, Ronee Blakley, Garry Trudeau, the Billy Wilders, the Neil Diamonds, the Swifty Lazars—Stones fans all. After awhile, Keith and Woody got fed up with the idea of using a portable toilet, went inside and started playing pool. Everyone followed. Back at the hotel at three a.m., Keith Moon was on the phone in the tour office. George Harrison wandered around looking for Mick.

  *

  On a night off (which meant no show) in L.A., we all went to see Bob Marley and the Wailers at the Roxy on Sunset Strip. Bill Graham had organized the outing and reserved the balcony for the Stones and their guests. He looked as proud and happy as the father at a bar mitzvah. Bill, the flamboyant rock promoter who had escaped Nazi Germany, could be a bully. He yelled. He was often in a purple rage. He could be really scary. To me, he was smart and tough and hilarious; a total mensch who became a beloved friend. None of us had ever seen anyone perform quite like Marley—an inspired, stoned shaman. People were screaming. I taped his set on my ever-present Sony cassette tape recorder and the tape still sounds great today. We lined up tequila shots along the edge of the balcony and Annie and I probably had about ten each. The next day she realized she’d left all of her cameras at the club.

  *

  Freddie Sessler was having a barbecue at his house at 1981 North Coldwater Canyon, where Keith had taken up residence for the L.A. stay. On the mantle at Freddie’s house were enlarged photos, taken by Annie, of Mick and Freddie, and Keith wrapped in paisley sheets with a rifle on the floor of his bedroom. It was late in the afternoon on a show day, and Freddie was trying to get rid of two girls who were waiting for Keith to wake up. One, a blonde, was wearing patchwork leather jeans and a matching jacket. She sat on a small amp she brought with her and played a Chuck Berry song on guitar. Keith reeled downstairs. Wearing a mustard-colored leather jacket and pants, which he probably had slept in, he muttered hello to the girl, whom he’d apparently agreed to meet. She had written a letter saying she was a great guitarist, and added that she was a great fuck. Keith executed his trademark swirlaround and fled out of the room, out of the house and into a waiting car while she shouted, “I just want to strut. I know if I played with them it would take them into a whole other thing. They would dig it. I’ve jammed with Fanny. Isis asked me to be their guitar player. I’m not a groupie. I’m not impressed. I’m a player. I thought I was at least going to jam with them.”

  I accompanied Keith in the car to the Forum. I turned my tape recorder on and Keith talked in his trademark slur, which I was able to decipher later on by speeding up the tape. “For me, the band is only alive if it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doi
ng,” he said, “which is to play in front of a lot of people—and then to sell a few records on the side.” With Keith, it was kind of like that old joke: I didn’t really know how stoned he was until I saw him sober, and that would be years later. Listening back to those 1975 tapes now, there was a high degree of slurred words. And yet, when I asked him then if he was taking care of himself, he said, “I couldn’t possibly be able to be two hours on a stage if I didn’t take care.” When I said that people worry about him, he replied, “They should worry about themselves. I haven’t heard much about that on this trip, actually.” That’s because you and Ronnie smile a lot at each other onstage, I told him. “Well,” he said, “does a smile mean you’re healthy? I mean you can be dying of cancer and raise a smile occasionally.”

  Several years later I would “meet” the unaddicted, lucid, hilarious, clever, and shy man that is the real Keith Richards. We talked many times. He’d often be scathing, always brutally honest. He referred to Mick as a “nice bunch of guys,” and would either be getting along with his oldest friend and bandmate or not. Obviously, after the publication of Keith’s best-selling book, with its barbs at Mick, there was tension. But if Keith hurt Mick with that book, Mick hurt him over the years too. I clearly remember that, in the 1980s, when Keith got off heroin and was ready to actively participate in band business, he told me he felt unwelcome. Understandably, Mick had a point: in addition to enjoying the control, he had carried that burden almost singlehandedly for years. Even in the 1980s, when one or more of the band members were having problems staying sober, I asked Mick if they were planning a tour. He replied, “Tour?? They can’t cross the Champs-Elysées, much less go on tour.” But in 1975, Stu told me, “Keith cares basically about the music, and he can’t be bothered to go to any of these meetings. If we’re not recording or on tour, the phone in the office will go all day, every day, with accountants and lawyers who have to speak to Mick immediately. The others care, but they have neither the ability or the desire to be involved. Mick never stops. He’s always on top of something on behalf of the other four. I sometimes wonder why he takes on all the responsibility of the Rolling Stones.”

  *

  In 1975, both the rock press and the “real” press attempted to analyze the Stones’ deep, dark impact. Some of the writeups were nonsensical. Mick told me that he never read any of the analytical ones; he just looked at the pictures on the front page. One of my favorite “reviews” was from San Francisco which was, and I quote: “The great thing about Mick Jagger is that he knows the audience knows that he knows that they know he’s great.” Unusually forthcoming with me during the 1975 tour, Mick would still skirt questions and affect a modest, blasé air. I asked him how he felt being thought of as the world’s greatest rock star. “I don’t consider myself the best rock star,” he said, “and I never have.” When I asked the obvious follow-up question—who then, was the best—he replied, “There are a lot of people who are very good, but since I’m not really interested in white rock and roll, I don’t ever see them. But I’m sure there are people who are better than I am. There must be, because I’m not very good. I don’t really care, and I don’t consider myself the best at what I do, and I wouldn’t worry if people said I wasn’t, and in fact, people have said that I’m not. The Rolling Stones have never said they were the best rock and roll band. Find me a quote that says we said we were.” Well, I told him, you may not think you are, but Robert Plant not only said he thought Zeppelin was the best rock and roll band in the world, he felt that they were so much better than whoever was Number Two. “Well,” said Mick, “he may be right.”

  *

  In San Francisco, Bill Graham wore a “Bill Graham Presents: Israel in Concert” t-shirt. Mick wore a big jeweled pin, pink jacket, red gloves and matching shoes, red tank top, red and white batik pajamas, a silver belt, rhinestone bracelet, white socks and a blue denim cap. All at once. In Buffalo, a bunch of us put on rubber raincoats and went to look at Niagara Falls. Peter joked: “For christ’s sake, don’t show this to Jagger, he’ll want it onstage.” In Denver, Elton John, who was recording at the nearby Caribou Ranch, wanted to join the band onstage. (“Only if he gives us a Rembrandt each,” Keith said.) After some to-ing and fro-ing, it was decided that Elton would sit in on piano onstage for “Honky Tonk Women.” He did, then continued to play, to the obvious displeasure of Keith, who looked like he was ready to kick him offstage. (“It was strange that he just stayed up there,” Stu told me later. “Especially since he seemed to have no idea of the chord changes.”)

  I was the recipient of a variety of unusual pranks: in Toronto, someone put a live frog in my portable typewriter. In one city, my bed was full of ice cubes. Another time, eggs. A frog appeared in my purse. To this day, I still don’t know where they got the frog, or who did all this. I always suspected it was a combo of Alan Dunn, Christopher Sykes, and maybe Mick—especially when a mattress was nailed to my hotel room door in Buffalo, with dozens of hamburgers put in between the door and the mattress so that when I opened the door, the hamburgers all fell down. And no, even with the shows and the fucking and the drugs and the fine dining and the wine drinking, Mick didn’t always have anything better to do. Especially in Buffalo. The boredom of the travel and the hotels eventually got to everyone.

  In one of our talks during that tour, Mick told me, “I try to be in control of my ego, because I’ve seen myself go off the rails on tours. I start ordering people around, I get really . . . difficult to deal with. I’m not moody on tours; I just like to be on my own sometimes. Just like an hour a day, apart from the time that I’m asleep. And even when you’re asleep you’re not always on your own, you’re with some girl. When you’re on a big tour, the more you can relax, whatever method you use to do that, the better it is. Because when you’re trying to make it, all your energy is put into trying to make it. Then you realize you have to spend a lot of time cooling out. You have to be calm and effective and all your judgments are balanced because after a while the pressure gets so much that a lot of bands just freak out on the road.”

  In an undated tape that probably was after that 1975 tour, Keith talked to me about ego. “To put yourself up on that stage,” he said, “you’ve got to have enormous ego. But it’s what you do with it in your spare time. You can bloat it or put it to sleep; forget about it or just live with it. Unfortunately, with a lot of people, it just takes over. You see it a thousand times, especially in this business. You can just watch somebody who’s a good guitar player or singer or piano player become somebody who believes all their press clippings in six months.”

  • • •

  Six shows were scheduled for Madison Square Garden in June of 1975. The New York press would finally get to see the giant onstage inflatable cock. In certain cities there were threats that the band would be arrested for it, but it never happened. Then again, perhaps Peter Rudge spread that threat to create a bit more drama. Since Mick didn’t play guitar, he loved having something to play with onstage—a belt, a bucket of water, an inflatable cock balloon. I can only imagine the meetings that went into the concept and construction of this cornball prop. This was the side of Mick that I never quite got—along with the glitter on his eyelids and the abstract expressionist dance steps and freezing into yoga poses mid-song. He started to try too hard. Gone were those inspired, stuttering James Brown dance steps that to this day, Keith still says Mick can do on a coffee table.

  During the 1975 tour I asked Mick if he thought he was a good dancer. “No,” he said, “not really. I didn’t dance until I was nineteen or twenty. I was so nervous. I’m hopeless at steps, I couldn’t waltz and I wasn’t good at a quickstep, which my mum taught me. The waltz, two-step and fox-trot . . . you had to know how to do all that by the age of twelve to be socially acceptable. The Beatles just stood there and played, but I didn’t have a guitar, I had to do something else. When I started singing, I used to consistently hit the wrong key. But the important thing about singi
ng is to get the personality across, fuck the notes.”

  *

  Bob Dylan showed up backstage at one of the Garden shows and Mick—who was constantly teasing me about writing about all of their clothes—came over to me and whispered, “Lisa, Bob Dylan is wearing a blue and white striped shirt, slightly dirty at the top, and a black leather jacket with beige pants and, I’m sorry, I don’t remember the shoes.” After the first Garden show, there was a party at Camilla and Earl McGrath’s apartment. Earl was Ahmet Ertegun’s best friend and the president of Rolling Stones Records, and their parties were always fantastic—with Camilla’s high-Italian sensibility and an assortment of friends that at any given time could include Harrison Ford (then a carpenter and struggling actor), Larry Rivers, Bryan Ferry, Jim Carroll, Stephen Bruton. In attendance at this after-show party for the Stones were Diana Vreeland, Lee Radziwill, John Phillips, Genevieve Waite, Andy Warhol, and Peter Wolf with his then-wife Faye Dunaway. After the socialites left, around five a.m., there was a jam session in the master bedroom with Keith, Mick, John, Woody and Eric Clapton. Annie got photos of that too.