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Brian Jones’ father letter to Brian discovered in new documentary
A letter from Brian Jones’ estranged father (Lewis Blount Jones) shows up after all these years in a new documentary about the founding member of the Rolling Stones. In the time following Brian’s expulsion from the Jones family home due to his “irresponsible” lifestyle (which included fathering three children to three different women by the age of 20, before he had even joined the renowned band that would later fire him) the undated note was an effort to mend fences.
All chronicled in Nick Broomfield’s latest documentary, The Stones and Brian Jones, which ends with Linda Lawrence, the rock star’s ex-girlfriend who had kept the letter from Lewis Jones in her attic for years, reading: “My dear Brian, we have had unhappy times and I have been a very poor and intolerant father in so many ways. You grew up in such a different way than I expected you to. I was quite out of my depth… I don’t suppose you will ever forgive me, but all I ask is for just a little of that affection you once had for me. This is a very private and personal note so don’t trouble to reply. Love, Dad.”
Even if it’s impossible to say if Brian ever read his father’s letter, some discussing family relationships appear in Broomfield’s movie. “A child is a thing to be loved. A child is the manifestation of both parents and both parents see themselves in the child… he’s a reflection of their own personality,” Brian says. “So, one day, when he grows up, he’s going to assert his own personality, which may well differ from the outlook and personality of his parents, who immediately feel upset… They feel they have lost him.”
(With thanks to Ali Zayeri)
The movie director, who first met Jones in 1963 while riding a train, claimed in an interview with The Guardian that his movie steered clear of the rumors that swirled around the musician’s passing in 1969, three weeks after the band had fired him. Broomfield: “I felt they didn’t go anywhere,” the director said, “and, in terms of the story, I just thought: ‘What’s the point of me wasting a lot of time just to end up dismissing them?’”
Instead, he concentrated on Jones’ complex personality. “Brian was essentially a helpless child who craved his parents’ approval,” Broomfield point dout. “After he was thrown out of their house at 17, he would somehow find families that would look after him. Basically, he would charm his girlfriends’ parents and move into their family nest like a cuckoo. Invariably, they would look after him until they found out that he had got their daughter pregnant.”
