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The Rolling Stones Go Baroque: Michael Joseph’s Beggars Banquet Wild 1968 Photo Escapade
*By Marcelo Sonaglioni
Album photo shoot by Michael Joseph at Sarum Chase in Hampstead (London) and Swarkestone (Derbyshire), early June 1968. The Rolling Stones shot pictures for their album at two different locations in early June 1968: Swarkestone, in Derbyshire, and Sarum Chase, in Hampstead, London. Photographer Michael Joseph, who is renowned for his ability to capture the band in a variety of unique and stunning stances, led the session. Famous photos from these sessions have now come to represent the band’s late 1960s era.
The Rolling Stones as Vagabond Poets: Danger, Decadence, and Style
They perch dangerously on the skeleton mullions and lintels of first-floor windows (it’s difficult to picture this occurring in the current milieu of health and safety consciousness). Captured on celluloid, they pose in the long grass, long legs dressed in colorful hose, loose boots, and blouson blouses, appealing to our shared stereotype of the vagrant minstrel who is at heart a romantic but also a dangerous and decadent person. Like the Stones themselves, they play cricket in the long grass and trail smoke flares for atmosphere. (Ref. Rolling Stones photo shoot)
From London Limos to Local Lore: The Rolling Stones Crash Swarkestone, 1968
Locals of Swarkestone were both confused and ecstatic to see the Rolling Stones perform in the tavern that summer of 1968. The band had been chauffeured up from London in limousines to collaborate with photographer Michael Joseph on the cover of their seventh album Beggars Banquet. With all of their raucous R&B, the Stones seemed like louche medieval troubadours here. Images of the interior of the aptly named, albeit far from impoverished, “banquet” had previously been taken in a lavishly paneled chamber at Sarum Chase in Hampstead, London, an Arts & Crafts home.
From White Invitation to Wild Fields: The Evolving Face of Beggars Banquet
At the time of its release, the Beggars Banquet cover was just a very traditional white invitation with a copperplate lettering. The inner gatefold features a shot from inside a luncheon held at Sarum Chase. When “In the Grass” at Swarkestone was used as the album’s advertising poster, it quickly became the image linked to the record. It took an additional decade for Swarkestone Pavilion to appear on an album cover, as it was included on the rear cover of the compilation album Hot Rocks 1964-1971. Nowe that was definitely some Rolling Stones photo shoot!
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