Jun 262008
Listen closely to Keef in this 1974 interview and see if you can tell where this is headed.
Ron Wood had already jammed with Keef and signed on with the Stones as an interim guitarist, to fill in on tour for the departed Mick Taylor. More importantly, plans for The New Barbarians were in the works.
Meanwhile, at the final 1974 concert by Faces, after Ronnie Lane had already split the band, Rod Stewart and the remaining Faces invited a very special guest to join them onstage.
If we had a President of Rock ‘n Roll, as I believe Townsman Alexmagic has proposed, would an investigation into tampering be out of the question?
I really like what the implications of this say about the division of labor among the Stones’ chief executives. Around this time, Mick would have been doing a lot of the work on the musical end, pulling the band together and making the album happen. But it turns out Keith wasn’t just slumming; he was out scouting for talent, making deals. Not a side of him I’ve thought much about.
If this is how Mick and Keith run the Stones Ltd., it seems like a good set-up. I’d say they compare favorably as rock business partners with Simmons & Stanley over at KISS Co., where it seems like Gene handles all the back office business concerns and day-to-day operations, while Paul holds official spokesperson and investor relations duties.
But yes, this probably could have been the subject of a tampering investigation. I don’t know who would have been a viable President of Rock in 1974. Chuck Berry, maybe? He would have just stopped doing studio albums the year before, and this would be a few years before his tax evasion plea would end any term in scandal, so he could have been in office in 1974. I’m thinking President Chuck Berry would have helped Keith skate through the hearings, though the Faces might have gotten some kind of minor compensation for their loss.