just trying to make some sense

 

---------------- [excerpt - Keith Richards' autobiography] ---------------

        Ian Stewart was the only one in the room....He's playing an upright piano and he's got his back to me because he's looking out of the window where he's got his bike chained to a meter, making sure it's not nicked.  

At the same time he's watching all the strippers going from one club to another with their little round hatboxes and wigs on.  "Phoar, look at that."  

        All the while this Leroy Carr stuff is rumbling off his fingers.  And I walk in with this brown plastic guitar case.  And just stand there.  It was like meeting the headmaster.  All I could hope for was that my amp would work.

        Stu had gone down to the Ealing Club because he'd seen an ad Brian Jones had placed in Jazz News in the spring of '62 for players wanting to start an R&B band.  Brian and Stu started rehearsing with a bunch of different musicians; everybody would chip in two quid for an upstairs room in a pub.  He'd seen Mick and me at the Ealing Club doing a couple of numbers and invited us along.  

        In fact, to give Mick his due, Stu remembered that Mick had been coming already to his rehearsals, and Mick said, "I'm not doin' it if Keith's not doin' it."  

"Oh, you made it, did you?"  And I started with him and he says, "You're not gonna play that rock-and-roll shit, are ya?"  Stu had massive reservations and he was suspicious of rock and roll.  I'm "Yeah," and then I start to play some Chuck Berry.  And he's "Oh, you know Johnnie Johnson?" who was Chuck's piano player, and we started to sling the hash, boogie-woogie.  That's all we did.  

        And then the other guys slowly started to turn up.  It wasn't just Mick and Brian.  Geoff Bradford, a lovely slide blues guitar player who used to play with Cyril Davies.  Brian Knight, a blues fan and his big number was "Walk On, Walk On."  He had that down and that was it.  So Stu could have played with all these other cats, and actually we were third in line for this setup.  Mick and I were brought in as maybes, tryouts.  

These cats were playing clubs with Alexis Korner; they knew shit.  We were brand-new in town in those terms.  

And I realized that Stu had to make up his mind whether he was going to go for these real traditional folk blues players.  Because by then I'd played some hot boogie-woogie and some Chuck Berry.  My equipment had worked.  And by the end of the evening I knew there was a band in the making....Somehow a deal had been made without anything being said.  We just hit a chord together. ---- [end / excerpt]

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♫ ♫♪  a song to listen to:

on You Tube

The Rolling Stones - Waiting On A Friend

uploader / channel:  The Rolling Stones

Watching girls go passing by

It ain't the latest thing

I'm just standing in a doorway

I'm just trying to make some sense...

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{Life, written by Keith Richards with James Fox.  Copyright 2010, Back Bay Books.}

{"Waiting on a Friend" -- song by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.  Released November 1981.  Album:  Tattoo You.}

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