Rolling Stones 69

by Patrick Humphries

Against a backdrop of social unrest and protests The Rolling Stones entered 1969 as a successful blues band that had experimented with psychedelia but were returning to their rock'n'roll roots. By the end of 1969 they had released a stone cold classic, lost one of their founding members, played an era defining concert at Hyde Park to half a million people and seen a fan stabbed to death at their concert in Altamont. This is the story of how 1969 cemented the Stones as "the greatest rock & roll band in the world".

Genres: Music

256 pages, Paperback

Published September 26, 2019

About the author

Writer and journalist Patrick Humphries is the author of acclaimed biographies of Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, and Richard Thompson. He lives in London, England.

Reviews

[Marti · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an enjoyable but superficial read. There is very little here that is not culled from other secondary sources that I have read. The good thing was that Humphries was an actual teenager during the Stones early years, thus I was interested in his personal recollections of the time. He got to see them in London a week after the Altamont debacle. Very little news of the tragedy had reached Britain by that time, but the shows were rather desultory (Humphries later became a writer for Melody Maker).

It's pretty clear Humphries' favorite period is from 1968 to 1972 which makes him disparaging of earlier albums like Aftermath and Satanic Majesties (Huh? I understand why the latter gets so many raspberries, but come on! Even at their worst, the Rolling Stones are better than most bands at their best).

One thing I learned is the famous "Chelsea Drugstore" was featured in A Clockwork Orange. I never realized it was more like Swinging London's answer to Tower Records. It also made me want to watch a film called Ole, Ole, Ole, a fairly recent documentary about bringing the massive and unwieldy Stones tour to Latin America ("Operation Overlord was put together in less time"). It sounds like it could be intentionally reminiscent of the movie Spinal Tap.

I was also glad that the movie Withnail and I was referenced as the quintessential time capsule of 1969 Britain.

[Bob Schnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Patrick Humphries' "Rolling Stones 69" focuses on the pivotal year in the career of the "the number 2 band in the world." As he points out, it wasn't just Altamont. 1969 was the year Brian Jones left the band (and this physical realm), the Stones had an extremely successful tour of the USA, they began the proceedings to leave their label, Decca, and their manager Alan Klein. It was also the year they released the album "Let It Bleed" whose final track "You Can't Always Get What You Want" can be seen as a fitting send off to the 1960's. Oh, and the Beatles had effectively broken up.

Since I have read many books about the Stones, there wasn't much new to me. However, the author's style and critical assessment made for an enjoyable and thought provoking read. Recommended.

[Jonathan Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting meandering account of The Rolling Stones in their best years. A couple of quibbles: p.105: MLK was assassinated on April 4, not August 4 which is not just a typo because the author makes an obscure connection to something else that happened that day. Any decent publishing house should have had a proofreader intelligent enough to have caught this awkward mistake. Second, the author describes the strong and unfavorable reactions to the first screenings of the movie “Performance” but gives no indication of what was in this uncut version of the film that isn’t in the official release of the film. What would cause a woman in the audience to throw up on her husband´s shoes? I saw Performance about 15 years ago. It was pretentious and very dull. So it’s frustrating that the author talks about how upset people were by the uncut version without giving at least a brief description of what was so troublesome. Finally, the author is simply overly impressed by “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and crafts a lot of the book around this track from Let it Bleed. Fine, everyone has their favorites but the other 8 tracks on Let it Bleed get short shrift. Indeed, “Monkey Man”, is dismissed in a single paragraph as the weakest track on the album. This is inexcusable bad judgment coming from anyone writing about this era of music. Mr. Humphries should go listen to this track again and listen closely to the nasty-perfect riff that Keith Richards plays. It’s stripped down and seemingly very simple. It’s also timeless and not something that any other guitar player was doing in those days.

[Allan Heron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is less of a detailed trawl through 1969 as a consideration of the band's legend and why that year is absolutely pivotal in any of us having an interest in reading about it almost 50 years later.

As such, it's an entertaining read but, no, Mr Humphries surely can't be right to suggest that You Can't Always Get What You Want is better than A Day In The Life. Or that Between The Buttons is better than Aftermath. But disputing such assertions is something I enjoy when reading such books.

[Jean Weso · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was only eight years old in 1969, and I didn't watch Rolling Stones in concert before 1980. I wish I'd been old enough to attend their concert in Hyde Park, but probably not the one at Altamont. Anyhow, since then I've read many books about the Rolling Stones in the sixties and seventies, and this one is right up there with the best of them. It's about much more than the Rolling Stones - it's a piece of entertaining social history.

[Ward Whipple · Rating 3 out of 5]

It does put a lot of the year's activity into perspective, but as is usual with the author, tends to go down unnecessary tangents. Plus, he garbles the Meters' drummer's name, and gets the date of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination wrong twice.