Guitar Reviews 4U - Brian Jones - Out of time

Brian Jones in 1965

Guitar Reviews 4U Why Brian Jones was 'out of time' by 1965

Brian Jones in Cheltenham had a dream of creating a British Blues Band playing the music in that style. He was not alone, in Home Counties Ripley, Surrey, Eric Clapton was doing the same. In Kingston Surrey, Keith Relf and Jeff Beck were into that music and in Dartford, Kent Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were likewise following that star.

Cliff Richard and the Shadows c. 1961

with Hank Marvin on the right with first Stratocaster 

By this time they had made films and were London Palladium top billing

The British music scene since the mid 1950's had been dominated by American artists with Rock n Roll, a music that like fashions changed quickly. By 1960, the last knockings of the original American RnR performers were still performing, but were being overtaken by smoother crooners and an emerging Detroit sound which would spawn the Motown sound.

The Crawdaddy Club, 1 Kew Road Richmond -

where the Rolling Stones had a residency

Britain had not been slow to copy the new music from the other side of the Atlantic, even that as we have seen was not immune to fashionable change. Cliff Richard and the Shadows it would be fair to say had a dominance on the British music scene from 1959-63.

Cliff Richard imported a Fiesta Red Fender Stratocaster for Shadows guitarist Hank Marvin in 1959, a guitar that would change British popular music history and Marvin's playing and this guitar would influence thousands of bedroom guitarists - some of whom would later find fame, Jeff Lynne, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, Brian May, Mark Knopfler and countless others who never made it past the youth club or pub rock scene.

A very young Rolling Stones in 1963

Brian Jones at right with his Gretsch 6118 2 tone Anniversary guitar

By 1960 there was no shortage of bands in the mould of Cliff and the Shadows, but that did not stop some young players of the time delving back further into the roots of the 1950's RnR to the Blues aspect of that music, just as there had been a 'jazz revival' in Britain at the time in the late 1950's as a counter to rock and roll music.

In his Ripley, Surrey back garden, Eric Clapton would endlessly pick at an acoustic guitar, leading to his Kingston Art School studies giving way to a full time music career, fellow Kingston students Keith Relf and Chris Dreyja would also find fame with Clapton in the Yardbirds, before Clapton left to pursue a more authentic Blues vehicle with John Mayall.

The Yardbirds soon adopted a more commercial sound with hit songs from Graham Gouldman who also wrote for the Hollies and later his own band 10cc.

On a Kent railway platform back around the start of the 60's Mick Jagger saw Keith Richards holding a Blues vinyl LP a meeting of minds and people that ignited a musical flame. 

1965 - 'This can be the last time performance'

Brian Jones with the iconic Vox 'teardrop' guitar

A music paper advert by Brian Jones in 1962 sowed the seed for the young Jagger and Richards living an almost hand to mouth existence in bohemian Edith Grove Chelsea to audition for Jones. A spot at the Ealing Jazz club run by Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies followed and the band that Brian Jones started upa while previously had sifted out players and the Jagger and Richards compound made the formula complete.

Brian Jones in a telephone box on a call to a venue organiser was asked what his band was called, Jones had a copy of the Muddy Walters LP 'Rolling Stone' in his hand and looked at the cover and announced 'The Rolling Stones.' And so a band was born.

The 'British Invasion' pop bands had yet to hit America but this crop of bands that was growing underground in Britain very much located in the south of the country - the Home Counties and London. Motown music would soon hit the UK around 1964 with the establishment of the Mod scene as London became more modernised after WW2.

The Beatles now back from Hamburg in 1962, displaced thanks to the Cliff Richard and the Shadows mania, now in 1963 were starting to make a name for themselves. The future 'invasion bands' of the Yardbirds (with a soon to depart Clapton, replaced by Jeff Beck), The Kinks (Muswell Hill), The Who (Acton based), The Animals (Newcastle based) and the Stones Chelsea) came to the fore between 1963 to 1965.

Although Cliff Richard and many of the popular entertainers of the era managed to stay working, a new vanguard of popular music was hitting the airwaves, with Merseybeat and London sound and other movements such as ska taking the place of the old guard.

The early Rolling Stones chart output was initially confined to cover versions of Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly songs, the Beatles who had been doing some BBC Studio sessions in London, came down to Richmond to see the Rolling Stones play and offered them a song they had written - 'I wanna be your man.' 

Although this song was 'Bluesed' up by Brian Jones playing slide guitar on it, it was essentially a pop song and outside of the 12 bar 3 chord Blues structure. It was from this point that Brian Jones and his brief and dream of a 'pure blues band' died.

Spurred on by the gift of the Beatles song, Keith and Mick started writing songs together and Brian was effectively displaced in the Rolling Stones as leader. He was no longer the driver of the car. Just another of the riding mechanics. 

But Jones was not alone in this position, Eric Clapton too decided to seek Blues purism, outside of the Yardbirds.

We must not write off Brian Jones though, because from the early times of the band, Brian was a very gifted multi-instrumentalist - a fact that drove the Beatles on to constantly reinvent their music to remain commercially relevant.

Brian's formal musical education when most pop players were academically untrained in music, was a rarity. Brian also had that natural ability that allowed him to pick up an unfamiliar instrument and to quickly get something sonically useful out of it that would go onto a recording.

The management of the Rolling Stones saw Jagger and Richards as now the front and centre of the group, Brian's pure Blues band dream had been dashed and even the Blues enthusiast Eric Clapton found his dream of a blues band faded, he joined Cream. (The 'pure Blues' that those players wanted wasn't really realistic for these men, although in America, the old surviving Blues players suddenly found new interest in their music thanks to the British Invasion.)

And although a few of Cream's tracks were based on the 12 bar 3 chord blues, 'Sunshine of your love' and 'Cross roads' - the other tracks were often musical odysseys pushed forward by musicologist Jack Bruce's contributions to poet Pete Brown's often slightly surreal lyrics.

The only place for Brian and Eric's pure Blues would be in the 'revival' of the Blues by the players like Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf and John Lee Hooker as examples who had come back into musical fashion. However, we are deviating slightly here.

The Rolling Stones group's success was in part, besides Brian's vision that provided the catalyst that brought those 5 players together in 1962, was his ability to put Saxophone, Clarinet, Bass Pedals, Sitar, Harmonica, Vibes, Marimba, Piano and Hammond Organ onto the bones of the Jagger and Richards words and music and on the studio recordings.

By 1965, Brian Jones was like the Jagger and Richards song - and was literally 'Out of time'. Not because he was musically irrelevant but the band he had started had moved on and away from his original vision and musical brief. Brian's musical contribution to the songs doesn't always get the credit it deserves, sadly. Pop is a fickle business.

The Rolling Stones still performs many of those early songs that Brian helped to make iconic.

Perhaps their finest hour was with 'This can be the last time, the Riff was Brian's and they just looked at the height of their powers on this song. It has to be one of the greatest songs ever written and for the energy and the performances of it by the Stones we have on film.

As Keith Richards said 'you always remember the riff'.

We should also remember - No Brian Jones, no Rolling Stones.

Brian Jones - the visionary founder of the Rolling Stones - will we see his like again?

Brian Jones at left with Gretsch 6118 guitar, Rolling Stones 1964

Its a sad thing to reflect on, but will we see the like of ground breaking bands from the 1960's who are now all but retired from the scene?

In those days, these musicians did an apprenticeship of sorts, playing along to records, learning new material and playing techniques. The post war late 1950's had seen American Rock n Roll come in and the British youth wanted a piece of that.

The half-arsed musical art form of skiffle, a sort of acceptable cod attempt at trad American music, was acceptable to a largely square older generation. The young Elvis, gyrating movements et al, were not, nor were leather jacketed creatures aping Gene Vincent.

To the old guard, they were a temptation, a route to trouble. The scenario would repeat itself 20 years later when Punk Rock erupted.

Turn on the radio these days and you get a studio perfect manufactured pop act, the days of the group that evolved and morphed into a credible musical ensemble, often via the pub circuit are pretty much over.

YouTube and the Internet have killed it off with wall to wall mediocrity. In the old days, a band played in a pub, if they chose the right pub where the record company scouts, the A&R men trawled, they might get somewhere, get signed or get good advice.

From that process, the most marketable would get a studio tryout and perhaps a recording contract. Now, it is likely  that a viral youtube performance gets them a deal. The problem often comes with the 'difficult' second album, 'difficult' because the act has little talent.

Once the crowd stops screaming and the mayhem subsides, the reality is that even autotune vocals can't hide the one dimensionality. And they're gone in moments.

Television shows finding 'new talent' expose it and a year or so later, the new talent is gone, never to be heard of again.

Back to the early 60's and people like Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Eric Clapton for example were all trawling the obscure records bins for obscure records, in their case, real old down home American blues, recorded by the original artists.

It is ironic that the 'British Invasion' of the USA in the early 1960's actually raised awareness of the largely 'forgotten' black music performers of the Blues genre.

Without the British Invasion, who would have created the Monkees? A sort of Americanised version of the Dave Clark 5 or the Beatles but with a television scripted kids TV series?

But moving on from the Blues, the Rolling Stones explored multi-instrumentalism. Brian Jones was at the vanguard of this evolution, introducing Harpsicord, Sitar, Recorder and Marimba into the music.

One wonders what he could have gone onto achieve had not drugs and an early death ended the promise of his abilities?

Having Mick Jagger freed up to be a main vocalist gave the band a freedom that the others in the music scene, bar Cliff Richard could not enjoy, his Shadows as backing band and band in their own right gave Cliff the option of backing music.

The arrangements of the early pop even to the 1980's was well thought out, nowadays it is mostly musical wallpaper, delivering a sausage factory lyric that the performer never had a hand on nor did their band mates, who may not even be playing on the record.

Today is all about image. The music is not the most important thing, money is the driver, but with the traditional avenues of music play feeling the demand of demand media, what you want, when you want it, then we may slowly drown in manufactured, musical mediocrity. Sadly.

Even the pubs with music licences are dwindling, the pub clientele has changed and a modern media rich world with content vies for our attention.

At least we have through the internet, the videos of the old bands, a reminder of how it was in the heady days of the 60's.

Yesterday's papers - The Rolling Stones - The Brian Jones years

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.