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The Rolling Stones in the press: “On the eve of the ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ release Mick Jagger says…” (by Keith Altham)
The most revealing things about the Stones are usually learnt while they are not aware you are watching them. So it was when I ambled downtown recently to observe Michael Phillip Jagger at work in their new London offices, which, as you might expect, are beautifully bizarre.
Rolling Stones Ltd. are situated six floors up, one floor above Iszy Bonn Ltd., busy singing “Every T’ing Is Hunky Dory” to war-time audiences on BBC radio before Mick had become a little pebble, might find the song—and above his head—above his head.
The two chief Stone rollers are little loveable Jo Bergman, formerly a Beatles Press officer and then a publicist for Harpers Bizarre group before becoming a Super-“express” secretary to the Stones, and Maggie Phillips, with nice legs, and wide blue eyes, who formerly worked for nice Kenny Lynch before becoming personal secretary to the group.
Jo sits at her desk in a re-designed invalid chair on wheels. The desk itself is a converted pre-war Singer sewing machine. Her telephone directory and pads are piled upon a huge travelling trunk, the late property of the late Fusilier E.C. Whaler, who soldiered in the Crimea. Her favourite phrases are “Outtasite,” “Neat” and “Too much.” She is an American.
Sometimes she loses Mick, who is wont to roll around the world looking for the sunshine in remote spots of South America, which is one of Mick’s latest obsessions.
Too much? But she is overjoyed when he finally turns up in some obscure corner of Northern Ireland on a hiking expedition!
Occasionally someone like Tom Keylock—the Stones’ chauffeur and a good man to have on your side, will appear out of the Board Room and regale you with an anecdote about the time he saved Bob Dylan’s life when someone pulled a knife on him in a club up North, or tell you what Keith Richard hit in the Bentley recently.
Then there’s Sue Cox, a fugitive from KRLA, an American West Coast radio station. She never managed to get out of the office and so became an employee. On radio she was known as Princess of Razmatazz. Other additions include Theodore the Toledo Turtle and Clarence, the coffee machine.
Smiling
When I arrive at the office Mick is sitting on a chair with a dark blue cape clasped about his neck. He is smiling into a phone. Later he asks if I would like to hear the single and when I assent, shows me into the Board Room.
The dominating feature of that room is a huge wooden dresser stacked with jars of dried fruit, peanuts, apricots, raisins and pumpkin seeds for guests to nibble on. He places Jumpin’ Jack Flash on the player and retires to the other side of the room while I listen. He is obviously concerned about this single but just as obviously is not going to let anyone know how concerned he is.
“I don’t feel the success of this single is any more important than the last one,” says Mick. “I shall be pleased if it is a hit, but that applies at any time. I think it is a good record but I’m not going to turn round and say people are out of their skulls if they don’t buy it.”
It has a nice catchy chorus line and it’s a good performance number, I think.
At this point he got a little suspicious of my line of questioning as to whether the success or failure of this disc would be significant to them.
“Look, what do you want me to say?” he asked. “Do you want me to say it would be a big thrill and very groovy if it made No. 1? All right, it would be groovy!”
“We’ve had some funny records which have gone to No. 1 and some funny ones that haven’t,” he adds. “I think this disc is better than those. ‘Little Red Rooster’ was funny because it just didn’t sound like a No. 1 record, and ‘Get Off My Cloud’ was not very groovy.” (Ref. Rolling Stones Jumpin’ Jack)
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