Brian Jones with Gretsch 6118 Anniversary guitar, with the Rolling Stones circa 1964
In about 1984 I came across the Rolling Stones album Rolled Gold, it was quite interesting to hear the tracks on there which spanned the early career of the Stones.
They were playing around the Richmond area in the years just prior to me being born, an area rich with talent from the The Yardbirds, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, to name but a few who had come out of the Kingston Art School.
As many will know, Brian Jones started the Rolling Stones group and the Ealing Jazz club was an early venue where Mick Jagger and Keith Richards saw the bare bones of the group.
Brian Jones, a musical prodigy from Cheltenham, in Gloucestershire was running under the stage name of Elmo Lewis, likely in homage to the Mississippi Delta and not the Richmond upon Thames Delta where much local talent displayed its wares at the Craw Daddy Club, Eel Pie island, the Klooks Kleek Klub and other sundry and savoury venues!
The Ealing venue was run by Alexis Korner and a man named Cyril and it provided an alternative music venue to showcase the underground music scene of the Blues as opposed to the current top ten line-up music. Other performers like Long John Baldry made appearances there, likely to be seen and signed by a new breed of pop impresario and manager, people such as Georgio Gomelski.
In 1963, the Top Ten was fairly well dominated by Cliff Richard (and / or / with his backing group The Shadows, charters in their own right with instrumental guitar music), The (early) Beatles and a host of lightweight poppy smooth and marketable teen market stars.
Recently I came across the Stones on an Ipod album and listened to their own compositions from 1963-1969. Having moved on from re-interpreting Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry and other waxings from the Brian Jones audio library, the group started to expand the library of their own self-penned output.
I found listening to these early tracks, how good a sound could be made with what is essentially by today's standards, 'primitive' equipment. Aside from guitars which are still produced today in the same model versions, the imaginative use of instruments such as the Marimba, Harpsichord, Vibes and Recorder were avant garde to say the least.
Listening to the remastered tracks, one can hear more separation in the mix of instruments and this really does show the quality of vision and musical ideas that were evolving to create the unique montage of sounds, being able to hear more than before.
The arrangements of the songs were imaginative and not just bashed out 12, 16 or 24 bar themes. The spectrum of Brian Jones's talents as a multi-instrumentalist are evident and brought to the fore in this early work.
However badly this ended for Brian, it is a slice of musical history and the Rolling Stones to me IS essentially something from 1963-69 of the Brian Jones era. No Rolling Stones 1960's pop video is complete without Brian Jones in it.
Brian Jones was a great talent and that was sadly lost to chemical excesses and a conveniently placed swimming pool, a matter that has never been satisfactorily explained.
He should be missed as a great talent, with a great untapped potential.
