Digging Up BonesSpecial to The Review
Brian Jones:
Still Dead, After All These Years
A big heart is a desirable human trait, provided it’s not coupled with an enlarged liver.
Brian Jones had been on one hell of a rock-n-roll tear from 1962, when he placed his ad for potential band mates in a music paper, until 1969, when Sussex, England officials pulled his body from the bottom of a swimming pool.
During that interval, via his success with the Rolling Stones, Jones managed to corral enough money to buy the estate of Winnie-the-Pooh author, A. A. Minle, piss off the whole of his band, and grow both his ticker and his liver to proportions large enough to have a coroner comment on them in his official death record.
Over this past weekend, a plethora of news sources reported that authorities were reevaluating the circumstances surrounding the death of Jones, based on “new documents” from investigative journalist, Scott Jones.
The conspiratorial dust-up goes like this:
After three years of Jones’ erratic behavior, plus diminishing contributions to recording sessions, and two drug busts for pot, coke, and smack (resulting in his inability to gain a work visa for an upcoming U.S. tour,) a contingent of Stones came ‘round to give him his walking papers. In a P.R. move worthy of any good corporate giant, the boys gave him the face-saving option of resigning, which he took, citing differences on the past few “discs.”
The Stones, at the behest of John Mayall, snatched up guitarist Mick Taylor as Jones’ replacement. They quickly booked a concert for July 5, 1969 to showcase the new addition. (Instead of canceling the show on the news of their founding member’s demise, the band went on with it, disingenuously, as a quasi-impromptu, memorial tribute.)
In the interim, Jones threw a party at Pooh Palace on July 2. Among the invited, was Frank Thorogood, a carpenter who had been dragging his feet on palace renovations. Jones intended to confront Thorogood regarding his malingering. Late that night, as the party quieted, Jones and Thorogood came to no good in the pool. The resulting tussle ended with Jones at the bottom of the pool, emergency technicians pulling him out, and a coroner reporting on enlarged organs and “death by misadventure.”
That’s the Brian Jones row on a slow news week.
A more realistic view is that Jones was plateauing at exactly the wrong time. According to a friend, he was in a “happy” mood. He was getting off the junk – that same coroner’s report showed less than three pints of beer in his belly, and NO drugs, not even marijuana. Rumor has it, that he was talking to Jimi Hendrix (among others) about throwing together a new band.
While anything is possible, including a violent throw-down with a handyman in the swimming pool that Pooh built, the likelihood of a scandalous murder is duboius. It’s far more likely that an enlarged liver enraged a worn out heart and together the two shut down the whole shootin’ match. Just another sad story of rock-n-roll excess.
Closer to facts, consider these: Brian Jones was the founding member of the Rolling Stones. He was plastered a lot. He became the odd man out because he couldn’t move (with the Stones) beyond the blues of Howlin’ Wolf, and Muddy Waters. A mile-wide antisocial streak was the base fuel for the fire that burned him out in every way: publicly, personally, and creatively. He died when his heart stopped.
Scott Jones, the longsuffering reporter, is still with us, and he’s the one with 600 pages of interviews and god-knows-what-all. He’s the one who recently handed the dossier over to the Sussex officials. He’s the one who waited until all of his major players and witnesses died. Maybe it’s time Jones let Jones rest.
For the benefit of those who like to rock, I offer this week’s Playlist, a compilation of Rolling Stones deep cuts, from 1966 to 1968. Three years that, in retrospect, became an ever tightening noose around the neck of Brian Jones. Once the guitarist, now (ironically) the receding multi-instrumentalist. But play his part he did, right through the sessions that were released in 1969 as Let It Bleed (“You Got The Silver” was his final recording with the band).
Apart from his recordings with the Stones (and his apparent lack of compositional prowess) two significant works are accredited to Jones: Mord und Totschlag (A Degree of Murder,) the soundtrack to an avante gard German film, and Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka, a production piece showcasing the primative, Sufi-trance music of Morroco. Three cuts from the latter are presented here.
JH
Still Dead, After All These Years
A big heart is a desirable human trait, provided it’s not coupled with an enlarged liver.
Brian Jones had been on one hell of a rock-n-roll tear from 1962, when he placed his ad for potential band mates in a music paper, until 1969, when Sussex, England officials pulled his body from the bottom of a swimming pool.
During that interval, via his success with the Rolling Stones, Jones managed to corral enough money to buy the estate of Winnie-the-Pooh author, A. A. Minle, piss off the whole of his band, and grow both his ticker and his liver to proportions large enough to have a coroner comment on them in his official death record.
Over this past weekend, a plethora of news sources reported that authorities were reevaluating the circumstances surrounding the death of Jones, based on “new documents” from investigative journalist, Scott Jones.
The conspiratorial dust-up goes like this:
After three years of Jones’ erratic behavior, plus diminishing contributions to recording sessions, and two drug busts for pot, coke, and smack (resulting in his inability to gain a work visa for an upcoming U.S. tour,) a contingent of Stones came ‘round to give him his walking papers. In a P.R. move worthy of any good corporate giant, the boys gave him the face-saving option of resigning, which he took, citing differences on the past few “discs.”
The Stones, at the behest of John Mayall, snatched up guitarist Mick Taylor as Jones’ replacement. They quickly booked a concert for July 5, 1969 to showcase the new addition. (Instead of canceling the show on the news of their founding member’s demise, the band went on with it, disingenuously, as a quasi-impromptu, memorial tribute.)
In the interim, Jones threw a party at Pooh Palace on July 2. Among the invited, was Frank Thorogood, a carpenter who had been dragging his feet on palace renovations. Jones intended to confront Thorogood regarding his malingering. Late that night, as the party quieted, Jones and Thorogood came to no good in the pool. The resulting tussle ended with Jones at the bottom of the pool, emergency technicians pulling him out, and a coroner reporting on enlarged organs and “death by misadventure.”
That’s the Brian Jones row on a slow news week.
A more realistic view is that Jones was plateauing at exactly the wrong time. According to a friend, he was in a “happy” mood. He was getting off the junk – that same coroner’s report showed less than three pints of beer in his belly, and NO drugs, not even marijuana. Rumor has it, that he was talking to Jimi Hendrix (among others) about throwing together a new band.
While anything is possible, including a violent throw-down with a handyman in the swimming pool that Pooh built, the likelihood of a scandalous murder is duboius. It’s far more likely that an enlarged liver enraged a worn out heart and together the two shut down the whole shootin’ match. Just another sad story of rock-n-roll excess.
Closer to facts, consider these: Brian Jones was the founding member of the Rolling Stones. He was plastered a lot. He became the odd man out because he couldn’t move (with the Stones) beyond the blues of Howlin’ Wolf, and Muddy Waters. A mile-wide antisocial streak was the base fuel for the fire that burned him out in every way: publicly, personally, and creatively. He died when his heart stopped.
Scott Jones, the longsuffering reporter, is still with us, and he’s the one with 600 pages of interviews and god-knows-what-all. He’s the one who recently handed the dossier over to the Sussex officials. He’s the one who waited until all of his major players and witnesses died. Maybe it’s time Jones let Jones rest.
For the benefit of those who like to rock, I offer this week’s Playlist, a compilation of Rolling Stones deep cuts, from 1966 to 1968. Three years that, in retrospect, became an ever tightening noose around the neck of Brian Jones. Once the guitarist, now (ironically) the receding multi-instrumentalist. But play his part he did, right through the sessions that were released in 1969 as Let It Bleed (“You Got The Silver” was his final recording with the band).
Apart from his recordings with the Stones (and his apparent lack of compositional prowess) two significant works are accredited to Jones: Mord und Totschlag (A Degree of Murder,) the soundtrack to an avante gard German film, and Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka, a production piece showcasing the primative, Sufi-trance music of Morroco. Three cuts from the latter are presented here.
JH
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