|
Brian Jones, that impish yet innocent schoolboy grin, his sleepy yet wild eyes, his shaggy, sheep dog hair and his delicate, cherubic good looks was a man of contradictions. And certainly, as flamboyant and troubled as he was talented. The most committed to the Rhythm and Blues cause that was primarily the reason-d'être of The Rolling Stones in the early sixties, he was the band's snappiest dresser, an ambitious multi-instrumentalist and a decadent lover of the pleasures of the flesh; indeed, he was the prototype for the 60's rock star.
At the halcyon and euphoric height of "Flower-Power" and at the zenith of sexual, musical and pharmaceutical experimentations, the racing comet that was Jones' short, brilliant life and career intersected with the downside of the supposed paragon that was hippie-era utopia. The same spirit of risk and open-mindedness that fueled his obsessive musical passion and vision would spill over into his private life, leaving him vulnerable and susceptible to the perils of stardom. Hounded by unrelenting personal demons, his story is the archetypal Rock and Roll tragedy.
All the ingredients were there, but few saw his imminent fall as Jimi, Janis and Jim were all to follow; the drugs, the unyielding police scrutiny, his dismissal from the band he formed and loved, losing his girlfriend to his fellow bandmate, his disillusionment with pop-stardom. It was truly a recipe for disaster. And a little too much for the boy from Cheltenham.
Pete Townshend, whose memories of Brian Jones make up part of this feature, immortalized him in a song penned, so the story goes, the same day that the news of his drowning death reached him. He later noted that, "Brian was living on a higher planet of decadence than anyone I would ever meet." That's quite a statement considering these observations come from the same guy who windmilled his way through the sixties and seventies and witnessed firsthand the debauchery and excesses of Keith Moon.
Some have argued that he was the most talented Stone. While this is most certainly up for debate, there is no doubt that in the early days he was the genius behind the band's musical envelope-pushing. Brian Jones was the mad R&B chemist who dared to mix the combustible elements of explosive Rock and incendiary Rhythm and Blues, and in so doing, managed to stumble upon the equation that would lead to the formula for "The World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band", The Rolling Stones.
|
