Co-host (24:30)
Mick Jagger was in the basement, the dank, dusty makeshift recording studio Keith had cobbled together to record their new album in. It was as dark down here as the debauchery upstairs in the living quarters. Mick wanted no part of what was going on up there. He was down here with Charlie, Bill and the other Mick, banging around an old blues that stank of desperation, hoping to inspire Keith to join them and get something down on tape. But the jam without Keith was obviously uninspired and besides, Keith was obviously preoccupied. Johnny Braces had made the connection. And finally it's what Keith and Anita were waiting for. A connection to Weight. Serious dope. Enough heroin to fuel Nelcott for a month at a time. $9,000 worth. The Corsicans had come through for Johnny, which was a relief. Had they not, Johnny would have been out serious bread and with little recourse. These Corsicans were a nasty lot. Big and intimidating. They sweat Tropicana and their glands released a scent that could only be described as a mix of cheap cologne, hand rolled tobacco and feta cheese. Their gold chains and sweat stained Dax summer suits screamed nouveau drug money while the bulges along their waistbands screamed indiscriminate murder for hire. Riviera cowboys every bit as outlaw as the tax exiles and junkie hangers on sitting across the table from them. They fit right in. But Johnny Braces was worried. The Corsicans might have a look around the mansion and realized there was a bigger score to be had than the nine grand a month in dope trade. Kidnapping can fetch big bucks and that little boy, the one they call Marlin, looked mighty vulnerable running around unattended to by his junky parents. But something in the vacant eyes of the pirate looking father with the snaggle toothed wiry fuck all frame warned them off the monthly nut would have to do. They took their cash and split back on their speedboats and off into the ocean from whence they came. Graham Parsons stood by wild eyed, his whistle wet with junky anticipation. He watched as Keith stepped on the fresh batch of Corsican delivered heroin. Keith was shabby but surgical in his approach. Hovering over his rented mansion's dining room table, shirtless, wearing nothing but low slung striped corduroys. He carefully, carefully doled out the appropriate balance of kenyin and then talcum powder and added it to the pile of pink Thai heroin. The heroin was incredibly pure and thus deadly. Graham suggested cutting it with laundry detergent. Inexperienced in most things in life compared to Keith Richards, Graham Parsons was overruled. This incredibly lethal heroin needed to be tempered, but Keith didn't want to turn it into a batch of street skags. Last year, while on tour in the States, Keys had heard of a drug dealer in Harlem who had been flying in nearly pure heroin from Vietnam and distributing it at a 12% potency compared to the usual 5% of most street dope. The Harlem dope king's trick was cutting the smack with Kenyon and Mannite non intoxicating medication, as opposed to cutting it like most dealers did with rat poison or, as Graham had suggested, with laundry detergent. If they were going to make this kilo last a month before the Corsican zipped in again up the French Riviera on their speedboats, then Keith needed to cut the smack properly. Kenine, yes. Talcum powder, maybe. Laundry detergent, definitely not. Graham felt the sting of dejection but shrugged it off. He needed a fix. Getting a hair across his ass about it wasn't going to help matters. Satisfied that the heroin was properly calibrated, Keith dipped his German hunting knife into the pile, scooped out a sizable bump, turned to Graham, who was standing at his side, nearly salivating, and in a voice that was part laughter, part two, pack a day cough, said, have at it, boy. Graham delicately brought his nose to the blade, looked up to Keith dutifully, and with gratitude pressed his right thumb to his right nostril, vacuuming up the powder in one quick snort. The heroin shot through room like a comet, hard, fast, and without regard for anything in its path. Graham stumbled a bit, groped about with his hands, resting them on the dining room table surface, and hung his heavy head to his chest. His long dark hair swung delicately as he tried steadying himself. He then gently slumped back into the chair behind him and nodded off. Keith laughed to himself, thinking lightweight, and then finally decided it was time to go to work. Graham awoke to the sounds of Keith and his bandmates messing with the slow blues from the studio in the cellar. Mick laid it on thick with a vocal, but the tune quickly devolved. It was obvious that Keith lost interest in whatever diddly ask hoodoo Mick was attempting to conjure. Then Graham heard the newly familiar chorus to what would become a Stone's masterpiece all down the line, burbling up from the basement into a blast of swampy sonic magnificence. G C, D back to the G. Keith carved out the riff with his telly. Charlie and Bill pulled the rhythm into form. Mick Taylor skidded across the top of it all with his loose slide, while Jagger channeled Big Mama Thornton through his skinny English frame. Keith then pushed the tune to the four chord. Mick hit the chorus. Keith couldn't contain him himself. He muscled over to Mick and sang out into Jagger's handheld mic alongside him, the two of them a shambolic mess of spontaneous rock and roll brilliance, their voices saturated with junk and ambition respectively. And before jumping back into the riff, Keith let out a short, ecstatic yeah. Graham heard it all unfold from upstairs. He brimmed with jealousy. In the basement while the Stones were recording was strictly off limits unless you were contributing to the music in a meaningful way. And, well meaning as he was, there was nothing meaningful about Graham Parson's contribution to the Rolling Stones recordings while exiled on the French Riviera. Unless, of course, you count being Keith Richards junkie pilotfish as particularly meaningful. Now during working hours, midnight ish to whenever Keith passed out, Graham was relegated to the upstairs with the women and the rest of the junkie hangers on. None of this is to say that Graham and Keith didn't have a special relationship. They did, for sure. He and Keith would get high and sit around talking country music until the sun came up. It was a genuine mutual admiration club, and it drove Mick Jagger nuts. Here was Mick fighting for the survival of their band, trying to move hell and earth to engage Keith, his songwriting partner, creatively, only to be continuously iced out by Keith while he got high and traded old honky tonk songs on acoustics with another songwriter, Graham Parsons, for hours on end. Graham knew Mick hated him, hated the contention that someone else, someone like Graham Parsons, was going to teach him, Keith Richards, or any of the Rolling Stones for that matter, about country music. After all, on their previous smash hit, Long Player Sticky Fingers, Mick had written the country inspired Dead Flowers. Fuck you very much, Mr. Parsons. The rivalry drove Mick, and eventually Mick's drive did what it always did. Caught Keith up in his draft and pulled him into the creative fray. Until finally the two got down to doing what they'd left England to do. Make the greatest rock and roll record of all time. But the record wouldn't be completed at Villanelle Cot. French police were polite but stern. They'd come calling to follow up on various reports. Corsican drug dealers were seen entering the house. There were reports of Rampant drug use, including from minors. And there were also rumors of minors being assaulted sexually, a result, no doubt, of Sketchy Oliver and his Randy Mandy's. Despite this serious list of transgressions, the local authorities did not, it seemed, take the searching of the house seriously. When they left, Anita moved quick. She knew what was up. There was no search because the cops were looking for a bribe, which Keith was too oblivious to offer, which meant, by Anita's estimation, that the authorities would be back and this time not so lackluster in their search. Convinced they were still out there watching the house, Anita grabbed as much dope as she could fit into her purse and then grabbed Keith by the hand, who then grabbed Marlon and the three of them headed to their upstairs bedroom. The drill. The bus drill had been well rehearsed. Out the bedroom window, onto the roof of the mobile recording truck, down its side onto the manicured lawn, down the back steps to the dock, onto the speedboat and the out of Dodge. And just like that, they were gone in the wind. Outlaws. Up next, the Wild Wild West Los Angeles. The Band, due to the heavy sales of their previous record Sticky Figures, had banked enough bread during their time away from the uk in France, to finance the completion of the record in America, a country whose music, blues, country and R and B. The band, like most of their contemporaries, found endlessly compelling American music. So compelled the Rolling Stones that no matter what their situation, exiled, addicted, whatever, they were able to lock into the music and keep themselves from spinning off at the face of the earth. Despite whatever desperate circumstances they found themselves in, the Rolling Stones always seemed to rise to the creative challenge. Their approach to their craft, making the greatest rock and roll music the world had ever heard, being the greatest rock and roll band the world had ever seen, and doing it all without a playbook was inspired. America was big and its music worthy of respect. Mick and Keith knew that if they were going to fuck with it, they needed to treat it with the reverence it deserved. So when it came to their craft, the band worked hard. Dope, guns, money and women could wait. As careless as it seemed, rock and roll was serious business for rock musicians in the early 70s. For Graham Parsons, Eric Clapton, Leon Russell, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, the Grateful Dead, the Band, the Eagles, John Paul, George, even Ringo. The race was on to see who could crack the code to American roots music. A music with a fascinating, fascinatingly rich stew of influences. Delta, blues, country, soul, gospel, R and B. This mixture had produced the first generation of rock n rollers that the Stones and their contemporaries had all grown up on and who had influenced them to start making music to begin with. Artists like Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley and others. How could this endlessly fascinating music, American music, be reimagined into something entirely new for today's generation of of rock and roll fans? That was the question. And at Villanellecote in the summer of 1971, almost by accident, the Rolling Stones answered. It was a question they were uniquely qualified to answer. Their situation in exile meant they were as steeped in desperation as the financially strapped post war blues musicians who inspired them to pick up guitars in the first place. And they'd spent the entirety of their post pubescent lives studying and trying to replicate American music, all while embodying the fuck all ethos of the evolving rock star avatar. If success for the straight world is when preparation and opportunity align, then success for the Rolling Stones was when circumstance and necessity aligned. Preparation wasn't part of the equation musically. They'd been preparing to make this record their whole lives. And that record, the one they began at Nellcott, the basic tracks they'd cobbled together in a basement through a haze of dope, desperation and distractions, thick personal tension, electrical fires, small time burglaries, police raids, gunplay. What the Rolling Stones emerged with while exiled in a foreign country away from their home country, was a wholly unique interpretation of another country entirely America. The music the Stones desperately concocted in Keith's sweaty basement would shine a light on the underbelly of Americana and show the world the potential of where rock music as a genre could go. Exile on Main street, the record they emerged with was a masterpiece. It was official. The race was won. Despite their dysfunction, despite their desperation, the Rolling Stones were kings. They may have been exiled outlaws, but they were now rock and roll royalty. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland.
