Old Gods Almost Dead by Stephen Davis Page B

uptight, on blues guitar. Brian on guitar. Keith on rhythm guitar. Dick Taylor on bass. Stu on piano. Mick singing. Various drummers, Mick Avory a lot. They started learning Elmore James songs, dissecting Jimmy Reed masterpieces, and speeding up Chuck Berry.
    Brian was encouraging to Dick Taylor, who was new on the bass, and tried to be accommodating to Mick and his mates, who wanted Chuck and Bo, though he himself was really interested in being the white Jimmy Reed. There was a little conflict and some mixed feelings, but all were impressed by Brian’s brilliant musicianship, his out-of-town diligence, and his certainty that they were cool and that something was gonna happen, man.
    Something had to happen, because none of them had a shilling to his name.
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    Their break came when the BBC offered Blues Incorporated a slot on its
Jazz Club
radio show on Thursday, July 12, 1962. But the BBC only had a budget to pay five musicians, and the producer didn’t want Mick anyway because it was a jazz show. Since Korner couldn’t make his Thursday gig at the Marquee, Harold Pendleton had to find another act. He hired Long John Baldry’s group, but was persuaded by Brian to hire his new group to play between Baldry’s sets. Panic set in when Brian realized they didn’t have decent enough amplifiers for a paid performance, so Mick got his dad to lend them enough to rent some cheap Harmony amps, and Brian got hold of a used Harmony Stratotone electric guitar.
    When Pendleton told Brian the group needed a name for the adverts, Brian came up with “the Rollin’ Stones,” from Muddy Waters’s classic “Rollin’ Stone.” Stu hated the name (“It sounds like a troupe of fucking Irish acrobats”), but it stuck. To Brian’s dismay, the ad for the gig read, “Mick Jagger and the Rollin’ Stones.”
    And so, consciously or not, the Stones anointed themselves as the anticipated messiahs of the blues—the sons, the boy-children, of Muddy Waters, agents of Mississippi Delta culture to the world. It was a prophesy they managed to fulfill, introducing blues and R&B to their huge postwar generation, and so keeping the endangered species alive.
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    The Rollin’ Stones played their debut gig at the Marquee in Oxford Street on a bright London summer evening in July. Their gear was humped down the narrow stairs by Stu and Brian’s friend Dick Hattrell, who acted as their unpaid roadie. The crowd was half Marquee jazz regulars and half young R&B fans glazed over from speed, cigarettes, and too much espresso. Mick, Keith, and Brian were the front line, with Stu on piano and maracas, Dick Taylor on bass, and (possibly) Mick Avory on drums. Wearing coats and ties, they lit into “Kansas City.” Despair as Brian and Stu realized that the drummer was way off. But they continued for an hour of chugging, clunky, piano-driven R&B: “Honey What’s Wrong,” “Confessin’ the Blues,” “Bright Lights,” “Dust My Blues,” with Brian’s clarion slide guitar that woke the audience up. Mick and Brian got some kids dancing. “Down the Road Apiece” injected some up-tempo Chuck Berry rocking into the set. Back to laconic Jimmy Reed blues with “I Want to Love You.” “Bad Boy.” “I Ain’t Got You.” Jimmy Reed again with “Hush Hush.” Muddy’s “Ride ’Em on Down.” Chuck Berry’s “Back in the U.S.A.” “Feel Kind of Lonesome.” Elmore James’s “Blues Before Sunrise.” “Big Boss Man.” Billy Boy Arnold’s “Don’t Stay Out All Night.” And (according to the set list jotted down by Stu in his diary along with the keys the songs were in) they finished with Jimmy Reed’s “Tell Me That You