Early Rolling Stones with Brian Jones

Cheltenham-born bohemian Brian Jones placed an advertisement on 2 May 1962 in the Jazz News inviting musicians to audition for a new R&B group. Ian Stewart was the first to respond, later singer Mick Jagger and his Dartford schoolmate, Keith Richards, joined. Later still, Bill Wyman on bass because he had a spare VOX AC30 guitar amp and cigarettes and they finally persuaded jazz-influenced Charlie Watts to join them.

Brian Jones was inspired by the blues, particularly Elmore James and Robert Johnson, and had named two of his four illegitimate sons Julian in tribute to the jazz saxophonist Julian “Cannonball” Adderley. Jagger and Richards loved the blues too, notably Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, and Howlin’ Wolf.

Jones was the leader – promoting the band and negotiating with venues – and he was more animated and engaging a performer than Jagger. While acting as manager, Jones received £5 more than the other members, which did not sit well with the rest of the band.

He played:

• Slide guitar on “I Wanna Be Your Man”, “Little Red Rooster”, and “No Expectations”
• Sitar on “Street Fighting Man” and “Paint It Black”; organ on “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” “Complicated,” and “2000 Man”
• Marimba on “Under My Thumb,” “Out Of Time” and “Yesterday’s Papers”
• Recorder on “Ruby Tuesday” and “All Sold Out”
• Saxophone on “Child of the Moon”;
• Appalachian dulcimer on “I Am Waiting” and “Lady Jane”
• Accordion on “Backstreet Girl”
• Saxophone, and oboe on “Dandelion”
• Harpsichord on “Lady Jane”
• Mellotron on “She’s A Rainbow”, “We Love You”, “Stray Cat Blues” and “2000 Light Years from Home”
• The autoharp on “You Got the Silver” – his final recording as a Rolling Stone

With Keith Richards, he performed “guitar weaving” from listening to Jimmy Reed albums – both of them playing rhythm and lead guitar without clear boundaries between the two roles.

His ability with a wide variety of instruments is evident on albums Aftermath (1966), Between the Buttons (1967) and Their Satanic Majesties Request (1967). Jones appears less frequently on Beggars Banquet (1968) and only briefly on Let it Bleed (1969).

Andrew Loog Oldham’s arrival as manager marked the beginning of Jones’s estrangement from the band. And this coupled with the toll from days on the road, the fame and the feeling of being alienated from the group resulted in Jones’s overindulgence in alcohol and other drugs. He frequently used LSD, pills, cannabis, and he drank heavily.

To the public it appeared as if Jones had left voluntarily however the rest of the band had asked to him to leave. Jones released a statement on 9 June 1969 saying, amongst other things, that “I no longer see eye-to-eye with the others over the discs we are cutting”. Jones was replaced by 20-year-old guitarist Mick Taylor (formerly of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers).

At around midnight on the night of 2-3 July 1969, Jones was discovered motionless at the bottom of his swimming pool at Cotchford Farm in East Sussex.

He was 27; Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison found their own drug-related deaths at the same age within two years (Morrison dying two years to the day after Jones). The coincidence of ages has been described as the “27 Club”.

Painter/novelist Brion Gysin first heard the Master Musicians of Joujouka, Sufi trance musicians from Morrocco at a festival in 1950. Entranced with the music’s sound, he was later led to the village by Moroccan painter Mohamed Hamri. Gysin, along with Hamri, brought Brian Jones to hear the village music in 1968. Jones recorded them and in 1971, Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka, was released posthumously. It is a world music classic.

Bless you, Brian