What would Keith Richards do_ - Jessica Pallington West [68]
December 22, 1967 – Goes to Tangier with Anita.
The Keith Richards look gets even more defined.
May 6, 1968 – Meets Gram Parsons,
an American Southern rock and country music artist who will become the main influence on Keith personally and musically.
June 1968 – One Plus One is filmed with director Jean-Luc Godard.
The genesis and development of “Sympathy for the Devil” is documented. It’s also a document of Brian’s physical and mental deterioration.
August 1968 – “Street Fighting Man” is released.
Purported to be about Keith’s tough life growing up, it is banned from several Chicago radio stations in fear that it will incite violence during the National Democratic Convention in September.
September 1968 – Filming of Performance
Warner Bros. casts Jagger in the starring role as a hermit has-been rock star, widely believed to be a composite of Brian and Keith. Anita plays his love interest, and rumors spark of a real on-set affair between the two. Keith watches trouble from the back of a limo. Actor James Fox reportedly is unhinged by on-set mind games of Jagger and Pallenberg, and has a nervous breakdown.
December 1, 1968 – Beggars Banquet is released,
includes “Sympathy for the Devil” and the Joan-Baez-could-have-sung-it “Salt of the Earth."
December 10–12, 1968 – Rock ’n’ Roll Circus performance.
Three days of staying awake, taking drugs, and performing a TV concert that never airs. Brian almost doesn’t show because “the Stones are being mean to me.” It is Brian’s last performance with the Stones. Keith performs with the Dirty Mac, a band that includes John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, and Mitch Mitchell. The show is finally screened at the New York Film Festival nearly twenty-eight years later.
December 18, 1968 – Travels to Brazil, tells the press he’s looking for “a certain magician.”
“We’ve become very interested in magic and we’re very serious about this trip. We hope to see this magician who practices both white magic and black magic. He has a long and difficult name, which we cannot pronounce. We call him ‘Banana’ for short."
1969 – Tensions rise between Keith, Mick, and Anita; heroin use intensifies.
Keith works on ideas for “Honky Tonk Women” (inspired by Gram Parsons, who some think actually wrote it), “Gimme Shelter,” and “Let It Bleed."
June 7, 1969 – First car crash in a series of many.
Anita breaks collarbone while pregnant.
June 8, 1969 – Brian Jones is fired.
Keith, Mick, and Charlie drive down to Pooh Corner (aka Brian’s house, the former A. A. Milne estate) and tell Brian it’s over.
June 13, 1969 – Mick Taylor joins Stones.
Richards and Taylor are now seen as rock’s greatest guitar duo, with Taylor’s main contribution being complex extended instrumentals.
July 2, 1969 – Brian Jones dies.
He meets his end in the swimming pool at Pooh Corner. It’s a nasty end, filled with speculation of suicide, murder, drugs, and a wayward asthma inhaler. Rumors persist that Keith knocked him off. With Brian gone, Keith essentially takes over where Brian left off—taking on the job of excessive, self-destructive, on-the-edge rock star.
July 4, 1969 – Two days after Brian’s death, with unintentional irony, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is released.
July 5, 1969 – Free concert in Hyde Park as memorial to Brian.
Thousands of butterflies are released in tribute, most of them already dead. The trouble develops further when it’s learned that some species were illegally let go.
July 10, 1969 – Funeral for Brian.
Mobs line the street in Cheltenham. Mick and Keith are no-shows. Not a good move when there’s a potentially vengeful ghost. A few days later, Brian’s ghost starts trouble. Marianne Faithfull sees his ghost in a mirror in Australia, overdoses, and goes into coma.
Summer 1969 – Peruvian earring.
Keith gets his ear pierced by some members of the Living Theater. He wears a heavy bone earring from Peru—exemplifying a “pick up and carry it on through life” fashion philosophy that will later extend to the tchotchkes