Music Before the Money

When I was writing Brian Jones’ Diary I came upon The Brian Jones Fan Club site where the editor Trevor Hobley has amassed a vast website of Brian Jones information, pictures and even a place to buy Rolling Stones bootlegs.

Hobley writes, “Our first member joined the newly reformed Brian Jones Fan Club on the 3rd June 2003 and the first edition of the Fan Clubs fanzine, AfterMath, was distributed to just 14 members on the 31st August 2003. However, we must have been doing something right because when it came to distributing Issue # 2, in early December 2003, the membership had more than doubled by reaching 35 and that became the trend throughout the first year. We eventually passed the 100 member milestone in September 2004 and currently the membership stands at 140.” He is looking for new members and donations so go onto the site and give him a shout.

Hobely’s crowning achievement of the BJF club is the Brian Jones Living Museum. Centrepiece of the museum will be a replica white VOX Teardrop guitar, designed to the exact specification as Brian’s own Teardrop by Pat Townshend. Hutchins Guitars, a company specialising in replica guitars have agreed to produce a limited edition Brian Jones Teardrop and # 001 will be donated to the museum. And there will be other displays: photos, instruments and testimonials from those who grew up with the “wonder-kid” from Cheltenham.

Statue Not Wanted in Brian’s Home Town

But Cheltenham, Brian’s birthplace, was not really receptive to having a likeness of Brian in its midst. Here are a few quotes from the website on what the local press had to say after the announcement that a bust of Brian Jones would be unveiled in the town’s Beechwood Shopping Mall on the 3rd July 2005.:

Monumental Argument’ – ‘Rolling Stone’s Statue Gathers Very Few Friends’ – ‘Addict Is No Role Model For Spa Town’ – ‘ We Don’t Want A Statue To Rolling Stone Brian Jones In Our Town’ –’ Town Divided By The Lifestyle And Legacy Of Brian Jones’

However, the bust was eventually unveiled of the “Golden Boy” but, unfortunately, it wasn’t a good likeness and the hair looked like “an omelet.” (They should have got the same sculptor who did “Rocky.”) Hobley says they are trying to correct this.

His Grave is Well Marked

But the most amazing page on the whole site is the map that shows you where to find Brian’s grave! (You can actually download it and print it off.) On Sunday the 3rd July, as has been the custom for many years, BJFC members met at the graveside to pay their respects to Brian. One of these days I’ll make it there.

So check out the site and join up!

In 1957 Brian Jones visited a local jazz club and became hooked on Jazz. He was 15 and begged his parents to buy him an alto sax. Then he spent hours teaching himself to play the reed instrument.

The skiffle music craze was sweeping England at the time and Jones began playing washboard in his own band. Around this time a friend introduced him to blues and Brian began listening to and collecting records by blues greats such as Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson and Howlin’ Wolf. This was the beginning of the Rolling Stones.Because to Jones his new band was going to the best blues band in the world.

Just like his hero, Muddy Waters, Jones taught himself how to play bottleneck guitar, dragging a glass or metal slide over open-tuned strings producing the essential and unmistakable blues sound. He was so excited with the new sound that he used a broken beer bottle for a slide and cut his fingers. A quick trip to plumber’s shop and he came back with a short piece of pipe on his finger. It wasn’t long before he had a reputation for being the best slide guitar player in London.

As Keith Richards put it so eloquently, “Brian was a cat who could play any instrument. It was like: ‘There it is. Music comes out of it. If I work at it for a bit, I can do it.’ It’s him on marimbas on Under My Thumb and mellotron on quite a few things on Satanic Majesties. He was the strings on 2,000 Light Years From Home. Brian did more mellotron and brass on We Love You, all that Arabic riff. He was one of those people who are so beautiful in one way, and such an asshole in another.”

For more about Brian Jones get the Ebook: Brian Jones’ Diary

“He had little patience with authority, convention and tradition. In this he was typical of many of his generation who have come to see in the Stones an expression of their whole attitude to life. Much that this ancient church has stood for in 900 years seems totally irrelevant to them.”

Even at his funeral Brian Jones was not immune to barbs from his detractors. Canon Hugh Evan Hopkins spared no niceties as he spoke above the young rock musician in the solid bronze casket, as if venting on the deceased the sins and excesses of his generation. It was at this point that it became clear how much vile enmity was felt toward the Baby Boom generation and the Brian Jones was the lightening rod.

Brian was buried on a beautiful July day in 1969 in his hometown of Cheltenham, 80 miles northwest of London. Flower arrangements from adoring fans came form flower shop all over London and the surrounding area. The cap was a floral grave marker in the shape of a guitar that came from his sister and parents. His former group - the band that he founded -the Rolling Stones, sent an enormous eight-foot floral arrangement composed of hundreds of red and yellow roses. The words, “The Gates of Heaven,” was spelled out in flowers.

Cheltenham was clogged with tearful fans, reporters and curious onlookers. Even local school children were let out of class to see the spectacle. Press photographers were everywhere, aggressively snapping pictures at family and friends without regard for the feelings of the family. The funeral procession, composed of 14 cars, progressed slowly to the cemetery frequently blocked by the mourners and interlopers alike. As Brian’s casket was lowered into the hole in the ground the crowd shoved and grabbed their way to the grave to throw their flowers onto Brian Jones’ remains.

The official line was that Jones, the Rolling Stones former lead guitarist, had died on the night of July 2, drowned in the pool at his home near Hartfield in Sussex, 50 miles southeast of London.

On the night of his death Brian Jones had supposedly been drinking wine and taking downers.  According to the coroner’s report, Jones was the victim of “death by misadventure,” an accidental drowning precipitated by drug and alcohol abuse. But there have differing reports from his girlfriend, Anna Wollenburg who still claims he was drowned in a fight in the pool with some workmen who were repairing his home.

Although he had been thrown out of the Rolling Stones a few months earlier his girlfriend and other musicians said that Jones was getting over it and was involved in a few musical projects on his own including sessions with John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix. But inconsistencies in the accounts of that evening were gradually uncovered and even a deathbed confession by the “alleged killer” was buried with him.

An what about the Stones? Drummer and Brian’s good friend, Charlie Watts, was visibly shaken as he stood by the grave and he and Billy Wyman were upset that Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Anita Pallenburg, Brian’s former girlfriend, were absent.

Read the Ebook: Brian Jones’ Diary