559. The Rolling Stones: Satanic Majesties of Sixties Rebellion (Part 2)

Summary

Episode 559: The Rolling Stones - Satanic Majesties of Sixties Rebellion (Part 2)
Host: Dominic Sandbrook & Tom Holland
Release Date: April 23, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 559 of The Rest Is History, hosts Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland delve deep into the tumultuous latter years of the Rolling Stones during the late 1960s. This episode explores the band's entanglement with legal troubles, personal tragedies, and their pivotal role in the cultural shifts of the era. Through gripping storytelling and expert analysis, Sandbrook and Holland paint a vivid picture of the Stones as both icons of rebellion and symbols of societal change.

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The Redlands Drugs Case

The episode opens with a dramatic recounting of the infamous Redlands drugs case, a landmark legal battle that thrust the Rolling Stones into the British tabloids. On February 12, 1967, Chief Inspector Gordon Dynley of the West Sussex Constabulary arrives at Keith Richards' lavish 16th-century country house, Redlands, with the intent to arrest the band members for drug possession.

Key Points:

• Arrival of the Police: [00:22] Dominic Sandbrook describes how the 18 uniformed policemen entered the opulent yet oddly juxtaposed environment of Redlands, where the Stones and their entourage were innocently enjoying a weekend with friends.

• Marianne Faithfull's Bath Incident: [14:31] Amidst the search, Marianne Faithfull is found wrapped in a fur rug after attempting to escape the situation while taking a bath. This incident added a salacious twist to the subsequent media narrative.

• Findings: [16:20] Contrary to the police's expectations of discovering vast quantities of LSD, only minor amounts of amphetamines and heroin were found on band members and their associates. Mick Jagger's amphetamines were dismissed as prescribed medication, while Robert Fraser's stash of heroin provided the necessary evidence for the libelous headlines.

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Trial and Media Coverage

The trial that followed became one of the most sensationalized events in post-war British history. Sandbrook emphasizes how the media, particularly the tabloid News of the World, capitalized on the Stones' drug scandal to further agitate against them.

Notable Quotes:

• "We're not worried about petty morals."
  Keith Richards [17:32] during his testimony, a line that epitomized the Stones' rebellious stance and fueled public fascination.

• "The primitive prejudices of people who resent the anarchic quality of the Rolling Stones performances..."
  William Rees-Mogg [30:15], editor of The Times, criticized the harsh treatment of Mick Jagger, highlighting the cultural clash between the establishment and the youth movement.

Public Opinion:

• Despite The Times advocating for leniency, public sentiment among the youth largely sided with the prosecution. A survey revealed that 85% of young people believed Mick Jagger deserved imprisonment, reflecting a generational divide ([31:33]).

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Brian Jones: Decline and Tragedy

Brian Jones, the band's founder, is portrayed as the tragic figure overshadowed by his bandmates' rising fame. The episode chronicles his deteriorating relationship with the band, his spiraling drug addiction, and his untimely death.

Key Points:

• Marginalization: Jones' refusal to evolve beyond blues music led to his gradual exclusion from the band's creative process.

• Relationship with Anita Pallenberg: [40:00] Meeting Anita Pallenberg marked the beginning of Jones' deep dive into drug addiction and volatile relationships, culminating in violent altercations.

• Final Days: [48:46] On July 2, 1969, Jones drowned in his swimming pool under mysterious circumstances, sparking numerous conspiracy theories despite official conclusions of accidental drowning due to intoxication.

Notable Quotes:

• "You know, we're not worried about petty morals."
  Keith Richards [17:32] – Reflecting the Stones' rebellious image that contrasted sharply with their private personas.

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The Hyde Park Concert

Despite internal turmoil, the Stones remained committed to their public image. The Hyde Park concert on July 5, 1969, served as both a tribute to Brian Jones and a statement of the band's enduring legacy.

Key Points:

• Mick Jagger's Unconventional Outfit: [53:53] Jagger's flamboyant attire, including lipstick and a frilly garment, shocked and thrilled the audience, symbolizing the band's break from conventional norms.

• Press Reception: The concert was heralded by critics as a pivotal moment in British social history, though not all reviews were favorable. Richard Gott, a noted critic, lauded it as "epoch-making," although his predictions about Britain's future under Margaret Thatcher were off the mark ([55:46]).

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The Altamont Raceway Concert

Transitioning from the peace of Hyde Park to the chaos of Altamont, Sandbrook and Holland examine how the Stones' American tour ended in tragedy, marking the decline of the 1960s’ optimistic counterculture.

Key Points:

• Planning and Atmosphere: [63:01] The Altamont concert, initially planned as a free festival akin to Woodstock, devolved into violence and chaos, exacerbated by the involvement of the Hell's Angels as security.

• Violence and Death: The confrontation between the Angels and concert-goers led to the brutal murder of Meredith Hunter, overshadowing the event and symbolizing the dark turn of the decade ([49:02]).

• Cultural Impact: Ralph Gleason later described Altamont as the "end" of the 1960s youth culture, though Sandbrook posits that the decline had already commenced with the rise of political tensions and disillusionment ([60:28]).

Notable Quotes:

• "Sympathy for the Devil's satanic pretensions are exposed."
  Tom Holland [46:04] – Referring to the Stones' performance during the concert, highlighting the band's struggle with their image amidst the unfolding violence.

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Cultural Shifts and The Rolling Stones' Legacy

The episode concludes by analyzing the broader cultural shifts of the late 1960s and the Rolling Stones' role in shaping the transition from pop to rock as a serious, mature genre.

Key Points:

• Evolution from Pop to Rock: Sandbrook discusses how the Stones, along with contemporaries like Led Zeppelin, redefined rock music to cater to an older, more sophisticated audience seeking depth and complexity in music ([58:15]).

• Market Changes: The decline of the singles market and the rise of album sales signified a move towards more substantial musical projects, allowing bands to explore diverse themes and musical experimentation ([60:28]).

• Enduring Influence: Despite internal conflicts and tragic losses, the Rolling Stones emerged as one of the most influential bands of all time, their legacy cemented by their ability to mirror and influence societal changes.

Notable Quotes:

• "It's the Rolling Stones who establish the template, which is why I think they are the only band, actually, of that era that will be remembered as the Beatles will be."
  Dominic Sandbrook [66:53] – Emphasizing the distinctive and lasting impact of the Rolling Stones compared to their contemporaries.

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Conclusion

Episode 559 offers an in-depth exploration of the Rolling Stones during a pivotal era, highlighting their legal battles, personal struggles, and monumental concerts that both defined and reflected the cultural transformations of the late 1960s. Through meticulous analysis and engaging dialogue, Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland provide listeners with a comprehensive understanding of how the Stones navigated and, in many ways, shaped the tumultuous landscape of their time.

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Selected Quotes:

• Dominic Sandbrook [17:32]: "We're not worried about petty morals."

• William Rees-Mogg [30:15]: "The primitive prejudices of people who resent the anarchic quality of the Rolling Stones performances..."

• Dominic Sandbrook [66:53]: "It's the Rolling Stones who establish the template, which is why I think they are the only band, actually, of that era that will be remembered as the Beatles will be."

• Tom Holland [46:04]: "Sympathy for the Devil's satanic pretensions are exposed."

• Keith Richards [50:30]: "Extra hassles between Brian and me because I took his old lady, you know, he enjoyed beating chicks up. Not a likable guy. I honestly don't think you'll find anyone who liked Brian."

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the key discussions and insights from the podcast episode, providing a clear and engaging overview for both longtime fans and newcomers to the history of the Rolling Stones.

Transcript

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Thank you for listening to the Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad free listening, early access to series and membership of our much loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club that is thereestishistory.com.

[Tom Holland]

This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Normal is a relative term. So it used to be considered perfectly normal to go down to the Westminster Pit in London and to watch a monkey fighting a dog called Puss. And people used to think it's actually perfectly reasonable and a normal way to behave. But of course now people would consider that slightly alarming and high phone bills.

[Tom Holland]

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[Dominic Sandbrook]

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[Tom Holland]

Payment of $45 for three month five gigabyte plan required equivalent to $15 a month new customer offer for first three months only and then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. Listeners to the Rest Is History will know that we do love a good sequel on the show. So so Hundred Years War sequel, French Revolution sequel, Captain Cook and Nelson haven't had the sequel yet, but I promise they're on their way. And I'll tell you what else is on its way. Our second Sunday Times bestselling book, the Rest is History Returns. It's out in paperback in May, and in its pages, what we do is to take you, the beloved reader, through an alphabetical miscellany of history's best and most bizarre moments. From Cortez to Chaucer, from fashion to Freema Masons, from Mitfords to monkeys. And on top of that, there's a pub quiz and there's a whole host of puzzles to test your historical metal. So if you enjoy a sequel as much as we do, why not send your future self a little treat and pre order your paperback of the Rest Is History Returns. Now.

[Keith Richards]

There'S a big knock at the door, 8 o'clock. Everybody's just sort of gliding down slowly from the whole day, sort of freaking about. Everyone has managed to find their way back to the house. TV is on with the standoff and the record player is on. Strobe lights are flickering. Marianne Faithful has just decided that she wanted a bath and has wrapped herself up in a rug and he's watching the box, bang, bang, bang, this big knock at the door and I'll go to answer it. Oh, look, there's lots of little ladies and gentlemen outside. He says, read this.

[Tom Holland]

Unmistakable tones there of Keith Richards, of course. And he was being interviewed in Rolling Stone On 19 August 1971, about 1 of the most notorious episodes really from the 1960s, one of the kind of iconic moments. And it is the evening of 12th February 1967. The scene is Keith Richards country house at Redlands in Sussex. And the man at the door is Chief Inspector Gordon Dynley of the West Sussex Constabulary. And Dominic, he's come basically to search the house and to arrest as many Rolling Stones as he possibly can, hasn't he, and make an example of them.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yes. So this is the cue for one of the most famous trials in post war British history. It's a very funny story, it's a trashy comic and it's a brilliant window, I think it's the cultural life of Britain in the late 1960s. So last time we looked at the rise of the Rolling Stones and the way that they became folk devils in early 60s Britain. And today we're going to focus on the Rolling Stones in the last three years of the 60s. So we have the Redlands drugs case, a huge story at the time in Britain, front page news day after day. We have the tragic fate of Brian Jones, who is set up as this sort of doomed protagonist last time. And we have the. Probably the two most celebrated concerts the Rolling Stones ever gave, two of the most celebrated rock concerts of all time, their appearance at Hyde park and their appearance at the Altamont Raceway in 1969. There will be a lot of drugs. And perhaps surprisingly, given that this is an apparently trivial story about a rock band who are still in their mid-20s, there'll be an awful lot of death.

[Tom Holland]

So we're in February 1967, 1967, the summer of love, of psychedelia. So not natural territory for. For the Stones, certainly, as they promote themselves, one might argue. And this will be a bit of the context for the story you're about to tell, isn't it? So what's the broader political context?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So the mood has changed since the early 60s. When we set up the Stones last time, we talked about the sort of affluent society, a lot of money sloshing around in 1963, 64. It's the end of the 13 years of Toryism. Harold Wilson's Labour government are now in office, but they have kind of Got into trouble. They've been in for three years or so. They're in a bit of a mess economically. There's a growing sense of anxiety about the state of the nation and about kind of social and cultural change, I think. So the mood of the 60s, it's never one thing. It's kind of shifted. For the Stones, life seems to be. Superficially, it seems to be good. They've had six British number ones, four American number ones, very famous songs, Satisfaction, Get Off My Cloud, Paint It Black and Ruby Tuesday. They've been to the United States three times, triumphant tours. They've been twice to Australia and New Zealand. They've been often to Europe. There is a slight sense, I think, by 1967, I think you're dead right, that they are out of time, that their music has, you know, the sort of. The blues edged music with which they came to prominence in 1964 is no longer what people want in 1967.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah. What the kids are grieving are sitars.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

They want sitars. They want people laughing uncontrollably for no reason at the end of a track.

[Tom Holland]

They want bits played backwards.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Exactly. So there's a slight sense the Stones are beginning to copy the. I mean, they've always been in the shadow of the Beatles, as we established last time, that they are becoming a little bit slavish to the Beatles. Their most recent album was between the Buttons, which was released in January 1967. It's a little bit more sort of folky and a bit more psychedelic than their previous records. They are, Tom, like so many blues musicians before them, they're at a crossroads now. They're also, of course, by this point, national celebrities and international celebrities. So in the last episode, we heard how they turned into kind of folk devils.

[Tom Holland]

Well, there's, I mean, literally a Faustian pact in that sense, isn't it?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

That they have cast themselves as devils when in fact, in all kinds of ways, they're not really. You know, they. They like collecting cricket memorabilia.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yes, yeah, exactly, exactly. They're like war films. They're like 1950s war films and things like that. So particularly Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones have become names. They've made that sort of transition to becoming names that people who are not really interested in their music will automatically recognize. They'll be in the gossip columns, they will be mentioned as sort of shorthand for youth.

[Tom Holland]

And in a way that perhaps is no longer the case, would you say?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, because there is a genuinely homogenous culture, national culture, and to some extent I suppose a Western international culture has emerged, really. I mean, I guess it existed in the form of Hollywood, but, you know, they could walk down the street in Chicago and they would be immediately recognized in a way that would not have been possible for a music hall singer in the 1890s or something. Yeah, so they're always being mentioned, those three in particular, and media accounts are swinging London 1965, 1966. They love nothing better than hanging around with old Etonian art dealers and aristocrats and things. And their success. Now you, the, the. You mentioned the house Redlands. I think that's actually really important. Their success is symbolized above all by their houses. The British are famously obsessed with property. All of them, by this point, late 60s, have bought country houses. So Mick Jagger has a place, a Victorian house called Stargroves in Hampshire. Charlie Watts has a 16th century house called Peckham's with staff near Lewis, Brian Jones. A house that we'll be returning to Cotchford farm, Sussex. Again, 16th century, most famous owner was.

[Tom Holland]

AA Milne and has a swimming pool, of course.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Bill Wyman has a tremendous house. He bought Gedding hall in Suffolk, which had been built in 1480 and that came with the title Lord of the Manor of Gedding and Thornwood.

[Tom Holland]

I mean, the thing about this is, it's interesting. They are kind of classier houses. The houses say the Beatles buy, apart from Paul, who lives in central London.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yes.

[Tom Holland]

They're more the kind of houses that workingclass people who've suddenly come into money would buy because they're not familiar with the world of what you would buy, that people hanging out with Audonians would have.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, I get that's true. I mean, they've bought the houses that Victorian industrialists buy. I mean, that's. This is the house that you buy. I would say, when you've made an awful lot of money from ball bearings in 1840 and you want a country house and you want to ride to hounds and you send your son to a public school and all of those things. The Stones are very, very keen. So certainly Mick Jagger is extremely keen to embrace this lifestyle.

[Tom Holland]

But they're alert to history and to the kind of the cachet that a house would have, because maybe someone who had formerly lived there, in a way that buying houses on a, you know, an estate on a hill in Surrey, a gated community in Surrey wouldn't have that kind of pat.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Are not stockbroker's houses. These are houses of which they can, if they want, entertain the daughter of a duke, as Mick Jagger Very much loves to do.

[Tom Holland]

So Keith Richard house. Redlands is part of this kind of Sussex Lutyens esque, Edwardian, Tudor beams kind of stuff. So it's actually 16th century, isn't it? But it's got that. You could imagine a murder mystery happening in the 1920s there.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

You could absolutely imagine that. Or you can imagine Henry James living there at the turn of the century, or something of that ilk. Exactly. So the incongruity, I think, becomes an enormous part of this story. So Redlands has been in Richards's possession for a couple of years. We'll talk a bit about the house later on. On the 11th of February, Saturday the 9th of February, the Stones had been working on their next album, the Disastrous Their Satanic Majesty's Request, at the Olympic Sound Studios in London. And they finish up and they all go their separate ways. And Jagger and Richards drive with a group of friends down into Sussex to Redlands. They're gonna spend the weekend there. And it's a very, very late 60s sort of coterie that they have. So one woman, who's Marianne Faithfull, who's 20 years old, who had been well known now for three years, she's Mick Jagger's girlfriend. She'd made her kind of explosion onto the scene with the song as Tears Go By. Lovely song written by Jagger and Richards.

[Tom Holland]

Kind of sexy posh.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Sexy posh, exactly, yes. And they've got a couple of old Etonian sort of art dealers with them, Robert Fraser and Christopher Gibbs.

[Tom Holland]

So Robert Fraser is called Groovy Bob, isn't he?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Groovy Bob. And they have sort of various other hippies and kind of hangers on who are called things like Acid, King David and stuff like this.

[Tom Holland]

Camberwell, Carrots all around.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Exactly. So they go down there Saturday night Sunday, as you described in your lovely reading. They have been out kind of freaking about, as Keith calls it. But actually they behave as people do behave on kind of weekends in the country. They've gone for some nice walks, they've taken photos of each other, they've gone on the beach.

[Tom Holland]

So it's not a bacchanal. That's the key thing.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

They have been smoking dope, but it's not, absolutely not a bacchanal. It's actually just strolling around, chatting aimlessly. And then the police turn up at about 7:30. They've got the telly on, they're listening to records, Marianne Faithful's having a bath. And the reason the police turn up is they have had a tip off from the News of the World newspaper, now defunct, but then a colossal multi million copy selling newspaper that specialized in stories about vicars being caught in sex scandals. The News of the World had been tipped off, almost certainly from one of the hangers on inside the house, that the Stones were there and there were a lot of drugs. The News of the World were very keen on this story because in a sort of complicated irony, they were already in conflict with Mick Jagger because they had falsely accused him of taking drugs open in a London club earlier that year. What had actually happened is they'd got him mixed up with Brian Jones. Mick Jagger was outraged and was suing them for libel. And so the News of the World were desperate to get dirt on Mick Jagger.

[Tom Holland]

It is the kind of newspaper that bears a grudge.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It does bear a grudge. Exactly. So they, they tipped off the police. The police had got a search warrant from a special sitting of magistrates in Chichester. And now they arrived, 18 uniformed policemen, men and women. And actually, you know what, it's a, it's. The raid reflects very well on Britain, I think. Everybody is extremely polite. So Keith Richards, he opens the door to Chief Inspector Dylee and his officers and he says, you know, I've only got one request. I brought these cushions from Morocco. They're very expensive. Can you please make sure you don't tread on them?

[Tom Holland]

And do they avoid treading on them?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

They do avoid treading on them with.

[Tom Holland]

Their massive policeman's feet.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

And actually this is not surprising because Keith Richards was very well regarded generally by his neighbors. They regarded him as a polite young man, which he was. Yes, which he was. So the police arrived and, and some of them had been, yo, golly, this is going to be an eye opener. And actually they're slightly taken aback because actually all the guests are doing are listening to Bob Dylan records while getting ready to watch an old 1950s gangster film on TV. And the only woman there is Marianne Faithful. She has been having this bath. So when they come in, she grabs this gigantic fur rug and wraps herself.

[Tom Holland]

In it, which is unfortunate for her, isn't it? Because it, it enables an element of prurience to creep into the subsequent reporting.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Salacious stories, which are completely untrue. Exactly. And actually the policemen are not shocked, particularly shocked by this. So PC Don Rambridge, who was later interviewed about this, gave what I think was a slightly ungallant interview and I think untrue. He said she wasn't anything to look at anyway. She was obviously a dropout type, but I don't think I Mean, she clearly was very pretty. So this was very harsh of PC Rambridge. The thing that really shocked them actually was the incongruity of the stones in this house, PC Rambridge. It gave us a bit of a shock from the outside. It's a beautiful house, oldie worldy, half beamed. Then you go inside, it's decorated in mauves and blacks, all the beams painted like that. It turned out to be a real ravers place. It really hurt looking at the inside.

[Tom Holland]

I mean, that is 1967 summed up, isn't it? It's Sergeant Pepper. It's Edwardian. What is it? Lord Kitchener's Valet?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, Lord Kitchener's Valet, exactly.

[Tom Holland]

But psychedelic and groovy at the same time.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Exactly. So I think Keith, I don't. But he still owns the house. I don't believe it's still. I would be surprised if it's still painted mauve inside, I think, I imagine.

[Tom Holland]

Tastefully done now.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Tastefully done now. I think this. Do you know what, it would amaze me if there aren't nautical prints, kind of even, dare I say, a battle map of Trafalgar or something like that.

[Tom Holland]

I think that would reflect very well on him.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

We know he loves all that stuff. So he's got a library. He's got a very well furnished library by all accounts. So the police, do they find the drugs they're looking for? The short answer is in many ways no. They're hoping for vast quantities of LSD and all this kind of thing and they don't find it. What they find are there are some amphetamines in Mick Jagger's green velvet jacket. These are actually Marianne Faithfuls.

[Tom Holland]

And there's. There's quite a lot of stuff owned by Groovy Bob, isn't there?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yes. So Mick says of these tablets, well, these are actually mine, they were given me by my doctor. But it's on Groovy Bob, Robert Fraser, the old Etonian art dealer, that they find marijuana, amphetamines and 24 white tablets which he says, oh, don't worry about those, you know, they just, they're just, they're just medicine or something and actually they turn out to be heroin. And the police are sort of. He was the one man they said, oh, he was a very nice man, very well spoken, very polite and he was as good as gold. They said of him, do you know what, he wasn't just a Groovy Bob. He'd been IDI Amin's commanding officer in the King's African Rifles.

[Tom Holland]

I mean, that's so 60s.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So the news of the World, anyway, they had enough for their story. They had the amphetamines in Mick Jagger's jacket and they had Groovy Bob's stash. And so then a week later, they run this banner headline. They don't name them, they just say several stars. And then in March, the news breaks that Jagger and Fraser are going to be charged for possession of drugs under the Dangerous Drugs Act 1965, and Keith Richards is going to be charged for allowing the smoking of cannabis on his.

[Tom Holland]

Property, although no drugs have been found on his person.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, exactly. There's no evidence that he has. You know, it's never. It's never alleged that he's. I mean, I would be surprised if he hadn't. I don't want to. I don't want to end up in a legal battle with Keith Richards. It's very unlikely.

[Tom Holland]

It has been known.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It's no stranger to that world, should we put it that way? So on the face of it, listeners may say, well, this is a very trivial story, but at the time, it becomes absolutely enormous. And I think it becomes an enormous story because it's symbolic of deeper changes. So when the Rolling Stones were growing up in the 40s and early 50s, drugs just simply were never an issue in Britain. In 1961, a Home Office committee had been set up to look at drugs and they basically said, there is no need for us to ever do anything about this. There's no need for legislation or anything like that, because there are no drugs. There really are no drugs in Britain. The only people who take drugs are people who, at the very top of society, who spend their, you know, holidays in North Africa or something. Hashish. Yeah. Opium addicts.

[Tom Holland]

Yes.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

But the 99% of the population have no connection with the world of drugs whatsoever.

[Tom Holland]

But that's not quite true, is there, because there's. Amphetamines are prescribed quite regularly, so that. Aren't they called the Housewife's Friend, as.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Theo says, Mother's little helper. Rolling Stones.

[Tom Holland]

Yes. So the sense of what drugs actually are, I guess, is evolving as well.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It is indeed. Drugs are forced into the headlines, really. As the 60s proceed, the cannabis conviction figures go up, reflecting a wider picture. Clearly, what's happening is, first of all, young people have a lot more money, they're going out more often, the market for stimulants is bigger than ever before and there's a rise in cultural cachet because of the associations with music, but also the supply is greater than before. People are taking more flights, they're going on ferries. It's much easier to import cannabis and cocaine from abroad. So people, particularly from Morocco or from Turkey, there's more demand for drugs and there are more of them. And people are beginning to notice by 1967. So in 1964 and 65, the number of teenagers registered with the Home Office as addicts had gone up threefold. This is being reported and I think what happens is that drugs becomes a symbolic issue. So it's an issue in and of itself, but it also stands for deeper anxieties about the family, the impact of affluence on established habits, on immigration, cultural change, all of these things.

[Tom Holland]

And the impact of fame as well. Because isn't there by 1966, is it Donovan? There's a documentary on. On ITV and he's the first kind of big musician to. To talk about taking cannabis.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah. Or the Beatles, of course.

[Tom Holland]

But the Beatles don't kind of officially admit to taking drugs until. I think it's Paul McCartney talking about LSD in 67.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yes, I think it is 67.

[Tom Holland]

So actually just before the Redlands trial, interestingly.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

But there is a sense that if you want to be groovy and with it and like your heroes, then you. You should be smoking pot.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Exactly. And I think no one's talking about that in 1964, but by 1967 people are talking about it a lot. It's in the media a lot. And of course they're reporting the scenes from the counterculture in San Francisco and so on. I mean, there are first reports of that are appearing in the British press. So when you combine that issue. So drugs, which is already symbolic of deeper changes, and the Rolling Stones, who we established last time, are the supreme folk devils for kind of Middle England, for middle and for the newspapers of Middle England, you get really the perfect story. And it reminds me a little bit. Obviously it's completely different, but it reminds me a little bit of the Profumo scandal, the great spy scandal and sex scandal of 1963, in that it's a very, very enticing and irresistible story that's actually about a wider sense of a society that's in the throes of rapid cultural change.

[Tom Holland]

And it's about the intersection of poshness and seaminess, isn't it?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah. Which people love. Yeah, exactly. CD Poshness. I think if there's Old Etonians and there's bad behavior, people love it. Absolutely love it. So actually, the funny thing is the Stones are slightly hard done By. Because although later on they become very much associated with drugs, obviously Keith Richards, at this point, they are not especially keen drug users. So Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts were nicknamed the straightest rhythm section in rock and roll. Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

They're going back to hang out and have their cocoa.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

And you're right, exactly. Keith Richards is not yet taking heroin. And there is an alternative story that the press could have told about the Rolling Stones. So Mick Jagger, a few months after this, my favorite Mick Jagger fact of all time is that he joined the Country Gentlemen's Association, a landowner society that had been first founded in 1895. 3. I mean, that's what he chooses to do with his fame.

[Tom Holland]

What are the benefits you get for that?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Well, like you, Tom, I think he gets probably a special barber jacket of the kind that you wear when you go to your estate in Scotland.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah. Salmon fishing.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So Keith Richards, the story you could tell about him is he's somebody who collects books about sea battles and spends his time watching old war films. Charlie Watts, the model of loyalty to his mum and to his wife, sends his mum this, her favorite cake every Friday. But of course, those stories never appear in the papers at the time because they don't fit. The image that people want of the Rolling Stones is, as the critic Ian MacDonald puts it, as wasted emblems of decadent hedonism. So that's the only story that people want to tell. And I think here's where the house fits in. Richards had bought the house in cash for 17,750 pounds from a Royal Navy commodore. And the house appeared in the newspapers every day. And why? I think because it's, again, the house is symbolic of something deeper. To the critics, the Rolling Stones shouldn't be at such a house. It's an affront. It's like the Beatles MBE. It's an affront to everything they believe in. And the judge at the trial, he also lives in a 16th century Sussex farmhouse, Leslie Block. And he is also a former naval commander who was decorated for bravery in the Second World War. And I think he saw the Rolling Stones. I think he's the kind of person, undoubtedly who saw the Rolling Stones as an affront. He's the kind of person who would say, this is not what we fought for.

[Tom Holland]

But the tragedy is that probably he'd have got on brilliantly with Keith Richards and they could have talked about tactics at the Battle of Aboukir Bay and so on.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, Camperdown. They'd have loved all that.

[Tom Holland]

Such a shame.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I know. And he. Because he later gave a speech, Leslie Block, to the Horsham Ploughing and Agricultural.

[Tom Holland]

Society, Honorary Life President M. Jagger.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

And he. He got in massive trouble with the legal authorities because he spoke out of turn about the trial. And he said, I and my fellow magistrates, we did our best to cut these stones down to size. And I think that speaks. There were a lot of people in the country who felt like that at the time. These young people with their long hair have got ahead of themselves and we need to cut them down to size.

[Tom Holland]

And it's interesting that they're going for the Stones and not, for instance, for the Beatles. Cause I just checked the date when Paul McCartney gave that ITN interview, talking about taking LSD, and it's the 19th of June. So it's. It's pretty much a week before the Stones are brought to trial.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, but the Beatles, you see, as we talked about last time, the national media had decided that the Beatles are patriotic heroes because they had conquered America, so they won't go after them. But the Rolling Stones are the. Are the enemy.

[Tom Holland]

They're fair game.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, they're fair game. So I think there's a degree to which the trial which opens on 27 June is a foregone conclusion. Robert Fraser pleaded guilty straight away. Mick Jagger said, you know, my doctor had told me it was all right to take amphetamines if I was stressed.

[Tom Holland]

That's right, isn't it? Because amphetamines, you know, we said are being prescribed all the time.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

That wasn't good enough. And the doctor, the magistrate, this guy Block, directed the jury to find him guilty. Fraser and Jagger were then handcuffed, in the view of the press, kind of pushed and put into a van and taken to Lewis Prison for the night, while the court then turned to deal with Keith Richards. Now, Keith Richards offense is incredibly minor. He has. The charge is that he has allowed his house to be used for the taking of drugs. He hasn't dealt in drugs. There's no argument that he's taken them himself. But his appearance in court is probably the most exciting bit of the trial, because at this point, the police go into the witness box and tell their story about seeing Marianne Faithful naked, but for a rug. I mean, the fact that she's just jumped out of the bath isn't really mentioned. Richards barrister is furious and he says, this is completely irrelevant and it gives a false impression of what this gathering was like. It gives an impression of debauchery that is completely unwarranted. And the prosecutor asked Keith Richards about it. And he said, fantastically, we're not old men, we're not worried about petty morals. And this. We're not worried about petty morals was the line that was then kind of emblazoned across the newspapers the next day. And the sentences are bonkers. Jagger got three months in prison, Robert Fraser got six months and Keith Richards got 12 months.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, that's mad, isn't it?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Which seems completely mad. And they were all very shocked. Mick Jagger collapsed in tears in the court. You know, they are quite young men. What are they, mid-20s?

[Tom Holland]

Does Richards get that severer sentence because of his petty morals comment, do you think, or is he seen as somehow the most satanic of the lot or what? What's happening there?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I think the satanic reputation probably comes along a little bit later, but I think he's. He's been truculent in the doc.

[Tom Holland]

And also your theory about the house, perhaps. Is it his house, perhaps?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

How dare you use such a. A fine English house to be. Yes, yeah, I think there's a definite element of that. So Richards and Fraser were taken to Wormwood Scrubs. Jagger, Tom was taken to your neck of the woods in Brixton.

[Tom Holland]

Oh, yeah, just. Just up from where I'm sitting, yeah.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Now, Jagger and Richards were out the next day on bail pending appeal, but Fraser, not because he hasn't really got a leg to stand on. I mean, he has had the heroine on him. Now, interestingly, the Stones themselves and their sort of fans have always had this, what I consider a mad conspiracy theory, that this was all plotted by the British establishment, by the government. To quote Marianne Faithfull, by the beginning of 1967, there were highly placed people in Her Majesty's government who actually saw us as enemies of the state. Keith Richards, that's why we got busted. They saw us as a threat. And it won't surprise you to know, Tom, that I regard this as absolute balderdash. You know, having spent far too much time then is healthy reading and writing about the Harold Wilson government. The idea that anybody in the Wilson government would have any interest in this at all is. Is demented, sure.

[Tom Holland]

But, I mean, the establishment isn't just the government, is it? And you could say that it's the intersection of the media, the police and JPs and judges, and it wouldn't be. I mean, you wouldn't say that they'd all met up in a gentleman's club and drawn it up. But we've talked about how they, you know, people are ready to go after the Stones in a way that they're not after the Beatles, for instance. So there is a sense that a sniff of an opportunity and various segments of the British establishment are going to go after them. I would say that's not an exaggeration.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

At that point, your establishment becomes very, very broad because you're including hard bitten newspaper journalists, you know, who themselves love a drink and, you know, are no strangers to debauchery. You have the provincial police and you have random magistrates in different parts of the country.

[Tom Holland]

I mean, yeah, but Dominic, they're all squares.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Well, maybe they are, but here's the thing. The squarest people of all and the most establishment people of all are the people who most eagerly stick up for and defend the Rolling Stones.

[Tom Holland]

Jacob Rees Mogg's dad.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

This is the great twist of the story that I think is often slightly elided or confusingly told. The tabloids love the story. The tabloids were like, brilliant. This is the ultimate story. The broadsheet newspapers, the establishment papers, the Telegraph, the Times and so on, pretty unanimous in saying that the Rolling Stones had been very harshly treated, the judge and the police had no business bringing their lifestyle into it, you know, the fur rug and the music or whatever, and that it was a disgrace that they had been handcuffed on their way out of when they were clearly no threat to anyone and they weren't going.

[Tom Holland]

To run away or anything like that. And the man who makes this case most powerfully is, as I said, the father of Jacob Rees Mogg, the Tory, ex Tory mp. Now, William Rees Mogg, who's editor of the Times, and he has this, he picks out this perfect quotation from Alexander Pope, who breaks a butterfly on a wheel.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, exactly. And it's one of the most famous editorials the Times has ever run, by the way. He says it's outrageous to punish Mick Jagger because of, and I quote, the primitive prejudices of people who resent the anarchic quality of the Rolling Stones performances, dislike their songs, dislike their influence on teenagers and broadly suspect them of decadence. And William Rees Morrock said, it's an unsigned, you know, leader. And so it's from the Times and it said, you know, British justice demands that Mr. Jagger, they used him as sort of shorthand for the defendants, generally is treated exactly the same as anyone else, no better and no worse. And the further twist about this story is, you may say, well, thank goodness, Times on this is speaking for Britain. But it wasn't, because when you look at surveys and polls from the time, a survey a couple of months later found that most young people thought that Mick Jagger's sentence was perfectly fair. It wasn't. Only one in four thought it was too harsh. Another survey done by ITV, their World in Action program, found that 85% of the young people they asked thought that Mick Jagger deserved to go to prison. Some people may be surprised listening to that, but to me that's not surprising at all because all the data we have about young people in the 60s suggests that they had very conservative attitudes towards social and cultural issues.

[Tom Holland]

I think also it's tied up with the sense of the Stones as the embodiment of cool. Because if you are not cool, your resentment and dislike of those who are cool is all the greater, wouldn't you say? Whereas William Rees Mogg, in his pinstripes, doesn't have to worry about that. That's not an issue for him.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, a lot of. Do you think a lot of sort of suburban young people who are not part of the cool set don't go to university, as most people don't? Of course, they think, you know, they're having all this fun. Why should they have all this fun when I have no fun at all? Right.

[Tom Holland]

And again, I would imagine this, that the sense of the, the poshness of the house would play into that.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, I think you might be right.

[Tom Holland]

You know, if you're in your mid-20s, the opportunities to own a house, let alone a 16th century house in Sussex, fairly limited, I'd have thought.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Tom. I think it. I don't want to give anything away, but I think if we saw some, you know, rival very successful historians sent to prison for having too much fun, I mean, our WhatsApp group would be going wild.

[Tom Holland]

No, you would. I wouldn't. I would. I would be sorry for them because I'm a nicer person than you. Well, that's. I get the force of your observation, Dominic.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So anyway, Richardson's conviction was overturned on appeal by Lord Chief Justice Parker at the end of July. Mick Jagger's conviction stood, but the original sentence was quashed. Much. The prison sentence was considered much too harsh. And actually that very evening, this is such a 60s thing, he went on a special talk show edition, A World in Action with the combination of William Rees Mog at the edge of the times, the Bishop of Woolwich and Harold Wilson's first home secretary, Frank Soskis. And Jagger went on this program and he made a point of saying, I'm not a rebel. I really respect the post the wartime generation. You know, I really. So sad to See myself at the center of all this. And the Times had special praise for him the next day. Said he was articulate and thoughtful. He has much more grace of manner than one would have expected, which is me. Really not that surprising, because, as we said last time, he's a very bright grammar school boy who got into the London School of Economics when it was really hard to do so.

[Tom Holland]

And he judges his look perfectly. He looks cool. Yeah, but it's not kind of aggressively 1967 kind of white suit. I think it's sort of.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, exactly, exactly. He's very well dressed. So there is one aspect, it appears that all's well that ends well. But this has not ended well for everybody because the third man of the case is this guy, the art dealer Robert Fraser. And his sentence was not overturned on appeal and he spent four months in Wormwood Scrubs, where he worked in the prison kitchens. And actually, if you read Harriet Viner's biography of him, Groovy Bob, there's some lovely letters from Jagger and Richards. They're very sweet, actually. They sort of say, oh, it was. So we're thinking about you all the time. We'll have a really, really groovy time when you get out.

[Tom Holland]

They did love him.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, they did. The Beatles liked him, didn't they?

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, he staged John Lennon's first art show. Yeah, they. They all really liked him, but he.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Didn'T have a groovy time, actually. When he got out, he became a complete and utter heroin addict. His gallery failed, he went off to India. He had a massive kind of drink. Drink and drugs hell. And he ended up dying of AIDS in 1986. So if you want a story that captures the darker side of the 60s, the casualties and so on, his is a really, really good example. And actually, after the break, when we continue the Rolling Stones story, this will get an awful lot darker and we will be looking a lot more at the lives destroyed by the excitement of the 60s in the second half.

[Tom Holland]

So join us in a few minutes. And we will be painting it black.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

This is a paid advertisement from BetterHelp.

[Tom Holland]

Now, Dominic, as you know, there are times when the strains of getting episodes ready to record get on top of me. And stress can be very bad for you.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

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[Tom Holland]

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[Dominic Sandbrook]

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[Tom Holland]

Now listen, will you just cool it for a minute? Because I would really like to say something for Brian. I'd really dig it if you would be with us. Just cool it about how we feel about him just going when we didn't expect him to. Peace. Peace. He is not dead. He doth not sleep. He hath awakened from the dream of life. Tis we who lost in stormy visions keep with phantoms and unprofitable strife and in mad trance stripe with our spirit's knife Invulnerable nothings we decay like corpses in a charnel Fear and grief convulse us and consume us day by day and cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay. Mick Jagger, of course, reading Adonis Shelley's elegy on the death of Keats. And he is there comparing John Keats to Brian Jones, who has just died, and he's talking at Hyde Park Festival. I think that comparing Brian Jones to John Keats is flattering Brian Jones, I think it is, but we'll come to that. So, Dominic, you mentioned the Hyde park concert held on 5 July 1969. At least quarter of a million people gathered there to hear it as one of the Stones two most famous concerts. But what gives it its fame and its resonance is the circumstance, the fact that Brian Jones is found a member of the Stones is dead. So what's the backdrop there? Because we haven't actually really mentioned Brian Jones up to now because he was not at the party.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He was not. And just before I get onto Brian Jones, Tom, I will once again congratulate you on a superb, a really superb impression. I enjoyed that very much. So, yes, Brian Jones is without question the founder of the Rolling Stones. If you listen to the first episode, you'll remember he places the advert, he puts the band together and at first he's effectively the manager, but from quite an early stage, the others have realized he is fragile, he's flaky, he's very demanding, he's hard to get on with. He crucially refuses to write his own songs because he just wants to basically do blues songs. So as early as 1963, he's been marginalized by Mick and Keith and Andrew Lou Goldham, their first manager. And over time, this has got much worse. He has been torn between resenting Jagger and Richards and their fame and trying to suck up to them. And actually, by the time they really become internationally famous, the others have come to really. To really dislike him. I hate to laugh because he has a very tragic fate, but they're so horrible about him in their interviews. So Mick Jagger, normally, the way their interviews work is they always say, oh, we love Brian. Brian was wonderful. Such a shame about Brian. And then in the next sentence, they will say, and I quote, he was an extremely difficult person. There was something very, very disturbed about him. He was a very paranoid personality. And my favorite one is by. So Ian Stewart, who'd been their keyboardist, a Scotsman who was basically pushed out of the band.

[Tom Holland]

Guy with a massive chin.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Massive chin. And then he became their kind of.

[Tom Holland]

Kind of roadie, isn't he?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, kind of roadie in a sort of Stones whisperer who accompanied them on tour and stuff and was sort of the conscience of the band. He said of Brian Jones, he was a very difficult person. Nobody wanted to be in the same car with Brian for any length of time. And then my favorite line, I think, in all history, being Welsh, he had a very. He had a very obnoxious streak to him.

[Tom Holland]

Well, and that is one for our Welsh listeners who are always complaining that we never do any Welsh history.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So, yes, I mean, it's important to emphasize this is an inter Celtic disagreement here, because this is a Scotsman talking.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, of course.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So, as Brian Jones has been forced out of the band, he ended up moving into this muse cottage in Chelsea, had a string of girlfriends who he treated incredibly, incredibly badly. I mean, there's always discussion about whether John Lennon treated women badly. Brian Jones is in a different league. I mean, he really does beat up his girlfriends. He's drinking at least a bottle of whiskey or brandy a day, swallowing handfuls of pills. The music press start to notice that even at this point, 1965, he's disappearing and he becomes very sort of insecure. And then at the end of 1965, he meets this woman called Anita Pallenberg. Now, she is groovy, she's an extraordinary person. So she's a West German model from a very, very wealthy, artistic German family. She'd studied art restoration and graphic design. She speaks four languages, she's obsessed with black magic. She sort of puts it about that she's a witch she ends up, of course, a massive heroin addict. And she and Brian have this very strange self destructive relationship. Tons of drugs, putting on and off Nazi uniforms, sadomasochistic sessions, it's all happening and it reaches a sort of climax with this disastrous holiday. They go on to Morocco with Keith Richards. So Keith's in the middle of the Redlands chaos and he wants to get away from the press and they say, oh, come with us to Morocco and they drive off. I mean it's a sign of how these worked in the 60s and they didn't fly. They drive and they get across France and Brian Jones fell ill in Toulouse. Keith Richardson, Anita said, well, we'll go on, you can catch us up. By the time he got to Marrakech and he caught up with them, they'd started to have an affair and there's terrible tension. I mean it's like the world's worst holiday. And eventually Brian Jones cracked and he beat her up really badly. And then he said, oh, I feel a bit bad about that, why don't you? I'll make it up to you. Why don't we have an orgy with some local prostitutes?

[Tom Holland]

Because nothing says sorry like that.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

And Keith Richards at this point said, come on mate, enough's enough. And he drove her all the way back to London and left Brian Jones behind. And Jones took this incredibly badly. So he returned to Britain a complete wreck and he went around saying to people, they took my music, they took my band and now they've taken my love. It would be moving if he hadn't been beating her up. Keith Richards was very. Do you want to read his like his line, Tom, in your excellent voice?

[Keith Richards]

Extra hassles between Brian and me because I took his old lady, you know, he enjoyed beating chicks up. Not a likable guy. I honestly don't think you'll find anyone who liked Brian.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

If something happened to me at the Rest Is History and you, Theo and Tabby were saying stuff like that, Tom, I'd be gutted. I'd be absolutely gutted.

[Tom Holland]

I was worrying about the other way. Interesting.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Anyway, his flat is always being raided in 1967, 68 by the police, actually. This whole business about the establishment conspiracies. So here I think you have an example of why the establishment conspiracy stuff doesn't work. The magistrates are constantly kind of letting him off his sentence. He'll give him a sentence, then it's overturned on appeal.

[Tom Holland]

Is that because it's in perhaps in London and they just groovier in London?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

No, I Don't think so. I think it's that they're genuinely not. They're sort of the silly stereotype, which is, oh, they're just hatchet faced old men. It's just not true. They're sensible, decent, you know, of course they're small c conservative people, but they're not monsters. And they don't. They don't hate young people and they don't probably even hate the Rolling Stones, a lot of them.

[Tom Holland]

But the judge at the Redlands trial.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, but that's the Horsham Ploughing Agricultural Society for you, Tom.

[Tom Holland]

Exactly. Well, that's my point. It's the difference between Chelsea and Horsham.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I'm not sure about that.

[Tom Holland]

I mean, no offense to anyone in Horsham. I'm talking about the 60s.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, I'm not sure about that. I think that's. I think by and large, you know, there are always sort of parodic Daily Express reading magistrates, but also there are a lot who aren't. And actually in his case, he always gets psychiatrists and therapists and things to testify on his behalf. To say quite reasonably, this bloke is on the edge of something. You know, he's incredibly flaky, prison will probably kill him and actually the magistrates are quite sympathetic. So in 68, when he's up in front of the same people, the same panel, they said to him, you know, again, really. And they gave him a small fine and they said, a third time, you really will have to go to prison, but you have to kind of be more sensible. So he then went off to Morocco and hung around in Morocco. So while he's off in Morocco, the Stones are trying to reboot themselves. So in late 67, early 68, they had reached their nadir with their Satanic Majesty's request, which was this record, do you think? I think so. Do you like that?

[Tom Holland]

It's not a great album, but it does have one brilliant track, we Love youe, where they take the piss out of the trial.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

And they model it on Oscar Wilde. So Mick is Oscar Wilde, Keith is the High Court judge, and Marianne Faithfull is a frankly sensational Bosie. She kind of looks like a cross between Twiggy and Alfred Douglas. Amazing look.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

But, Tom, this is. I mean, you like dressing. I mean, you're a fan of dressing up. You've done it on occasion for the podcast. You're basically giving it marks for dressing.

[Tom Holland]

Up rather than for musical merit and music and swagger. There's a great visual joke where there's a Fur rug. And Marianne Faithfull lifts up the fur rug to reveal Mick.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Oh, great banter.

[Tom Holland]

And also the other thing about that particular track is that it has a very good Mellotron in it, right. And that is played by Brian and it's his, I think, his last kind of contribution.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Where you see this is you and I are looking for different things than Rolling Stones. I'm looking for sort of satanic simplicity and you're looking for, for whimsy and humor.

[Tom Holland]

No, I'm not, I'm not. I'm responding to the full range of their oeuvre.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Are you okay? See, I like the fact that they are this, they release this and everybody says it's, it's abject, it gets terrible reviews, it's a complete Beatles ripoff. And there's too many kind of, you know, stuff we play backwards and people laughing uncontrollably and actually, come on, get back to your old stuff. And then they start working on the kind of blues roots stuff that becomes Beggar's Banquet. So this is the album that has Street Fighting man and Sympathy for the Devil. And it's more aggressive and it's more hard edged and it's more the Rolling Stones that everybody, that everybody wants. So Brian Jones makes virtually no contribution to this at all because he's so off his face on drugs. And they just start on a new album in 1969 called Let It Bleed, which basically doesn't really turn up for.

[Tom Holland]

Kicks off with Gimme Shelter, doesn't it?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah. So they have already started to think he's got to go. And they're working with a replacement who's called Mick Taylor, who is from a band called John Mayles Blues Breakers. A lot of people will know that the Rolling Stones got into terrible trouble with their taxes. And the real issue with them is they discovered that their finances had been ill managed and they hadn't paid enough tax during the 1960s. And they are going to face colossal tax and legal bills and to make money they need to go on tour to America. But Brian Jones has two drugs convictions and he almost certainly will be refused entry. And frankly, even if he got in, he will be useless because he can't play publicly. So in June 1969, the 8th of June, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Charlie Watts drove to Cotchford Farm, formerly A.A. milne's house, to break the bad news. And they literally break it to him, surrounded by Winnie the Pooh memorabilia.

[Tom Holland]

Hush hush, whisper who dares?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

A sort of blank faced Eeyore looking over at them. Whatever. And it's a terrible scene. Like he pretends he's happy and they say, well, we'll put out a statement that it's musical differences. Mick Jagger said afterwards it was difficult, but not as difficult as I thought. So they do it quite coldly. There were different accounts of how he spent his final weeks, whether he was. Some people say he was inconsolable shock. They were shocked at the sight of him. He was frail and downcast. Other people visited him and he was. Said they found him upbeat, talking about a new band and stuff. Possibly this is the effect of the drugs, that his moods are all over the place. And then on the 2nd of July 1969, it's a lovely warm day. He's got a new girlfriend called Anna Volin, who's Swedish, and they're spending their time hanging out by a swimming pool. He's got terrible asthma, Brian Jones, so he's always taking his inhaler.

[Tom Holland]

He's got a lovely stripy blue T shirt, hasn't he?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He does. He loves a Breton. That's a Breton T shirt.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah. Example Gautier.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

And late that night, they hang around at the swimming pool with a bloke called Frank Thorogood, who was doing building work for Jones on the farm, you see.

[Tom Holland]

That sounds sinister, doesn't it?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Do you think so?

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, I do. Generally in these kind of dramas where there are, you know, somebody's doing the building.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah. Why is he there in the evening? That's the question. They're drinking loads of vodka and taking amphetamines and then they decide to have a swim. At around midnight, Frank Thorogood and the others get out of the pool and go inside, leaving Brian in the pool. And when they return, Tom, Brian is dead. His floating life was in the pool. So they called an ambulance and whatnot. And the police. Police pathologist said he's full of drink and drugs. Coroner said he's obviously drowned because he's off his face on. On drink and drugs. However, the suspicion of murder. Murder has hung over this. If you go on the Internet, there are demented conspiracy theories. I mean, the two best ones are one killed by the Mafia, presumably using the same team that killed Kennedy in Dallas in 1963, and that the other Rolling Stones killed him, which seems unlikely to me, actually improbable. So in the 2000s, they started to become allegations. You can find them very easily. They're in Anna Volin's own book, the girlfriend's book, the Murder of Brian Jones, that the builder you identified him from the beginning, Tom.

[Keith Richards]

I did.

[Tom Holland]

I fingered him.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Frank Thorogood. You're safe from being sued by him because he died in 1993 and it is said that on his deathbed he made a confession that he had killed Jones. So you're sticking to that, are you?

[Tom Holland]

No, I'm floating it out. But I'm saying that this is probably what would happen if this were a Sunday evening detective drama like Berserk. No, not Bergerac.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Bergerac is brilliant. You won't be dissing Bergerac on this show.

[Tom Holland]

No? What's it, the one where they're always killing each other? The Village.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Midsummer Murders.

[Tom Holland]

Midsummer Murders.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Midsummer Murders. It makes a brilliant addition to Midsummer Murders.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Well, anyway, Charlie Watts doesn't think that he despises. I don't know what he thinks about or he thought about Midsummer Murders.

[Keith Richards]

He'd have loved it.

[Tom Holland]

He'd have stayed in on a Sunday night.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He would actually.

[Tom Holland]

Cup of cocoa, settled down.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He'd have. He'd have watched the Antiques Roadshow first and then he'd have watched Midsummer. He'd have actually exhibited stuff on the Antiques Roadshow, given the chance, I imagine.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, he'd have lent his house as a set.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Exactly. Well, Bill Wyman with a metal detector. Remember Bill Wyman used to go around with a metal. Maybe still does with the metal detector. Detecting things. I mean, there's another side of Bill Wyman's life which we don't need to go into, but.

[Tom Holland]

Well, all of them.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Charlie Watts said all that about Brian being knocked off his rubbish. I know a lot of people. This is. The next line, is classic Rolling Stones interview. I know a lot of people who would have willingly knocked him off, but it didn't happen. Slightly of disappointment about that, I think.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Charlie Watts said his pool was too hot. Whenever you got there, it used to shimmer with heat. You would drive down there on a spring morning and the heat would be rising off the top. So it was too hot and that's what killed him, according to Charlie Watts.

[Tom Holland]

Right. Well, I. Probably. Probably accurate.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

Well, maybe he doesn't sound. I mean, clearly he was very, very ill and not treating his illness in a sensible way.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Exactly. I think that's exactly right. Now, the Rolling Stones had already made a plan to have this concert at Hyde park on the Saturday 5th July, for the maximum publicity, to unveil his replacement, Mick Taylor. So they were going to have this free concert and the arrangements had already been made. A special souvenir edition of the London Evening Standard. Six different TV crews They were going to be transported to the stage from their hotel in an armored personnel carrier. Mick Jagger had already ordered his outfit from the boutique, Mr. Fish.

[Tom Holland]

And what an outfit it is and what an outfit.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

And they didn't want to scrap it. And so Charlie Watts said, let's turn it into a memorial to Brian. And so it is that on the 5th of July, this great 1960s set piece at Hyde park, there are somewhere between a quarter and half a million people and it is actually a lovely scene. There's no trouble at all, it's a beautiful day, there are lots of people in caftans, they're all eating ice creams by the Serpentine. The police are kind of chuckling and, you know, posing for photos or whatever. Now there are in a sign of things to come, 50 Hell's Angels who have been hired to protect the equipment. But, you know, they get on all right with the crowd, it's all fine. The concert starts at 1 o'clock, various warm up acts and then at 4 o'clock the Stones finally appear. And Tom there is a bombshell as Mick Jagger unveils this long awaited outfit that he's had specially made by Mr.

[Tom Holland]

Fish.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

And Philip Norman, the Stones biographer, says whatever the audience were expecting, no one could have expected him to take the stage in lipstick, rouge and eyeshadow and wearing a white frilly garment, which for all the white vest and bell bottoms visible beneath, still resembled nothing so much as a little girl's party dress.

[Tom Holland]

It's an amazing moment, isn't it?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It is, because it's the first time this has really happened something like this.

[Tom Holland]

It's surely up there with Gene Shrimpton's appearance at the Battle of Melbourne as one of the great turning points in world history.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It's up there with the Crecy, isn't it? The Battle of Crecy, the Battle of Melbourne. And what was the other one we said? Oh, wolves inventing Europe in the 1960s.

[Tom Holland]

No, I think you said that. But I mean, it's definitely up there with decisive moments.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Well, on the rest is history. We only do the very, very biggest and most important historical moments, don't we? And actually. So he's also got a crucifix and a kind of dog collar, leather dog collar. And your reading, Eccentric as it was, was too good because if you watch him on YouTube.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, he's worse, isn't he?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

His reading of Shelley, it actually improves a bit. It does get better as he gets in, but when he starts, he's clearly, I mean, God, he's quite young, you know, they're in their 20s, quarter of a million people. It's a bizarre situation to be in. He's clearly very nervous and he makes a dreadful mess of it. So he's getting all the words wrong and stumbling and stuff and, and all of this. However, the press coverage was bonkers. That observer from far off, you might have supposed that this great gathering had come to hear a famed religious leader or some Eastern mystic. At the end they release all these butterflies.

[Tom Holland]

They're dead, aren't they?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

They got terrible complaints. The butterflies had all suffocated in the boxes. Disastrous. The concert itself was very bad by all accounts. They're all very nervous. Mick Taylor is making his debut. He's terrified. However, as a public spectacle, a huge occasion, a great success and as with every great 60s occasion, a mad column afterwards in the Guardian.

[Tom Holland]

So Richard Gott, he's the KGB agent, isn't he?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He was a KGB agent of influence, I believe. He gave my first book, Never had it so good, A disobliging review.

[Tom Holland]

Okay, well let's diss him.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

There wasn't enough about the Cuban Revolution in it and people in Britain cared nothing about nothing so much as the Cuban Revolution.

[Tom Holland]

He didn't dig your insistence on washing machines.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

No. He said, what's all this nonsense about people going to garden centers and Kingsley Amos, I want the Cuban Revolution. Anyway, he said of this concert, it was a great and epoch making event in British social history. Anyone who wants to understand the present political malaise in Britain or who wants to have an inkling what Britain will be like in 10 years time should have been at the park on Saturday. He said, and of course when you do the maths, 10 years on from this concert is almost exactly the point when Margaret Thatcher became Prime minister. So a prediction that did not work out exactly as he anticipated.

[Tom Holland]

Well, the Stones are not in favor of high taxes.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

No.

[Tom Holland]

And Mrs. Thatcher was also not in favor of high taxes. So in a sense you could say that the Stones decision to leave Britain and go to France is a pre figuring of the Thatcherite tax cutting regime.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Because actually it's just after this concert that their tax adviser, who is a Bavarian, I believe a Bavarian aristocrat called Prince Rupert Lovenstein, who didn't like their music, had never heard of them before they took him on, but was brilliant at taxes. He said to them, you need to get out of Britain. You have been very poorly advised. You've been underpaying tax for years. The only way you can basically escape this and not go be completely bankrupt is to get out of the country for. So you're two years non resident. And that means they go to France. But of course they still need to make money. And so in October they fly to America for their first tour since the summer of 1966. And actually when they get to America at the end of 1969, they are young, but they're not politically naive. They can tell that something has changed in the atmosphere. So listeners will remember our America in 1968 series. And we've moved on less than a year since the end of that Nixon's election. Keith Richards said afterwards, he said, when we went to America before it was Walt Disney and hamburger dates. But when you came back in 1969, it wasn't anymore. It's darker. They've had riots, they've had Vietnam. Just the atmosphere feels. Everything just feels more conflicted. And you know, even the gigs there is much less screaming than there was. There aren't teeny boppers there. The fans seem older and they comment on it. Charlie Watts, people didn't scream anymore. The music was taken seriously. Mick Jagger, he said the real surprise was that people actually listened to the music.

[Tom Holland]

But presumably they are older. I mean, the teeny boppers have grown up.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Exactly. And, but. And the tickets are also much more expensive. This is the first rock tour, I think, where there were a lot of complaints about the prices of the tickets because of course they're charging as much as they can at this point because they're desperate for money, but because of their tax in brolio, but also they can because both they and the fans have grown up. And I think this is actually part of a much bigger cultural shift that we often forget about. Because right up to this point, when people talked about the Rolling Stones, the phrase they used to describe them was a pop group. They never called them a rock group, they called them a pop group. And I think it's this point, 1967-69, that effectively rock music is invented as something serious and grown up and not teenage and not trivial. And I think they are absolutely the center of this. And I think there are three elements to it. So one is that cultural shift that we just mentioned. The shift from the kind of hippie, dippy, flower power, everything is fun and sweet and sunny, to the darkness of the kind of Nixon years, which seems to just seems the perfect match to a move from kind of pop to rock to something a little bit more conflicted and a bit heavy and a bit more serious. The musicians themselves, the Second thing, they are much older. You know, they're. They're in their late 20s, coming into their 30s. They no longer want to be pop stars. They want to be serious musicians. So you have people like Eric Clapton or Jimmy Page or Jeff Beck or whatever who pride themselves on being kind of guitar virtuosos. I'm not just. I don't want people to scream, I want people to listen to the music. So there's a kind of an earnestness to it. And then the third thing, probably the most important thing, the market has changed. So if you're 16 in 1963, at the dawn of the kind of pop revolution, what are you? You're in your mid-20s now. And given what we know about the social structure at the time, you're almost certainly married and you almost certainly have a job. So there isn't a self consciously adult market who don't want music anymore to dance to, which was the main point of music at the beginning of the 60s. They wanted to actually listen to. They want to listen to the lyrics.

[Tom Holland]

Which people didn't do, which they might start printing on the back of the album. Like with sergeant Pepper.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Exactly. Which they print on the back of the album. And it's at this point the singles market goes into a long term decline and the album market begins to surge. And albums are much more profitable. So it makes sense now for bands, they start to call themselves bands rather than groups. And it makes sense for them to cater to these older listeners. So you get a band like Led Zeppelin who emerge at this point. They don't bother with the singles market at all. They just want to make albums largely for slightly older listeners who actually aren't the teenage girls who had powered this at the very beginning. There's a brilliant discussion of this in a book by Charlie Gillick or the Sound of the City. And he talks about what a contrived and artificial sort of cleavage it is between pop and rock. But we're now so used to it, we've fallen for the PR basically, because.

[Tom Holland]

It'S about ultimately about working out how to sell more records.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Older people won't buy music that they think is for teenagers. So this is the way you basically say, no, it's not. It's a whole new genre. And that's how they do it. Anyway, let's end the episode, this enormous episode and indeed the story of the stones in the 60s with the final act of that American tour. So all through this tour they have had massive criticism for their high ticket prices. And they decide, because they're kindly people that they will end with another free concert like Hyde Park. And they say, let's do it in San Francisco, in the city of the counterculture. We'll have a little festival. We'll get the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane and Californian bands to come and join us. But partly because of their kind of outlaw reputation, but also because the cultural and political climate has changed. You know, swung against the counterculture with Nixon's election and so on. They don't get permits, so they decide they will do it at the Altamont raceway, which is 60 miles from San Francisco, in the absolute middle of nowhere. When we're on our tour, Tom, our US Tour, last year we drove not a million miles away from the Altamont Raceway, didn't we? And it is, you know, California is a big place. You go inland, you're a long way from the cities. It's very rural. And that's where they're going to the kind of just a sort of suburban scrub of nowhere. And this place, it's like a bowl. And the stage is at the bottom of the bowl, at the bottom of a slope. So a slightly weird arrangement. And to protect the stage, the management of the Grateful Dead, who have said they'll help to organize it, enlist the local Hell's Angels and they pay them with $500 worth of beer. We mentioned the Hell's Angels at Hyde Park. This is a very different atmosphere.

[Tom Holland]

They have billiard cues, don't they?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

And motorbike chains as weapons. So 300,000 people descend on this raceway. It's a very miserable kind of gray day. Everybody gets absolutely wasted very quickly, very drunk, there's a lot of fighting. And by the time the Stones come on, the mood has got very ugly. If you watch the footage, Mick Jagger is constantly saying, cool down, guys, cool down. And all this kind of thing. They have to stop. The third song, Sympathy for the Devil, it's actually where the stone's kind of slightly satanic pretensions are exposed. You know, they're not really as satanic as all that because they're clearly very uncomfortable and very discomforted by the fighting below them. And then the fourth song, this fight breaks out between the Hell's angels and an 18 year old black man called Meredith Hunter. And it culminates with this dreadful scene which, you know, if you're desperate to see it, you can see it on YouTube. Hunter pulls out what seems to be a long barreled revolver and one of the Hell's Angels kind of parries him and then stabs him repeatedly. And then the other Hell's Angels kind of stamp on him while he lies dying. The Stones actually finished their set. They knew somebody was hurt, but they didn't know how seriously. And then they effectively flee the scene by helicopter. And it turns out that Meredith Hunter wasn't the only person killed that day. So two fans were run over by a car and another drowned in a drainage ditch. And at the time, it was seen as the sort of. The symbolic punctuation point at the end of the 1960s, I mean, literally is at the end of the 1960s, at the very end of 1969. But all the kind of rock critics and stuff said, oh, my gosh, you could hardly find a better kind of encapsulation of the changing mood and so on. The US rock writer Ralph Gleason a few months later wrote, if the name Woodstock has come to denote the flowering of one phase of the youth culture, Altamont has come to mean the end of it. Now, I don't actually think that's quite right. I mean, I think it had already ended. Nixon had already been president for a year. The Summer of Love was over. The optimism of the 60s was already a very distant memory, isn't it?

[Tom Holland]

Because the Stones are the people playing at Altamont and they have provided the soundtrack over the previous two years for the process by which the Summer of Love kind of fades away that gives Altamont its kind of symbolic resonance?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I think so, yeah. I think so. I think it's a different band, a less well known band, and one without the folk devil reputation, I think would not have been such a big story. I completely agree with that.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah. So, I mean, they're playing Sympathy for the Devil, and that has kind of allusions to the Kennedys, doesn't it? And. And who is it shot them? You and me. And then you've got Gimme Shelter, which is. I mean, I know that it's. It's Keith Richards, isn't it? He was. He was watching people run from a thunderstorm, actually, I think in Robert Fraser's flat, actually. But I mean, they say overtly, it's about Vietnam, you know, that death and murder is just a shot away. And if they had not produced songs of that caliber, talking about violence, linking it into Vietnam.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

And then the fact that it happens symbolically at the end of the 60s, I can see why people give it this mythic resonance in California.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Oh, yeah. I mean, they greatly resented that, of course.

[Tom Holland]

They would. I mean, they would absolutely repudiate that. I think it is Actually a tribute to the incredible power and resonance of the songs that they're putting out over 68 and 69, that it comes to have this resonance. But I understand why they've stained themselves with. Wouldn't like it.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, I think that's fair enough, Tom. Of course, for the Stones, you know, life goes on and they're in the middle of a fantastic run of albums. Two of their very best albums come in the next couple of years. Sticky Fingers and Excel on Main Street.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, because they go back to France, don't they?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, and they're producing amazing stuff in France. And, I mean, by this point, what they've done is effectively invented what it is to be a rock band. I would say, to an extent that we now are so familiar with it, we take it for granted. Sex, drugs, rebellion, songs about. With the sort of slightly satanic pretensions, death. All those themes that people associate with rock music as opposed to pop music. It's the Rolling Stones who establish the template, which is why I think they are the only band, actually, of that era that will be remembered as the Beatles will be. So, of course, there are lots of other fantastic outfits, but none of them quite, for me, have the same symbolic resonance as the Rolling Stones do. What do you think, Tom?

[Tom Holland]

I completely agree, and I think that, as with the Beatles, it's the combination of incredible music with an ability to serve as a lightning rod for very broad cultural trends that gives them the status they have.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, agreed. Although, do you know the one person who doesn't agree with us on this? It's Mick Jacker. He was interviewed by Sounds in 1976 and he said the brilliant line, which makes me think much better of him. He said, people overestimate the Rolling Stones. I don't think the Stones were as good as people think.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, but bear in mind that's 1976 and punk is about to come.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yes, that's true.

[Tom Holland]

And by that point, he must be feeling. I mean, the kind of the tension between his growing years and the fact that he's supposedly the embodiment of the youth revolution, which to this day remains probably what people best now know the Stones for. But it's good to get back and be reminded of what they were. Yeah, I agreed, because now they're a parody of that kind of youthful anarchy and rebellion. But at one point, they were the embodiments of it.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

They were exactly, however complicated.

[Tom Holland]

Away.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

All right, so that's the Rolling Stones. Shall we return next week with something completely different?

[Tom Holland]

Let's do that.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

All right. On that bombshell. Goodbye.

[Tom Holland]

Bye.