Beatles vs. Stones (18 page)

It seemed odd, this candid and somewhat forlorn admission. It wasn’t really Jagger’s personality to say such a thing. So the journalist said he peered back at Mick, looking for a sign that he was joking. But apparently he was not. He seemed “deadly serious.”

•  •  •

Just because British teens regarded the Beatles and the Stones as natural rivals, it was never foreordained—or even likely—that Americans would do the same. Until the Beatles came onto the scene, British popular culture had not made much of an impact in the US. Also, the two nations had such different media environments. The British had long loved their tacky tabloid newspapers, and popular newssheets like the
Daily Mirror
and the
Daily Sketch
, which expressed fanatical reverence for the Beatles, were usually harshly critical of the Stones. Meanwhile, England had a robust music press, which was likewise lacking in the US. Weekly papers such as
Melody Maker
and
NME
teemed with hyperbolic headlines proclaiming who was up one week, who was down the next, and who beat whom in the latest readers’ poll.

Those sorts of updates could be thrilling to fans, but they also yielded the distorting impression that a rough parity existed between the two groups. In fact, the Beatles always outsold the Stones by a huge margin. In 2005, Mick Jagger recalled an episode, probably in 1964,
“when we were all hanging out at one of the clubs. George was giving me a big spiel about how many records the Beatles had sold
more than us. Which wasn’t in dispute! He was so anxious to make the point.”

Many American reporters, however, may not have known any better. Most of them were well educated, professionally trained, and (they liked to think) “sophisticated.” They practiced a bland and cautious style of journalism, and in some context that standpoint served them well, but it left them almost entirely unequipped to cover the latest youth culture fads. As a result, they tended to parrot what they heard from England: the Beatles and the Stones were “rival bands.” In May 1964, a London-based public relations firm spoon-fed the storyline to US reporters. “Stones Set to Invade,” their press release read.
“In the tracks of the Beatles, a second wave of sheepdog-looking, angry-acting, guitar-playing Britons is on the way. . . . Of the Rolling Stones, one detractor has said: ‘They are dirtier, streakier and more disheveled than the Beatles, and in some places, they are more popular than the Beatles.’ ”

It is little wonder, then, that questions about the Beatles nearly dominated the Stones’ first American press conferences. Asked if he would consider joining a “Stamp Out the Beatles” club, Keith Richards said “no.” But when he was asked, “Are you a Beatle fan,” he equivocated. “I’m not a fan,” he said. “I appreciate some of their stuff. I like them; I think they’re good.” When Charlie Watts was asked the same question, he likewise failed to give a direct answer: “I met Ringo when he came back from here, very tired. Er, yeah, you know, I think they’re very talented fellas. Lennon and McCartney, yeah. I am a Beatles fan, if you can call it that.”

The most persistent line of questioning about the Beatles, however, was directed at Jagger.

REPORTER:
How do you compare your group with the Beatles?

MICK
[smoking, smiling, and mugging for the camera]: I don’t know, how do
you
compare it the Beatles? I don’t compare it at all. You know, there’s no point.

REPORTER:
Well, let’s get right down to brass tacks. Do you think you’re better than they are?

MICK:
At what? You know, it’s not the same group, so we just do what we want and they do what they want, and there’s no point in going on
comparing
us. You can prefer us to them or them to us. This is diplomatic, you see!

REPORTER:
Very diplomatic, and I don’t want to belabor it, but do you feel that
you
do what
you
want to do better than
they
do what
they
want to do?

MICK:
Uh . . .

MYSTERIOUS OFF-CAMERA VOICE:
Yes.

MICK:
Probably, I don’t know! I don’t know what they want to do, you see? Very diplomatic!

Despite having practically invited questions about the Beatles, the Stones soon began to chafe at them. It’s not hard to see why. When the Stones hopped the Atlantic in June 1964, they had been preceded by only a few of their contemporaries: the Beatles, of course, as well as Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Searchers, and (just barely) the Dave Clark Five. All of those acts were rapturously received by teens, and the Stones didn’t disguise the fact that they hoped for the same treatment. “Obviously, we hope we are a success, at least as much as the other British groups that have gone to the US,” Jones told
The Rolling Stones Book
on the eve of their tour.

At first things looked promising. Thanks to a bit of advance publicity from London Records, about five hundred enthusiastic fans turned out to greet the Stones at the airport. Afterwards, the Stones did a press conference, posed for photos and (though they were on a tight budget) ostentatiously rode away in a great convoy of limousines—one car for each member. Later that night, they appeared on
Murray the K’s Swinging Soiree
, hosted by Murray Kaufman, the “happening” WINS-AM disc jockey that the Stones had recently met in London through the Beatles. Kaufman says that shortly after
they were introduced, the Stones asked if he would promote them in America as ardently and successfully as he had Beatles.

Problem was, at the time of their arrival, there was only so much Murray the K
could
do for the Stones. Despite their popularity in England, the sallow-cheeked quintet didn’t yet have a hit song in the US. (“Not Fade Away” was only at number 88 on a popular chart.) The Stones had only just released their debut album (subtitled in America:
England’s Newest Hit Makers
). It featured a moody, beatnik-inspired cover photo (not all that different from the one the Beatles had just used on their second album), and it was a very good first record. Nothing else on the market resembled what the Stones were doing. But Capitol Records had spent $40,000 promoting the Beatles before they came to America, and the Stones did not get anywhere near that support. It’s not as if the Stones had a fleet of antic deejays saying, “It’s 6:30 a.m. Rolling Stones time! They’ve just left London. They’re flying over the Atlantic Ocean. It’s currently 49 Rolling Stones degrees,” and so on.

Nevertheless, the Stones figured that if Murray the K was good enough for the Beatles, he was good enough for them as well. The Stones smiled wanly as he went through his loony routine: “Whadja think of the Beatles, guys—are you pals or rivals?” “How long since you had a haircut? Just kiddin’, Murray luuuuvvves you.” “I can assure my listeners they are clean, the Stones are clean. They do wash—don’t you, guys?”

(
“Oh, just play the fuckin’ record and announce the concert date so we can piss off,” Oldham remembers thinking.)

The next night, the Stones got another inkling of what they were in for in America when they made their first television appearance, on the locally broadcast
Les Crane Show
. It was a Wednesday and the program didn’t air until 1:00 a.m., when most of the Stones’ target audience was no doubt asleep. Furthermore, Crane did not “get” the Stones, not even remotely. He was pugnacious and (worse) phony. Instead of asking the Stones about their music, he pestered them with
inane questions about their reputation and appearance. Oldham silently fumed. “What a dolt! Didn’t he know that this kind of banter was reserved for Mop Tops and Herman’s Hermits?” Oldham also remembered being surprised as it began dawning on him that the Stones all felt rather vulnerable in the US. Perhaps their collective hide was not as thick as they had thought.

The next morning they awoke early to catch a transcontinental flight in order to perform on ABC’s
Hollywood Palace
, a televised variety program that struck them as awfully square. Unlike its competitor,
The Ed Sullivan Show
, this program relied on various guest hosts, and when the Stones were on the master of ceremonies was the legendary Rat Packer Dean Martin. He wasn’t exactly a fuddy-duddy, but you only had to notice Brylcreemed hair, tuxedo, and Vegas-style shtick to know that he wasn’t likely to “get” the Stones either. The Stones were further deflated when they learned that the other acts that night included a group of singing bouffanted Mormons called the King Sisters, plus some performing elephants and a trampoline artist. To this day it’s not clear whether Dino was tipsy when he hosted the show, or just pretending to be half in the bag, but some of the jibes to which he subjected the Stones were not friendly.

“And nowwww,” he said, with mock apprehension, “something for the youngsters: five singin’ boys from England who’ve sold a lot of al-bee-ums, er, albums! They’re called the Rolling Stones. I’ve been rolled while I was stoned myself, so . . . I don’t know what they’re singing about, but here they are
at
.”

The Stones performed “I Just Want to Make Love to You,” the randy Willie Dixon cover from their first album. To most white Americans back then (and certainly to the network’s censors) the idea of “making love” had a different connotation than it does now. When Frank Sinatra sang “Mind If I Make Love to You?” to Grace Kelly in the 1956 film
High Society
, he was gallantly asking for permission to try to
woo
a woman, not necessarily to take her to bed.
The Rolling Stones, it is safe to say, had a different idea. They played the song with
gusto, but ABC wound up airing only about a minute of it. Then as soon as they were finished, Dino started heckling them.

“The Rolling Stones, aren’t they great?” he said, with a big sarcastic roll of the eyes.

“You know something about these singing groups today?” he continued. “You’re under the impression they have long hair.
Nah!
Not true at all! It’s an optical illusion. They just have low foreheads and high eyebrows.

“They’re going to leave right after the show for London. They’re challenging the Beatles to a hair-pulling contest.”

Then when Martin introduced the trampolinist, he said this: “That’s the father of the Rolling Stones; he’s been trying to kill himself ever since.”

Back home, the Stones didn’t mind if they upset narrow-minded prudes or dowdy old authorities. At least that meant they were being taken seriously. But they did not expect to be mocked and jeered during their American network television debut, to actually be laughed at, as if they were
“some dumb circus act” (as Richards put it).

It also turned out that their tour had not been well planned. Comanager Eric Easton was responsible for arranging the Stones’ appearances, and the North American bookings agency he relied upon, GAC (General Artists Corporation), had done a terrible disservice to the Stones. In many cases, they arranged for the band to play at large auditoriums alongside a bunch of other acts that were obviously geared toward families, not plugged-in teens. The Stones were humiliated to be a part of these stupid variety bills. Making matters even worse, they now realized they had far too many days off in their schedule, and they found themselves in a foreboding mood. When they all fell into some petty squabbling and mickey taking, that only made things worse.

Their attitude briefly improved after their first public performance, at San Bernardino’s Swing Auditorium. Several thousand youths from across the Inland Empire turned out to catch their first
glimpse of the Stones, and somehow they knew the words to all the songs. The Stones beamed at the realization that they had a minor cult following around LA, and when some of the girls tried to climb on the stage, or when they threw stuff at the band—jelly babies, autograph books, mash notes, or whatever—they made it feel a bit like home. At the same time, many of differences between Southern California and London were pleasing to the Stones; they loved the sunny weather, the palm trees, the big muscle cars, and the whole beach mystique.

The next day, however, the Stones got a different kind of culture shock when they arrived in Texas. They had just had their first glimpse of America’s most enticing cities, New York and Los Angeles, but now they’d been sent to San Antonio. Oldham called it a
“sawdust fiasco.” They were there to play at an outdoor fair where the main attraction was a rodeo, and they literally shared a bill with a bunch of performing monkeys. The Stones did two sets, one in the afternoon and another in the evening, and they were probably two of the most unsettling gigs in their entire career next to Altamont. Some in the audience sniggered and scoffed; others weren’t sure whether to take the Stones seriously or regard them as a comedy act. A few of the tough, beer-swilling cowboys in the audience fixed the Stones with flinty stares and made them feel afraid. It was a different order of hostility than they were accustomed to. “In America then, if you had long hair, you were a faggot as well as a freak,” Richards said.
“They would shout across the street, ‘Hey, fairies.’ ”

Next up for the Stones was 2120 South Michigan Avenue—the home to Chess Records, in Chicago. Richards would later tell a story about how he walked into the building, came down a corridor, and encountered a slightly paunchy, middle-aged black man wearing speckled overalls and standing on a foot ladder: it was his all-time hero, McKinley “Muddy Waters” Morganfield.
“I get to meet The Man—he’s my fucking god—and he’s out of work,” Richards marveled.
“That throws you a curve, ’ere’s the king of the blues painting a wall.”

It was Richards’s way of admitting that his own good fortune was thick with irony. In the ’50s and ’60s, derivative white rock ’n’ rollers had such better professional opportunities than African American originators. It was a horribly unfair situation, and it was decent of Richards to acknowledge it. But the business about Muddy painting the interior of Chess Records never happened. If it had, the Stones surely would have mentioned it at the time. Richards seems not to have made the claim, however, until 1989: six years after Muddy had passed away. Besides, no one who worked at Chess could imagine such a scenario.
Muddy Waters grew to have such a regal bearing that many people who knew him for years can’t recall ever seeing him in anything other than a custom-made suit, a silk shirt, and cufflinks.