What would Keith Richards do_ - Jessica Pallington West [66]
June 1, 1964 – The Stones arrive in the U.S. for first American tour. Keith is twenty years old.
June 3, 1964 – The Hollywood Palace TV show. Dean Martin famously insults the Stones.
1964 – While in Chicago, Keith reportedly sees hero Muddy Waters painting the ceiling at Chess Records.
July 4, 1964 – Appearance on Juke Box Jury.
A reviewer for The Daily Sketch comments: “A group of Neanderthal young men who call themselves the Rolling Stones sat in judgment as the jury men. It was a mockery of a trial."
July 24, 1964 – Blackpool, Scotland: Keith kicks audience member in head.
Rowdy hoods spit at Brian, and Keith warns them to back off. They then spit on Keith. He retaliates by stepping on their knuckles and kicking one guy square in the nose. An anti-Stones riot ensues, and Keith is nearly killed.
July 31–August 1, 1964 – Another riot: Belfast.
August 8, 1964 – Another riot: Holland.
September 1964 – “As Tears Go By,” first original song by Jagger and Richards, makes top ten.
It comes to the public via a recording by Faithfull, written after Oldham locked Mick and Keith in a room together and wouldn’t let them out until they had something finished.
September 1964 – Apartment is robbed and ransacked while the Stones are on tour.
October 13, 1964 – 12 ×5is released,
includes “Time Is On My Side” and “Good Times, Bad Times."
October 25, 1964 – Ed Sullivan Show.
“To him, we were just some drag act. All that stuff, it was like you were just thrown in the deep end … ‘You’re on after the elephants! ’ At that time we must have been the most bizarre thing he’d ever seen. The elephants were normal to him."
1965 – The Stones officially become an international phenomenon.
They meet Allen Klein, the supermanager who would get them the world’s greatest record deal, but also screw them out of millions.
February 1965 – Audiences get more hysterical, including instances of the “suicide wish,” in which girls jump off of the balconies.
February 13, 1965 – The Rolling Stones, Now! is released.
Songs include “Heart of Stone” and “Little Red Rooster."
February 1965 – Keith tells Melody Maker: “I’ll probably die of an electric shock.”
March 18, 1965 – The Stones arrested for urinating on wall
after being refused bathroom in East London. Rationale: “We’ll piss anywhere, man."
May 2, 1965 – Ed Sullivan Show once more, even though Ed claimed he wouldn’t do it again:
“I received hundreds of letters from parents complaining about you."
May 6, 1965 – Keith writes “Satisfaction” in his sleep
at Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida, after a concert at Jack Russell Stadium: “I woke up in the middle of the night. There was a cassette player next to the bed and an acoustic guitar. I pushed ‘record’ and hit that riff for about a minute and a half … Then I fell back to sleep.” When he replayed it the next day, “It was two minutes of ‘Satisfaction’ and forty minutes of me snoring.” It almost got scrapped (Keith thought it sounded like filler), then became the band’s first number-one hit. Newsweek called the riff “five notes that shook the world.” The hotel is now a Scientology church.
June 1965 – Keith is technically “homeless,” living at the Hilton Hotel. It’s the start of a high-end nomadic existence.
September 11–17, 1965 – Berlin: more riots.
September 13–14, 1965 – More dangerous than a riot: Anita Pallenberg enters the story.
At a concert in Munich, the Italian-German model with the “diamond grin” makes her way backstage, charms Brian Jones, and immediately moves in on Stones territory as his girlfriend. She has a strong influ-ence on Brian and, later, Keith. Sometimes called the Sixth Stone (the same honor given to Ian Stewart), her interests are in black magic and pushing buttons. Rumored to be a witch, she is one tough girl: “Brian tried to beat Anita up and broke his ribs in the process."
October 3, 1965 – Knocked unconscious onstage from “flying debris”
in Manchester. Whether it was falling from above the stage or flung