When this you see, remember me
and bear me in your mind
Let all the world say what they may,
speak of me as you findBRIAN JONES [1942-1969]Early life
Jones was born in the Park Nursing Home in in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England during World War II, suffering from asthma his entire life. While he was alive during the war, he was too young to remember anything about it. His parents, Louis Blount and Louisa Beatrice Jones, were of Welsh descent, and middle-class residents of the town. Brian had a sister, Pamela, born in 1943 who died a year later as a result of leukemia. A second sister, Barbara, was born in 1946.
Brian's parents were both very interested in music, and it seems their interest had a profound effect on young Brian. In addition to his job as an aeronautical engineer, Brian's father played both piano and organ, and led the choir at the local church. Jones's mother Louisa was a piano teacher and started teaching her son the instrument at a very young age. Eventually Brian required formal lessons as he progressed too quickly for her to continue teaching him. He soon learned how to read music, and eventually took up the clarinet, becoming first clarinet in his school orchestra at 14.
In 1957 Jones was first exposed to the jazz musician Charlie Parker; this sparked a lifelong interest in jazz music and Jones persuaded his parents to buy him a saxophone. As with many instruments he learned, Jones initially played endlessly, only to find he became somewhat bored with the instrument after he mastered it, and finally would search for another instrument to play. Two years later his parents gave him his first acoustic guitar as a present for his 17th birthday.
Attending local schools including Dean Close School and Cheltenham Grammar School for Boys, Jones was known as an exceptional student, getting very high marks in all of his classes while doing relatively little work. He enjoyed badminton and diving but otherwise was not very skilled at sports. However he found his schooling to be too regimented and formal, and refused to conform when he reached adolescence. He was known to eschew wearing the school uniforms, refusing to wear his mortarboard, and angering teachers with his behaviour. As a result, he remained very popular and well-liked with the students, while the teachers would often cane him. This open hostility towards authority figures got him suspended from school on two separate occasions.
Dick Hattrell, a childhood friend of Brian's, is quoted as saying about the guitarist:
"He was a rebel without a cause, but when examinations came he was brilliant."
All this came to an end, however, when in the spring of 1959 (aged 17) Jones impregnated his girlfriend, a 14-year-old Cheltenham schoolgirl named Valerie. Jones encouraged her to have an abortion, however she wanted no further contact with Brian and instead chose to have the baby boy adopted. The child was given to an infertile couple upon his birth and Brian quit school and left home, travelling throughout northern Europe and Scandinavia for the summer. During this time, Jones later claimed, he lived something of a bohemian lifestyle, busking and playing guitar on the streets for money, living off the kindness of others.
While Jones was fond of telling others about his trip throughout Europe, it remains uncertain as to how much of his story is real and how much is embellishment. Other friends and acquaintances spoke of Jones merely staying with relatives outside the UK, yet to hear it from the musician himself, he had no money, no home, no friends and no family after he left England. One thing is certain, however; as Jones himself later recalled,
"Those few months were the most free and happy of my life".
Upon his return, Jones became much more interested in various types of music - he was taught classical music at a young age, and he always preferred blues (particularly Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson), however he soon took an interest in country, jazz and rock 'n roll. He began playing at local blues and jazz clubs in addition to busking and working various odd jobs, and used the money he earned to buy more instruments. He was also known to steal small amounts of money to pay for cigarettes, which got him fired from jobs on several occasions.
Despite the unwanted attention he received from impregnating his girlfriend at a young age, Jones showed no signs of changing his lifestyle. A second child, who Jones named Julian Mark Andrews (his mother being Jones' then girlfriend Pat Andrews) was born in 1961.
Forming the Rolling Stones
Jones eventually left home completely and moved to London (probably by hitchhiking), where he met and befriended fellow musicians Alexis Korner, future Manfred Mann singer Paul Jones, future Cream bassist Jack Bruce and others who made up the small London Rhythm n' Blues scene that the Rolling Stones soon dominated and spearheaded. He became a proficient blues musician, for a brief time christening himself "Elmo Lewis", and Bill Wyman claimed he was one of the first guitarists in the UK to play slide guitar.
In the spring of 1962, Jones recruited Ian "Stu" Stewart and singer Mick Jagger into his band - who with Jagger's childhood friend Keith Richards met Jones when he and Paul Jones were featured playing Elmore James' "Dust My Broom" with Korner's band. On his initiative, Jagger brought guitarist Richards with him to the rehearsals and who then joined the band. Jones' and Stewarts' acceptance of Richards and the Chuck Berry songs he wanted to play coincided with the departure of blues purists Geoff Bradford and Brian Knight who had no tolerance for Chuck Berry. As Keith Richards tells it, it was Jones who came up with the name "The Rollin' Stones" (later with the 'g') while on the phone with a venue owner.
"The voice on the other end of the line obviously said, 'What are you called?' Panic. 'The Best Of Muddy Waters' album was lying on the floor - and Track One was 'Rollin' Stone Blues'."
The Stones had their first gig on 12 July 1962 in the Marquee Club in London with the following line-up: Jagger, Richards, Jones, Stewart, bass player Dick Taylor (later of The Pretty Things) and as drummer probably Tony Chapman (some sources say Mick Avory).
Throughout much of 1962 and 1963 Jones, Jagger and Richards shared an apartment (referred to by Richards as "a beautiful dump") in Chelsea, London at 102 Edith Grove with James Phelge, a future photographer whose last name would later be used in some of the band's writing credits. While they lived there, Jones and Richards spent day after day playing guitar while listening to blues records (most notably Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters & Howlin' Wolf), and Jones showed Jagger how to play the harmonica properly.
As Jagger recalls:
"In the beginning, I think Brian was a better harmonica player than me, and then I got better than him, although that's very subjective because he had a completely different way of playing."
Keith Richards maintains that what he and Jones called "guitar weaving" grew out of this period, from listening to Jimmy Reed albums.
"We listened to the team work, trying to work out what was going on in those records; how you could play together with two guitars and make it sound like four or five."
The four Rolling Stones then went searching for a steady bassist and drummer, and after several auditions and try-outs they settled on Bill Wyman on bass (mainly because he had two large VOX AC30 guitar amps and cigarettes). After having played with Mick Avory later of the Kinks, Tony Chapman and Carlo Little for a few gigs, jazz-influenced Charlie Watts from the Alexis Korner group Blues, Inc. was chosen to play drums, considered by fellow musicians to be one of the best drummers of the London music scene.
Watts described Brian's role in these early days:
"Brian was very instrumental in pushing the band at the beginning. Keith and I would look at him and say he was barmy. It was a crusade to him, a) to get us on the stage in a club and be paid half-a-crown and b) to be billed as an R&B band."
The group played at local blues and jazz clubs around London, eventually forming a solid fan base despite strong resistance from traditional jazz musicians who felt threatened by the Stones' popularity. While Mick Jagger was the lead singer, Jones, in the group's embryonic period, was the leader, promoting the band, getting them shows around London and negotiating with venue owners. Jones would often act more as an entertainer in these early days, playing several instruments including vocals, rhythm guitar, slide guitar and harmonica.
During live performances around this time, and especially at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, Jones was frequently a more animated and engaging performer than even Mick Jagger. Jagger initially stood still while singing, mainly by circumstance, as there was hardly any room for him to move at all.
While acting as business manager, Jones arranged to have himself paid 5 pounds sterling more than the other members of the group, a practice which did not sit well with the rest of the band.
Fame and fortune
As the Stones' popularity grew, they came to the attention of Andrew Loog Oldham, who met the band in April 1963 at the suggestion of Record Mirror music writer Peter Jones (no relation) and soon became, with Eric Eastman, their co-manager. Oldham, who had worked briefly as the Beatles publicist, was an admirer of Anthony Burgess' novel A Clockwork Orange, cultivated an image for the band as unruly and slightly menacing, a kind of blues-inflected, rough-edged answer to the more amiable Beatles, using the novel's protagonist and his gang as his inspiration. It was Oldham who coined the phrase "Would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone?". Keyboardist Ian Stewart was pushed into the background by Oldham for two main reasons. Oldham felt that Stewart, a somewhat burly Scotsman, did not fit in with the image he wanted of the group. In addition, Oldham felt that six group members were too many for audiences to remember clearly. Stewart remained the Stones' road manager and principal keyboard player until his death in 1985.
Oldham's arrival also marked the beginning of Jones' own slow estrangement from the band, one which saw his prominent role progressively diminished as Oldham sought to shift the Stones' centre of gravity away from Jones and towards Jagger and Richards.
Until this time all of the songs in the group's repertoire were either blues covers or instrumentals credited to "Nanker Phelge" - a credit that indicated the song was a Jagger/Jones/Richards/Watts/Wyman composition. Oldham, and everybody in the group, recognised the financial lucrativity of writing one's own songs with the Lennon/McCartney team, as well as the simple fact that playing covers won't keep in the limelight for years to come. Further, Oldham wanted to make Jagger's onstage charisma and flamboyance a central focus of the band's live performances. Jones saw his influence over the Stones' direction slide as their repertoire comprised fewer of the blues covers he would have preferred and more Jagger-and-Richards-penned originals, and as Oldham began asserting increasing managerial control, displacing Jones from another key role.
In 1964 Jones fathered another child out of wedlock, this time to girlfriend Linda Lawrence. Jones named this child Julian Brian Lawrence, and Julian would adopt the surname Leitch after Lawrence later married the folk singer Donovan. Jones is said to have named both sons Julian in tribute to the jazz saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley.
Throughout his career Jones showed a musical aptitude, having the ability to play a myriad of instruments, due to his training on the piano and clarinet in his youth. As the 1960s went on, Jones soon started experimenting with different wind and stringed instruments. Throughout his years with the band he played guitar, slide guitar, piano, sitar, tamboura, organ, dulcimer, mellotron, xylophone, marimba, recorder, clarinet and several other instruments.
In total he is known to have played at least 15 instruments with the Stones, and possibly many more. Brian's signature guitar is a teardrop-shaped prototype Vox Phantom Mark III, though he used many others throughout his career, being fond of Gibson models (various Firebirds and ES-330 models) as well, along with the Rickenbacker 12-String model made famous by George Harrison.
Brian contributed significantly to the 1960's sound of the Stones, playing slide guitar on "I Wanna Be Your Man", "Little Red Rooster", "Doncha Bother Me", "No Expectations", "I Can't Be Satisfied" and "I'm Moving On", the main guitar riff on "The Last Time", "Get Off Of My Cloud", "19th Nervous Breakdown", and "Mona", sitar on "Paint It Black", tamboura on "Street Fighting Man", marimba on "Under My Thumb", "Out Of Time" and "Ride On, Baby", recorder and piano on "Ruby Tuesday", dulcimer on "Lady Jane", accordion and recorder on "Backstreet Girl", mellotron on "2000 Light Years From Home", "She's A Rainbow" and "We Love You", saxophone and mellotron on "Citadel" and autoharp on "You Got The Silver". It was Brian Jones who played blues harp ("harmonica") on most of the Stones' recordings throughout the 1960s. He also contributed saxophone to the Beatles' "(You Know My Name) Look Up The Number".
In the Stones' early years, Jones was also a backing singer for the Stones, particularly from 1962-1964, although he can be heard on a few later 1960s hits. Notable examples are "Come On", "Walking The Dog", "Ruby Tuesday", "She's A Rainbow" and "Sympathy For The Devil".
Jones and Keith Richards created the "guitar weaving" technique (later dubbed the Ancient Form of Weaving) that has become a signature part of the sound of the Rolling Stones throughout their career. It involves both guitarists switching between rhythm and lead parts; the best example is probably on "It's All Over Now", their first English ..1 hit. The 1966 album Aftermath, the 1967 albums Between the Buttons and Their Satanic Majesties Request and the 1968 album Beggars Banquet showcase Jones's multi-instrumental talents throughout.
Around 1968 Jones purchased Cotchford Farm in East Sussex, the former home of Winnie the Pooh author A. A. Milne.
Estrangement from the Rolling Stones
The hard days on the road, the money and fame and the feeling of being alienated from the group resulted in Jones' greater and greater indulgence in drugs and alcohol. He frequently used LSD, cannabis and cocaine, and was known to be a heavy drinker, though he was also known to avoid heroin.
These indulgences did nothing positive for Jones's physical health (he suffered from asthma, and was never a very health-conscious individual). On several occasions he was in hospital while the rest of the group was elsewhere, doubtlessly contributing to his paranoia and physically separating him from his bandmates.
Jones was arrested for drug use for the first time in May 1967, shortly after the Redlands incident at Richards' Sussex home. Authorities found marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine in Jones' possession. He confessed to marijuana use but claimed he did not use hard drugs. Like the arrests of his bandmates, protesters appeared outside the court demanding that Jones be freed, and he was not kept in jail for long. He was fined, given probation and made to see a counselor.
In June 1967, Jones attended the Monterey Pop Festival. He attended the festival with singer Nico, with whom he had a brief romantic relationship. Here he met Frank Zappa and Dennis Hopper, and went on stage to introduce the Jimi Hendrix Experience. One review referred to Jones as "the unofficial 'king' of the festival".
Jagger and Richards grew increasingly hostile towards Jones, and Jones became alienated from the rest of the group. By many accounts Jones was often a warm, friendly and outgoing person, yet these same people - including Bill Wyman - commented that Jones could often be an extremely difficult and mean person to get along with at times. By most accounts, Jones's attitude changed frequently, one minute being caring and generous, the next making almost a deliberate effort to anger everyone.
As bandmate Wyman observed in his book Stone Alone,
"There were two Briansone was introverted, shy, sensitive, deep-thinkingthe other was a preening peacock, gregarious, artistic, desperately needing assurance from his peershe pushed every friendship to the limit and way beyond."
Jones's last substantial sessions with the Stones were in the spring and summer of 1968, when the Stones produced the classic "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and the Beggars Banquet album. A relaxed and sober Jones can be seen in the Jean-Luc Godard movie Sympathy For The Devil, playing acoustic guitar, chatting and sharing cigarettes with Richards. The film chronicles the making of the song "Sympathy for the Devil". While he played an acoustic guitar for the backing track, it is not included in the final version, though it is occasionally audible in the film. He can also be seen and heard singing the "woo-woo" backing vocals, along with several others (including his ex-girlfriend Pallenberg). This would mark his last vocal contribution to the Stones, and the only one featured on the album "Beggars Banquet".
At this time, it was becoming clear that Jones was not long for the group. Whereas before he would normally play multiple instruments on nearly every track (and sing backing vocals on many of them), his vocal contributions were all but eliminated by 1968, and he was no longer a ubiquitous presence on the album, only appearing on about half of the tracks. Notable exceptions include his slide guitar on 'No Expectations', harmonica on a few tracks, a sitar-like sound on 'Street Fighting Men' and an interesting mellotron sound on the underrated 'Stray Cat Blues'.
Jones' last formal appearance with the Stones was in the December 1968 The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, a part-concert, part-circus act film organized by the band. It went unreleased for 25 years due to Mick Jagger being unhappy with the band's performance when compared to other bands in the film, such as Jethro Tull, The Who and Taj Mahal. In the film, Jones appears somewhat under the influence of barbiturates but enjoys the interaction with the audience. At most times during the film his instruments are inaudible, but you can hear his signature lead slide guitar riff on "No Expectations".
The DVD's extra material indicates that most everyone at the concert knew at the time that this would be Jones's last performance with the group. Also seen is Jones introducing pianist Julius Katchen; however Jones slurs his speech and appears to have difficulty finishing the introduction.
Other contributions
In 1966 Jones produced, played on and wrote the soundtrack for the film "Mord und Totschlag" (aka "A Degree Of Murder"), an avant-garde German film with his then-girlfriend Anita Pallenberg. He hired various musicians to play on the soundtrack, among them guitarist Jimmy Page. Jones and Pallenberg attracted controversy during the making of the film when Jones posed in a Nazi uniform while standing on a naked doll for a photograph, along with Pallenberg. Jones was by no means sympathetic to the Nazis, however many were offended by the photographs.
Jones played percussion on an unreleased Jimi Hendrix' version of Bob Dylan's All Along the Watchtower together with a handful of unreleased jams with Hendrix and Dave Mason of Traffic in early 1968, in addition to playing the alto saxophone on a Beatles song, "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)." In 1968, Jones recorded the Morocco-based ensemble, the Master Musicians Of Joujouka. This is known to many as the birth of interest in World Music.
In 1971, Brian Jones Presents The Pipes Of Pan At Joujouka was posthumously released; it remains a World Music landmark. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards returned to Jajouka in 1989 to record most of backing for the track "Continental Drift" for the Stones album Steel Wheels.
The son of the leader of the Joujouka musicians that Brian Jones had recorded had co-incidentally written to the Rolling Stones at that time, and Jagger and Richards (along with Matt Clifford who was working on the album with them) flew off to meet him. The encounter is documented in a rarely seen BBC film called "Rolling Stones : World Music".
Death
Jones was arrested a second time in 1968, this time for marijuana possession. Jones claimed the marijuana was left behind by previous owners of his home, but he was facing a long jail sentence if found guilty, due to his probation. Bill Wyman commented "The fact that the police had secured a warrant with no evidence showed the arrest was part of a carefully orchestrated plan. Brian and the Stones were being targeted in an effort to deter the public from taking drugs." The jury found him guilty, yet the judge had sympathy for Jones. Instead of fining and warning him, the judge said, "For goodness sake, don't get into trouble again or it really will be serious." The prosecution's case was very weak, relying on testimony of police who were later found to be corrupt. (The same corrupt officers who harassed Jones would go on to harass Beatle John Lennon in 1969.)
Brian's continuing legal troubles, estrangement from his bandmates, substance abuse, sporadic contributions and mood swings finally became too much for the Rolling Stones. Jagger had wanted to tour the United States in 1969 for the first time in years, however Jones's second arrest exacerbated problems with US immigration.
In addition, the Stones' music was heavily based on the two weaving guitars; Brian's penchant for exotic instrumentation worked to complement Richards' guitar work, however at this time Brian would rarely come into the studio, and if he did he would frequently contribute nothing musically or his guitar would be switched off by his bandmates, leaving Richards playing nearly all the guitars. Jones was clearly not happy with his role in the group, and neither were the Stones.
At the suggestion of Ian Stewart, the Stones decided the best option would be to add a new guitarist, and on June 8, 1969, Jones was visited by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Charlie Watts and was told the group he formed would continue without him.
To the public, it appeared as if Jones suddenly left; the others told him that although he was being asked to leave, they stressed that it was his choice how to break it to the public.
Jones released a statement on June 9 announcing his departure from the group. In the public statement he said, among other things, that
"I no longer see eye-to-eye with the others over the discs we are cutting."
Ironically this would come just as the Stones were returning to their blues roots, which Jones had always emphasized.
Jones was replaced by 21-year-old virtuoso guitarist Mick Taylor (formerly of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers), who started sessions with the Stones right away.
At this point Jones mostly stayed at Cotchford Farm, with intentions to form another band. He did visit Olympic studios the next week to discuss the future with his former bandmates, with Bill Wyman noting that he was "excited about his own plans". He is known to have contacted Ian Stewart, Mitch Mitchell, Alexis Korner and Jimmy Miller. He toyed with the idea of joining Korner's New Church band, but Korner instead suggested Jones form his own band. Miller occasionally brought his family over, and Jones had invited him to do so again in early July.
There is great uncertainty as to the mental and physical state Jones was in at this time. The last known photographs taken of Jones, taken shortly before his departure from the Stones, are not flattering. The effects of years of substance abuse are evident. However, Jones's close friends (particularly Alexis Korner) and others were surprised by Jones's state in late June. Korner noted that Jones was "happier than he had ever been" at this time, and supposedly Jimmy Miller was surprised to find Jones in such good spirits. It has been suggested that he had mostly stopped his drug use, although he apparently still drank and reportedly took sleeping pills.
At around midnight on 3 July 1969, Brian Jones was discovered motionless at the bottom of his swimming pool at his home in Hartfield, Sussex, England, where he had been for only a matter of minutes. His girlfriend Anna Wohlin is convinced he was still alive when they took him out; she insists that he still had a pulse. However when the doctors arrived, it was too late for Brian and he was pronounced dead on the scene. The coroner's report stated "Death by misadventure," and noted that his liver and heart were heavily enlarged by drug and alcohol abuse.
However, Anna Wohlin claimed in 2000 that he had been murdered by a builder who had been staying with them renovating the house the couple shared. The builder, Frank Thorogood, allegedly confessed to the murder on his death bed to the Rolling Stone's driver, Tom Keylock: however it should be noted that there were no other witnesses to this confession. In her book ("The Murder Of Brian Jones") she alleges that Frank Thorogood behaved suspiciously and showed little sympathy when Jones was discovered in the pool (he was also the last one to see Brian alive): however she also admits that she was not actually physically present at the time of Jones' death. Witnesses have been interviewed by various journalists who claim to have seen the 'murder': however, these witnesses almost always use pseudonyms, and none of them have been prepared to go on record or report what they claim to have seen to the police.
Many items, such as instruments and expensive furniture, were stolen from the home after Jones' death, most likely by Thorogood, driver Tom Keylock, and others who worked on the property. Rumours also exist that demo recordings made by Jones for his future projects were stolen as well, but to date nothing has ever surfaced.
Upon his death, Pete Townshend wrote a poem titled "A Normal Day For Brian, A Man Who Died Every Day" (printed in The Times), Jimi Hendrix dedicated a song to him on US television, and Jim Morrison of The Doors wrote a published poem entitled Ode To L.A. While Thinking Of Brian Jones, Deceased.
When asked by a newspaper reporter his reaction to Jones' death, George Harrison responded, "When I met him I liked him quite a lot. He was a good fellow you know. I got to know him very well, I think, and I felt very close to him: you know how it is with some people, you feel for them, feel near to them. He was born on 28 February 1942, and I was born on 25 February 1943, and he was with Mick and Keith, and I was with John and Paul in the groups, so there was a sort of understanding between the two of us. The positions were similar, and I often seemed to meet him in his times of trouble. There was nothing the matter with him that a little extra love wouldn't have cured. I don't think he had enough love or understanding. He was very nice and sincere and sensitive, and we must remember that's what he was."
Keith Richards offers a theory on why such a rift grew between Mick Jagger, himself and Jones:
"A case could be made that Brian had an acid trip that he never quite came back from - I'm only surmising that - and after that everything was all a bit fragmented within him; the bits just kept moving further and further away from each other."
The Rolling Stones performed a free concert in Hyde Park on 5 July 1969, two days after his death. Because the concert had already been scheduled weeks earlier in order to present the new guitarist, critics accused the group of being callous and uncaring about their former bandmate. Supporters retorted that the group dedicated the concert to him.
Before the concert began, Jagger read a poem by Percy Shelley and released thousands of butterflies. The Stones then opened with a Johnny Winter song that was one of Brian's favorites, "I'm Yours And I'm Hers".
Jones was buried 12 feet deep (to prevent exhumation by ghoulish trophy hunters) in a lavish silver and bronze casket sent for his funeral in Cheltenham, England by friend Bob Dylan. The Stones asked fans to stay away, and only Watts and Wyman among the group attended the funeral. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg didn't attend Jones' funeral.
