Free 27: Brian Jones by Chris Salewicz

Hendrix at a Moody Blues concert. His voice trembled as he pleaded guilty to possession of cannabis and allowing it to be smoked at his flat. After a short trial, Brian was given a nine-month prison term, an extraordinarily heavy sentence. He was taken off to Wormwood Scrubs, where Keith had been briefly incarcerated. As soon as he arrived at the ‘Scrubs’, the ‘screws’ threatened ‘Mr Shampoo’ with the haircut they said he was about to have. A demonstration in the Kings Road by about fifty hippies led to the arrest of eight people, one of whom was Chris Jagger, Mick’s brother. After an application for an appeal was successful the next morning, Brian Jones was released from prison on bail of £750.
    Allen Klein felt obliged to issue a statement: ‘There is absolutely no question of bringing in a replacement for Brian.’
    Brian’s appeal was set for 12 December and Mick attended the court hearing. A trio of psychiatrists described Brian as ‘an extremely frightened young man’. The sentence was set aside, and Brian was given three years’ probation and fined the maximum of £1,000. Two days later, still in a state of apparent ongoing nervous breakdown, Brian collapsed at his new Belgravia apartment and was taken to the nearby St George’s Hospital at Hyde Park Corner. He discharged himself the same night.
    Now the undisputed leader of the Stones, Mick Jagger called a press conference. ‘There’s a tour coming up,’ he began, although this was news to everyone around the group. ‘There are obvious difficulties, one of them is with Brian, who can’t leave the country.’ Although there were rumours that Jimmy Page would leave the Yardbirds to replace Brian in the Rolling Stones, the group insisted they were without foundation and that they could continue as a four-piece until Brian had sorted out his problems.
    At least Brian’s appeal served as lateral publicity for the Stones’ new album, which was released in the United Kingdom on 8 December. In the United States, where it had been released twelve days previously, Satanic Majesties had already sold over $2 million worth of copies. In Britain, however, the long-player was widely dismissed – especially by John Lennon, who considered it yet another Stones’ rip-off of the Beatles (of Sgt Pepper in this particular case).
    Their tails between their legs from the critical trouncing they had received at home, Mick, Keith and Brian quit the country for Christmas. With Stash de Rola along for the ride, Brian headed for Ceylon with another new girlfriend – none other than Linda Keith. It was as though he was bound in an inescapable psychic prison with Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg.
    *
    During March 1968 the Stones were again at Olympic Studios, recording what would become Beggars Banquet . The subject of film was high on the group’s agenda. The television director Michael Lindsay-Hogg, a close friend of Mick, was hired to make a promotional clip for a new single, ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’. Some of the recording of the album that became Beggars Banquet was shot by Jean-Luc Godard, doyen of French New Wave cinema directors, as the backdrop for his movie One Plus One . As well as capturing the isolation of Brian Jones, strumming a guitar that was unconnected to the control room, Godard also caught on film the evening when Anita Pallenberg joined Keith, Brian and Suki Poitier to chant the backing vocals to ‘Sympathy for the Devil’. Lurking in a corner of the frame was a well-dressed man with a sardonic and sadistic sneer attached permanently to his upper lip. This was James Fox, an actor friend of Mick. In May it had been announced that he would play opposite the Rolling Stone singer in a film entitled Performance , to be directed by Donald Cammell.
    That same month, on 12 May 1968, the Rolling Stones made a surprise appearance at the close of the NME