As I was debating what to write about this morning I happened to hear "Ruby Tuesday" by the Rolling Stones and since I love that song I figured it was a good time to talk about Brian Jones.
Jones is the member of Club 27 no one ever remembers but without him we wouldn't have had the Stones and that alone is worth at least a flicker of memory, right? Have you ever seen old black and white footage of them and wondered who the blond guy was? That's him. He was, by all accounts, not a nice guy but freaking brilliant. "A natural musician." "A genius, ahead of his time." "A total wanker." Wait, who said that? I don't know, but I do know that Bob Dylan once famously asked him, "How's your paranoia?" Not nice, possibly personality disordered and majorly drug addled. Of course I think he's rad.
In his short life he fathered several kids (the first when he was fourteen, in 1950s England) but never married. He was supposedly engaged the night he died. A lot of supposeds happened around the time he died: supposedly he was joining Hendrix; supposedly he was dealing with his drug addiction; supposedly an asthma attack led to his drowning. In any case an inquiry into what happened to him has been reopened. While you may not remember him, fellow Clubber Jim Morrison did. They died two years apart to the day.
I'm not sure where this piece of footage is from but this is in my opinion Jones's most gorgeous piece of work. That's him on sitar there. Lighting a candle for you, wherever you are.
Didn't know about Jones. But also love Ruby Tuesday, though always questioning my reactions to it. Something disturbs me about my liking it. I think I like the Stones better when they're not so emotional.
ReplyDelete"Ruby Tuesday" is the only song that Keith Richards and Jones wrote together with no input from Mick Jagger. It's supposedly about a woman that they'd both been with, Linda Keith. Jones is on recorder.
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