(gentle music)
- [Reporter] Is it hard trying to live up to this image
that people have of Mick Jagger?
- No, because I don't try to.
- [Reporter] But your own image, Mick Jagger's image.
- I don't believe in images.
It's only press and media that like to have images
because it's useful to put people into categories.
- [Reporter] But how do you see yourself then?
- Oh, that's the most difficult thing of all,
I mean that's what takes you a whole life to find out.
(gentle music)
What most documentaries do is just repeat the same thing
over and over and over.
You've heard all the mythologies repeated
until it becomes true.
People want to put things in boxes,
and it all becomes this cliche box.
And then the easiest thing is just to keep repeating that.
So I guess we'll try, when we're chatting
to expand those boxes.
I think people probably like that idea.
(rock music) (crowd cheering)
- [Narrator] The Rolling Stones
are the ultimate rock and roll band.
(crowd cheering)
- [Jim] It was just magic.
They created this magic
and they've been doing it for how long now?
- [Narrator] A product of their times.
They've helped to define ours.
- [Slash] They have a chemistry together,
a creative inspiration that is magic.
- [Narrator] And Mick Jagger has been out front
for 60 years.
- And he will sing and dance for us
to illustrate his early moves.
- [Jim] They look like Rolling Stones,
they act like Rolling Stones
and they sound like Rolling Stones.
- [Narrator] They set the benchmark for what a rock band
should sound like, look like, feel like.
- If I start looking too mournful
and boring lighten me up a bit.
- [Cameraman] Yeah.
- [Lulu] The Rolling Stones recreated music, fashion.
It is a fact.
- [Narrator] The supreme pop music brand,
they're a link between the counterculture of the 1960s
and the commercial modern world.
Across seven decades, they've written the play book
for modern rock and roll.
- I've got it.
I'm gonna try and keep it light.
- [Narrator] So this is the story of the key ingredients
of the special Rolling Stones recipe.
- [Bon Jovi] Chemistry is something that you can't buy.
That's the magic of a band.
- [Narrator] Keith Richards,
Ronnie Wood and the much missed Charlie Watts.
- [Chrissie] We thought they were gods.
We really did.
- [Narrator] And on vocals, Sir Michael Philip Jagger,
better known as.
- Mick Jagger.
Slate 3.
(gentle music)
- [Journalist] Let's start with a cliche.
- No, no cliches, I thought we weren't doing cliches today.
- Mick Jagger's Mick Jagger.
He's the best frontman in the business.
I mean, he'll get up there and do his stuff
and lay it on you, and he means it.
What you see is what you get.
I mean there's loads of facets and variations on him,
but he's really a very honorable man.
I mean, under all of that crap.
(Keith laughs)
- One of my big jobs is to be a big show-off really,
I mean that's really what it is.
I suppose that's my job for two hours
to make people feel good.
To bring people a joyous experience
that they have a great evening,
and that's what I think my role is.
(gentle music)
♪ I saw her today at the reception ♪
♪ A glass of wine in her hand ♪
♪ I knew she would meet her connection ♪
- [Sheryl] I always loved the idea of being Mick,
one of the greatest front guys,
the greatest rock star of all time.
♪ No, you can't always get what you want ♪
And how incredible that would be.
♪ You can't always get what you want ♪
- [Lars] It's truly inspirational.
They're the pioneers, they're the ones writing the story.
♪ But if you try sometimes, you just might find ♪
♪ You get what you need ♪
That's something that requires attention to a lot of detail.
Mick Jagger does it incredibly well.
(gentle music)
- [Chrissie] Mick's not gonna let anything go wrong
'cause he's in control.
♪ And I went down to the demonstration ♪
And you just can rely on him.
♪ To get my fair share of abuse ♪
♪ Singing, we're gonna vent our temptation ♪
♪ And if we don't we're gonna blow a fifty-amp fuse ♪
♪ Sing it to me ♪
- He's more of a controller and an organizer than he knows.
It's just what he is built to do.
He wants to see this ship sail.
♪ You can't always get what you want ♪
- I'm not a control freak, that must be really boring.
♪ You get what you need ♪
Someone has to be in control of an enterprise like this,
it's not only about music.
I'm representing the bands in a way
to make sure that they don't get fucked.
(gentle music) (crowd cheering)
- [Narrator] Mick Jagger has fronted the Rolling Stones
for more than half a century.
- I had several neighbors in my little suburban community
who played guitar and so on.
We played together, and I used to go
to these dances I suppose they were,
and there'd be rather greasy bands playing.
And I'd ask could I come, and I was like 15, 16,
"Can I sing a song?"
And they were, yeah, they were nice,
and they'd say, "Yeah, go on then."
♪ Well you got me running baby, got me hiding too ♪
♪ Tell me, tell me baby, what we gonna do ♪
♪ Now baby ♪
And it used to go down quite well.
So, I used to think well, yeah, I can do this.
And people seemed to like me.
I mean I didn't have a band.
- [Narrator] The Stones formed in 1962.
And the first classic line-up soon takes shape.
Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman
and the band's founder, Brian Jones.
And this song "Honey, What's Wrong?"
is from their first ever demo.
(gentle music)
(crowd cheering)
♪ Well now, don't treat me baby, like you used to do ♪
(crowd cheering) (gentle music)
- A lot of stuff with this Rolling Stones mythology
is that Rolling Stones is this blues band
and started off, and it's all true,
but really the Rolling Stones is a rock band.
It's all bullshit, the mythology.
Rock music was the thing, we loved rock music from the '50s,
records like "Sweet Little Sixteen," Chuck Berry.
We were kids and we were high energy.
What we were popular for was playing this rock music,
that's what we did.
But you had to label yourself as a blues band to get a gig.
We weren't really only just a blues band,
we were an everything band.
(crowd cheering)
- [Narrator] It takes the Stones
just a few months to blow up in the UK
with a sound and image ready for almost instant fame.
(gentle music)
- [Journalist] What's it like being a Stone
and having this 24 hours a day?
- Well, it's something that you get used to,
especially as we've been doing it for,
with all the screaming thing, for about two years now.
And after two years of it
that just becomes part of your life.
- [Patrick] I remember talking to Mick once
and I said what's it like to be famous,
and he said you're not really asking the right person
because I've been famous ever since I was 17.
- [Narrator] From their very first UK number one
and its follow-up,
this cover of Willie Dixon's "Little Red Rooster,"
the rise of the Stones is rapid.
Part of a revolution in British pop
that takes place on screen.
♪ I am the little red rooster ♪
♪ Too lazy to crow for day ♪
♪ I am the little red rooster ♪
♪ Too lazy to crow for day ♪
- Television, it's hugely important.
Millions of people would watch these shows.
When I was a teenager, there was a couple of rock shows,
but you would never miss that show
because it was the only rock show a week.
- [Lulu] It is a fact, the streets in this country
would be empty on a Friday night
because everyone was watching "Ready, Steady, Go!"
- I could see how important this was.
Everyone's watching this.
♪ Hounds begin to howl ♪
That's gonna stand you out from all the other people,
so you've got to learn to work that medium.
You've got to figure out
how you're gonna make an impression.
♪ If you see my little red rooster ♪
♪ Please drive him home ♪
I used to go to "Ready, Steady, Go!"
when we weren't even on.
I would work out how the camera angles worked.
I would work out what we were gonna do.
♪ Ain't had no peace in the farm yard ♪
♪ Since my little red rooster's been gone ♪
And I'd practice my moves at home, and I would be rehearsed.
(harmonica music)
- [Narrator] But to really make it big in the UK
and in America the Stones need more songs.
Hit songs.
And preferably written by them.
- Andrew Oldham who was our manager at the time,
said, you've got to start writing songs like the Beatles
because we can't just keep doing cover songs.
We knew we had to be a pop band,
we wanted to write pop songs.
- I mean Andrew wasn't particularly talented
in any direction, Andrew was just Andrew.
And what Andrew did was saw possibilities.
- [Narrator] It's song writing that turns the Stones
into global superstars.
And the writers of the hits are Keith and Mick, not Brian.
- Good, let me get up here and say hi to Brian.
Brian is one of the writers of most of the things, right?
- No, I'm not actually, well, I'm not really a writer.
- He was very musical
so he could pick up different instruments,
and he was quite innovative.
A lot of his contributions were matched
perhaps not from melodies or lyrics or anything
but were from licks that he played as a musician.
- Mick and Keith write more than any of us.
- These are the two that are supposed
to be all the writing talent.
You fellas get together and do most of the writing, right?
- Yeah, that's right, yeah.
- I mean, yeah, he liked to tell people it was his band,
but we were always like, really?
Really, it's your band?
We thought it was our band really.
- The future as a Rolling Stone is very uncertain.
- [Narrator] It's Jagger and Richards
who will soon give their friends Lennon and McCartney
a run for their money.
- If you listen to all popular songs 10 years ago
there were very few of them actually mean anything
or have any relation to what people are doing.
The songs didn't have any relation
to what people actually spend their lives doing,
like getting up, washing, going to work, coming back
and feeling very screwed up about certain things.
- [Brian] Life for the working guy never changed.
You still lived in a council house,
you still had to pay your rent
and then you hear dah-dah, dah-dah-dah.
(gentle music)
(crowd cheering)
I remember the first time I heard it,
and I just went "What the hell is that?"
♪ I can't get no satisfaction ♪
♪ 'Cause I try, and I try, and I try, and I try ♪
♪ I can't get no, I can't get no ♪
♪ When I'm driving ♪
- [Mick] There's this pool and there's this motel
in Clearwater, Florida, and I remember sitting with Keith
and writing this song "Satisfaction."
Andrew Oldham said,
"This is like a number one single, this is great."
Keith was like, "I don't really like it,
it can't come out as a single."
And it went to number one instantly.
♪ Oh, no, no, no ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪
It was a big moment, it became your signature tune,
your cri de coeur, your sexuality, your controversy.
You need to have that song that everyone remembers.
♪ I can't get no satisfaction ♪
♪ 'Cause I try, and I try ♪
- [Brian] It turned everybody on.
It was just a brilliant song.
Those boys were building a new road to the future.
- [Mick] It makes a huge change
and it also brings you into a much more confident era
of writing, production, all this stuff.
- [Andy] Wait a minute.
There's at least 15 huge hit songs here,
"Paint It, Black," "Ruby Tuesday," "Get Off of My Cloud,"
"Under My Thumb."
Christ, most bands would be happy to get one of those.
♪ I can't get no ♪
(crowd cheering)
- [Mick] Behind it is the cynicism and reality
of all the blues things that I'd been listening to
since I was very young, very, very young,
and there's a way of speaking
and a way of talking about life,
and a way of being sexually round about
but sexually provocative.
- [PP] Mick is sexy.
And he knew he was sexy.
Confident.
And he was so cool.
He's got those lips.
And for me, I love to kiss,
so I was a-kissing him, you know what I mean?
- [Lulu] I do remember meeting him, I'm 15.
I was slightly wary.
And Mick went "Allo, Lulu."
And I tried to string a few words together
and I believe I spoke to him.
I don't really know that I said very much
or could even engage properly in a conversation.
I was frightened, I was afraid of him.
All that sexual image, it oozed, it was scary.
(Lulu giggles)
Exciting and scary.
- [Don] For some reason Mick Jagger's got this thing
whereas he can project that wild animal that's in all of us.
It's like yeah, that's who we are.
You celebrate the true nature of the human being
when you look at Mick Jagger.
(Little Richard shouting)
(crowd shouting)
(Little Richard shouting)
(crowd shouting)
- [Mick] When it came to how to present myself on stage
and everything, I really didn't know how to do that.
- I wanna sing a song.
I want everybody to raise your hand.
Everybody raise your hand, come on.
- [Mick] Little Richard literally taught me
how to do this stuff.
He would say oh, you've got to get them involved.
You've got to get them standing up,
if they're not standing up, telling them,
you've got to tell them to stand up.
- Everybody say we're all right.
- [Crowd] We're all right.
- And they would.
♪ You ♪
When I was on stage you feel it very strongly
these people giving you this energy,
and you don't really understand, you just feel it,
you don't understand really what they're trying to say,
what they want, what they need from you,
what they need from life.
But you just feel that they need something,
and they're giving it to you.
- He knows what he wants and you know when he knows
'cause he starts to respond and he starts to sing
and he starts to move.
And vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom.
And then he starts, yeah, really enjoy life.
- [Patrick] I've heard Keith saying,
on more than one occasion,
about what a great performer Mick is.
He can perform on a coffee table.
He's really proud of his guy
and he knows the responsibility that Mick takes on.
It takes a lot of balls to stand up
and command an audience of 100,000 people.
- You're not the same person on stage
as you are in the rest of the time.
You have to be very, very, very egotistical.
I mean you're acting, you're doing an act for them,
it's not really you.
- [Journalist] What do you set out to do in your act?
- Entertain people.
The most successful entertainers
have always been the most egotistical ones.
All that ego is got rid of on stage.
- [Journalist] What person do you think you are
off the stage?
- About half as egotistical.
(crowd cheering)
(Mick vocalizing)
- [Brian] I think Mick Jagger has this wonderful gift,
he can make a huge stadium seem like a small room
and make everybody feel involved.
And that's the secret.
♪ Everywhere I hear the sound of marching ♪
♪ Charging feet, boy ♪
♪ 'Cause summer's here and the time is right ♪
- [Lars] He'll always find a way to make even the biggest
of the shows as intimate as possible.
And obviously Mick Jagger does it incredibly well.
♪ Except to sing for a rock and roll band ♪
♪ 'Cause in sleepy London town ♪
♪ There's just no place for a street fighting man ♪
- [Bernard] He works at it, he works hard at it,
and he gets them hips going, and he gets them legs going.
He's got his thing.
He dances his arse off.
It ain't the latest dance move
that everybody is trying to do, no, it's his dance,
and he dances the shit outta his dance.
♪ Well, what can a poor boy do ♪
♪ Except to sing for a rock and roll band ♪
♪ 'Cause in sleepy London town ♪
♪ There's just no place for a street fighting man no ♪
- [Narrator] And Mick is taught
by some of the all-time greats.
Many of whom share a stage with the Stones on tour.
- [Tina] He was watching me, just watching every move.
This white-faced person behind the speakers,
just watching me while I was doing my thing.
- [PP] Mick would always come backstage to the dressing-room
and we would like show him moves and steps and things.
- [Tina] It was okay,
but I didn't think he was gonna amount to anything.
Sorry, Mick.
(Tina chuckles)
♪ Except to sing for a rock and roll band ♪
♪ 'Cause in sleepy London town ♪
♪ There's just no place for a street fighting man ♪
- [Chrissie] Really, in rock music it's about personality
more than virtuosity.
It's not what's best and it's not even what's good.
If you want good go see a musical
where they've all been trained to sing.
I don't think people even think
that Mick has a beautiful voice, it's just Mick Jagger.
- [Lisa] I think he is a great dancer
in the way that he expresses himself.
It's like when you see a young child learning how to dance
but they do it with so much heart you can't help
but embrace it.
(Lisa giggles)
The way that he dances, it is total belief
and freedom of expression and individuality.
(rock music)
(crowd cheering)
- [Narrator] The transformation is complete.
This is Mick Jagger, the charismatic front man.
(crowd cheering)
- [Reporter] And here's Michael wearing a pair
of ordinary gym shoes which you would wear
when you were playing tennis.
- [Narrator] And this is Mike Jagger
just a few years earlier.
A swotty, sporty schoolboy with academic ambitions
and his sight set on higher things.
- I'm working hard at my school work.
I'm quite academic.
I wanna go to university so I can't just fuck about.
- You spent I think two years
at the London School of Economics.
- Yes, I've been trying
to unlearn everything I learnt ever since,
but I think I've almost succeeded.
- [Journalist] Would you ever thing of going back there?
- No, no, I don't think so.
I didn't like it there very much.
- [Journalist] What didn't you like
about that academic learning?
- I wasn't given any freedom.
- [Narrator] But Mick is about to discover
that freedom can have consequences he can't always control.
He's on his way to Redlands,
the new country residence of Mr. Keith Richards.
(gentle music)
- [Mick] "Dear Mick, do come to a lovely party
in Redlands, acid provided."
I don't think that was on the invitation,
but I can't remember.
Keith might remember because he had to buy the acid.
He'd just got Redlands and he'd done it up
and he wanted everyone to see it,
like as you do you know what I mean,
as he'd done up a nice house in the country
and you want everyone to come for a weekend.
It was quite a Bohemian weekend really.
We went for a nice walk.
(upbeat music)
♪ She comes in colors everywhere ♪
And there was a lot of drugs there, LSD, hash.
We were just having fun.
And then the fuzz bust him, man.
(Mick giggles)
When you're on acid being busted it's very odd.
It's not fun being busted at all,
but being busted on acid is really weird.
- [Keith] They were breaking in my house.
- [Mick] The police were against you.
- [Keith] Unnecessary authority.
- [Mick] The Establishment was against you.
- [Keith] I always felt that they were picking on me.
- [Mick] Man, they're all against us,
they wanna shut us down.
- [Keith] But of course that only reinforced my wariness
of authority.
- [Mick] What they're trying to do is close the Stones down.
(Mick giggles)
- I still carry a chip.
Yeah, I could use a joint right now.
(Keith laughs)
- [Narrator] But it's no laughing matter.
The arrests steered the Stones into a storm of controversy.
- [Brian] Drugs raid.
Jagger arrest.
Keith Richards being arrested.
It was all adding to this whole idea of this rebel outfit.
- [Mick] The first reaction is oh, my God,
what am I gonna do and what does my mum think.
Because they say that you can go to prison for five years.
You have now been derailed
from your amusing life of a pop singer.
It takes the emphasis off your career and achievements.
It makes you a group of drug addicts
rather than a talented group of musicians.
- [Narrator] But the band have always risked falling victim
to their bad boy image,
the invention of their manager Andrew Loog Oldham.
- I think that Andrew very much liked
to contrive the danger,
'cause he saw that very cleverly as a foil for the Beatles.
- They got cleaned up by their manager
and to make them more palatable to the public,
otherwise they were exactly the same as we were,
filthy swine.
(Keith giggles)
- But Brian Epstein didn't wanna sell them as such.
He sold them as these lovable scamps and funny
and could be sarcastic but, nevertheless, lovable.
So Andrew wanted us to be more nasty and more dirty,
more of an edge, which was a very good sell
and it wasn't difficult for us to do
because when you're that age it's quite easy
to have that edge.
(Mick giggles)
- [Reporter] The gentlemen of the press
have been kept waiting.
Mick Jagger is half an hour late for his press conference.
His fine contempt for convention
seems to irritate journalists.
- [Reporter] So you think he'll be coming
into a hostile audience?
- I would imagine so, yes.
- Journalists would be very patronizing.
Morning!
- [Journalist] Good morning.
- [Journalist] Good afternoon.
- [Reporter] What do you think of him?
- Oh, he does a damn good job of what he wants to do,
which is to be a paid exhibitionist
and he makes a lot of money
and laughs all the way to the bank as Liberace said.
- [Journalist] Do you like press conferences?
- No.
(all giggle)
- [Journalist] And why not?
- Oh, I really like to keep myself to myself.
I always remember one point
where Brian used the word
in a stupid press conference, esoteric.
"It's a bit esoteric really."
And he'd use the word eclectic quite a lot as well.
They were so shocked.
And we would obviously tease them
and behave like yobs as well.
So they knew what to expect.
If you wanna follow up in TV journalism
what rubbish they dish up in the press
then you're pretty low.
(journalist speaking indistinctly)
So watch out boy.
One half of you is the yob and the other half is saying
well, yeah, we also know what we're talking about.
- [Journalist] Mick Jagger needs the reporters
and the reporters need him.
A sort of love/hate relationship.
- The press can be savage so you have to be very careful.
- [Narrator] In fact, the News of the World
helped them get busted in the first place.
But in a famous editorial,
that bastion of the Establishment, The Times,
actually sticks up for them.
Arguing that artistes should not be crushed
by the law and the law listens.
- [Mick] There was obviously a collusion
between the police and the newspaper,
but I mean that's not questioned.
But I was freed from jail by the Establishment.
- [Reporter] It's years since such crowds gathered
to await an appeal verdict.
But this was a Rolling Stones case
with the fans out in force.
When Mick Jagger was conditionally discharged
and Keith Richards sentenced twice,
the pop idols drove off,
the shadow of jail no longer over them.
- [Reporter] Earlier today,
Mick Jagger talked briefly to a press conference
after the Lord Chief Justice Lord Parker
had quashed his three-month prison sentence
for possessing amphetamine tablets.
- [Mick] It was a complete waste of everybody's time.
Bollocks basically.
- [Reporter] Publicity since the case has shown up a split
between the society which resents the anarchy
of people like the Stones
and that which favors greater individual freedom.
- [Mick] It had ramifications far beyond just a drug bust.
It had a lot of social implications.
What's wrong with people smoking drugs.
This is when this first came up.
This became a big discussion.
- [Journalist] You're often taken as a symbol of rebellion.
Do you think that the society that you live in
is one you ought to rebel against
or do you think you're rebelling against it?
- Yes, definitely rebelling against it.
(upbeat music)
♪ I was born in a cross-fire hurricane ♪
♪ And I howled at my ma in the driving rain ♪
♪ But it's all right now, in fact, it's a gas ♪
♪ But it's all right, I'm Jumpin' Jack Flash ♪
♪ It's a gas, gas, gas ♪
Kids are looking for something else
or some different moral value.
The whole basis of society and values
which were accepted could be changed,
but it's up to them to carry on those ideals that they have
instead of just falling into the same old routine
that their parents have fallen into.
♪ But it's all right now, in fact, it's a gas ♪
♪ But it's all right, I'm Jumpin' Jack Flash ♪
♪ It's a gas, gas, gas ♪
The violence of the Vietnam War
is what is causing a blow-back
of the violence in the street, right,
because the violence in the street is a direct consequence
of the Vietnam War, and that gives
or causes a right to violence
because the State is perpetrating the violence
on other people big time.
(gentle music)
(whistle blows)
- [Reporter] At Grosvenor Square police waited
for the marchers to arrive.
They'd been told there'd be no violence.
Sincerely, they hope so.
- [Narrator] 1968 was a turbulent year.
And Mick is in the thick of it.
- If you wanna demonstrate,
we have to meet them on their own ground.
If they wanna use horses, we'll have 10,000 people on horses
and see what they do.
That I love.
And that's what I thought when I was there,
that's what it should have been.
I couldn't believe how vicious the police were,
that was the scaring thing.
The mounted police just chasing at people
with their horses in the middle of Grosvenor Square.
Really scary.
(crowd shouting)
There was nothing going on violent from the crowd at all.
It was pretty peaceful.
And the police made it not peaceful.
That's what I remember.
- [Narrator] As 1968 thunders on,
Mick writes a song that peers into the heart of darkness.
(gentle music)
♪ Please let me introduce myself ♪
♪ I'm a man of wealth and taste ♪
♪ I've been around for many a long, long years ♪
♪ Stole million man's soul and faith ♪
♪ And I was 'round when Jesus Christ ♪
♪ Had his moment of doubt and pain ♪
- [Mick] When you involve religion,
it always gives it an extra frisson.
So it's obviously got religious overtones.
When I wrote it I wasn't thinking
of how provocative that was.
- [Journalist] I had read all these things about you
and some people call you the devil incarnate,
I don't know who started that.
British journalists and all. - Nor do I.
(gentle music)
♪ Pleased to meet you ♪
♪ Hope you guess my name ♪
♪ But what's puzzling you ♪
♪ Is the nature of my game ♪
- [Journalist] You're not this image
that people have of Mick Jagger.
- [Mick] I don't know what that is.
- [Journalist] Well, it's a sort of sexy, evil,
satanic, nice guy. - It can be nice/nasty,
masculine/feminine, all those things.
And everyone is all those things.
Try make it a bit more light.
(Mick speaking indistinctly)
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] Reluctantly, Mick becomes a poster boy
for a troubled era, with trouble followed by tragedy.
(gentle music)
(crowd chattering)
- Okay, now listen, I really don't know how to do this sorta thing
but I'm gonna try, just say a few words what I think I feel
about Brian and I'm sure you do,
and what we feel about him just going
when we didn't expect him to.
Okay, are you gonna be quiet or not?
"Peace, peace.
He is not dead, he does not sleep.
He has awakened from the dreams of life.
It's we that are lost in stormy visions
and keep with phantoms and unprofitable strife.
And in a mad trance we strike with a spirit's knife."
(crowd clapping)
All right.
- [Narrator] Six months after Brian's death,
another tragedy as a chaotic free concert
in America ends in murder.
- Okay, it's definitely on.
They've decided now they're going to hold the concert
at Altamont Speedway.
- So in the '60s, I was only interested
in being a good musician and a good performer and so on,
I let other people do the control part of it,
which was a mistake.
Our tour manager said we're gonna do it
in this place called Altamont, which I'd never heard of,
I don't think anyone else had.
He said it's all gonna be fine, it's San Francisco,
you don't have to worry about it, it's peace and love.
When we got there it was the antithesis of peace and love,
it was a disastrous mess.
The Hells Angels were the people doing the security.
You had no control over anything, and we were scared.
(crowd cheering)
We felt something bad was going on,
and these people were crazy,
and they were like standing next to you.
And oh, it was scary, the whole thing was out of control.
(gentle music)
- [Reporter] Altamont, California.
Four people in the audience of a free
and unscheduled concert died, one of them from stab wounds.
- [Mick] All we could do was get out
without getting in trouble ourselves.
It was just a nightmare.
- [Narrator] Life as a Rolling Stone is spiraling
into chaos.
- After that period, the '60s period,
then we had to take more control.
So that's when I had to take that role on a bit more,
not that I particularly wanted to.
The ideal is, in this situation, is to have someone
that will do all that for you,
but I never really found anyone like that.
- [Journalist] Are you any more satisfied now?
(crowd laughing)
- Do you mean sexually or philosophically?
- [Journalist] Both.
- Yeah, we're more satisfied now sexually.
(crowd giggling)
Financially dissatisfied.
- [Narrator] The Rolling Stones are about to find out
that their taxes have not been paid for years
and they're not as rich as they
or the British Government thinks they are.
- [Mick] There was nobody actively managing
the Rolling Stones' money.
The Rolling Stones had no money in the bank.
And so now I had to try and put my head down
and try and solve this puzzle.
To create income, we decided that the best way of doing that
was to leave the UK because we'd have to pay less tax.
At the time it looked as if it was a total curse.
By the time we dealt with it,
I think that it was a blessing.
Quite honestly, we'd grown too big for England's boots.
Keith always says that he was chased out
of England by the cops.
He may believe that, but the real reason
that the band left was money.
- [Narrator] Mick is forced
to take on the main responsibility for the band's fortunes.
- The band would certainly have their say in everything.
And if they weren't particularly interested in having a say
about certain details then I would have my say
and I would tell them this is what we're gonna do.
Do you agree?
And they would say yes.
That way now.
- [Chrissie] The word democracy is used
to keep everyone pacified,
but you really have to have a strong leader
in any organization.
You have to trust someone,
trust that they know better than you do.
Mick's not gonna let anything go wrong
'cause he's in control.
- [Chip] He was armed with the playbook
of the London School of Economics
and my evidence he was well armed.
- [Joyce] I think he brings rigor, discipline,
a 360 vision on everything.
He's across all the details, he tests every proposition
and to interact with him,
you've got to stay at the top of your game,
you've got to be in the A-stream really
to try and keep up with him.
- Someone has to be the person that says look,
this what we really should be doing.
Now, people can disagree with you
and say we're not doing that
or we wanna do something different.
But yeah, I don't mind being in control
of certain situations that I feel that I'm confident
that I know what I'm talking about.
- [Narrator] Step one for Stones 2.0 is a brand new deal
brokered by Mick with Atlantic Records agreeing
to warehouse their own label.
The band is about to become a brand.
- We were doing the "Sticky Fingers" cover.
I don't know why I thought it should have a logo.
- [Chess] I remember stopping at a Shell Oil gas station
and a big picture of a yellow shell, no letters.
Wow, everyone knows it's Shell.
We need a logo that stands by itself.
- And so I think I'd gone to John Pasche
and said let's try and get some funky idea.
And I gave him this idea.
- [John] I was at the Royal College of Art
studying graphic design.
The college got a call from the Stones' office asking
for them to put forward a student to come
and see Mick Jagger.
What a break.
I think a lot of people believe
that the lips are based on Mick, but that's not really true.
- [Mick] I gave him this idea
of this disembodied tongue of Kali,
and so then he modernized that.
- [John] I saw it as maybe a symbol of protest,
of anti-Establishment.
It was like kids sticking their tongue out.
It had to work as a stand-alone symbol
if you like for the band, which was unusual.
I mean there were brandings for companies and so on,
but not so much in the rock and roll world really.
- It related to the band, it had a connection.
Color, fuck you, funkiness, originality.
And so that's why it stuck I think.
- [Tommy] I think that tongue is as important
as any fashion logo in the world,
and probably resonates in every country, every city,
with people knowing exactly what it is.
- [John] It's a logo that's really gone round the world now.
- It's a Rolling Stones weekend on Radio 1
and their record has gone up seven places to number seven
in the chart this week, the Stones "Fool To Cry."
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] But Mick Jagger is more
than just a brand manager, he's a band member
and a musician as essential as a Keith Richards' riff
to the signature Stones sound.
♪ When I come home baby ♪
♪ And I've been working all night long ♪
♪ I put my daughter on my knee, and she says ♪
- I think if you have an individual timbre of your voice,
which is recognizable just by luck if you want,
that's really helpful.
♪ You know what she says ♪
- [Bernard] You know the minute he parts those lips,
you know it's him.
When somebody meets him and they talk to him,
he speaks like an English gentleman.
- One perhaps doesn't ask for responsibilities,
perhaps one is given responsibilities
when one is pushed into the limelight
in this particular sphere.
♪ And I go see her sometimes ♪
♪ And we make love ♪
- [Bernard] And he starts to sing,
he turns into a black man from the South,
the Mick Jagger voice. ♪ I put my head on her shoulder ♪
♪ She says, tell me all your troubles ♪
♪ You know what she says to me ♪
♪ She says, ooh ♪
- [PP] He's like listened to those voices,
to like all the blues singers, and he had it down.
♪ And it makes me wonder why ♪
- Lots of people have great voices,
but lots of people are great guitarists,
but that doesn't necessarily mean
you're gonna be successful.
- [Journalist] Have you got a good voice?
- No. - [Journalist] Technically.
- No, not really.
I mean I'm lucky I still can sing
more or less like the same notes when I was 19.
But no, I haven't got a great voice,
but it's okay, it does its job.
- Mick Jagger, the singer with the group,
a fascinating man, he's been described variously
as the supreme sexual object in modern Western culture,
that's a quote, a compound of menace
and energy is another one,
a sadomasochistic freak is another one.
And it's fascinating.
- [Tina] Mick was not the same person that I met in London
when he was standing behind the speakers.
He had come out of his shell because he had found
what could make him perform the way he wanted to.
Mick became a great performer.
Mick became Mick Jagger.
- [Tommy] Mick decided what he wanted to look like on stage,
whether it was something very Bohemian,
something maybe glittery, wearing eye make-up
and becoming very androgenous.
He was as chameleon-like as you could possibly imagine,
but Mick really didn't give a shit, he did his thing anyway.
So that influenced me
to really go into the fashion business.
- [Anna] The Stones really innovated
that whole androgenous look.
It was a feminized way of dressing,
wearing their girlfriends' clothes,
mixing it in with their wardrobe.
When they had to attract 50,000 people
to look at them on stage, they adapted their look.
- [Journalist] How did you manage
to make androgyny look so butch?
(Mick giggles)
- I didn't even know I was doing androgyny, I was so naive.
But I was, I was doing that androgyny.
But I was, obviously that was just the way I was naturally.
I was a bit fey.
I remember Brian being rather critical of me once
'cause he thought I was too feminine.
I mean, I had my moments of that.
- [Anna] Every, every outfit, he just steals the screen.
- There's a lot of camp background to theater,
and rock and roll is still part of theater in a way.
I had a great make-up artist called Pierre
who would dress me up like wildly,
and I'd have to take some of the layers off.
And I loved it, I loved dressing up.
Of course you dress up very effeminately
but you don't act necessarily effeminately.
- [Narrator] By 1972,
Mick has never been more famous or infamous.
More than just a rock star.
He's an instantly recognizable global celebrity.
- It can be really annoying
because people make all these assumptions about you,
but there's ways of dealing with it
and some people can take it, some people can't.
It's a bit of a pact with the devil really.
Cut.
- I suddenly got an invite to go to his wedding to Bianca.
I thought oh, this'll be fun.
I realized that it's in the South of France.
He'd laid on a plane.
The plane is filling up with all these artistes
and famous people of the day.
We had such a great weekend.
(airplane engine revving)
Everyone was stoned, and so it was a great atmosphere.
(rock music)
- [Reporter] At probably
the most chaotic wedding of the year,
Mick Jagger arriving at the Saint Tropez Town Hall
with his bride Bianca de Macias.
When Jagger found that there were scores
of photographers there,
he said he refused to be married in a goldfish bowl.
However, in spite of all the confusion, scuffling
and shouting, one Rolling Stone
at least finally came to rest.
- [Narrator] As Mick's fame grows so does his ambition
for the band.
(crowd cheering)
From the 1970s on,
the sheer scale of their live performances grows
ever larger.
- I've been getting into lights and things,
which has been nice,
but I don't think anyone's really done lights properly
in this country.
- Last week, New York City finally got to see
and hear the Rolling Stones.
We were the last stop on a tour
that I'm sure most of you have heard about,
and the tour was amazingly complicated logistically
in terms of moving them and more than 100 people
that travel with them and all the equipment
from city to city.
- [Glyn] The Stones were the first band
to have their own stages built
and their own stage designs built,
which were pretty extraordinary.
That was Mick, that wasn't anyone else, that was Mick.
(crowd cheering)
- [Narrator] The next two decades see the Stones create
a traveling carnival that only they control.
- [Chess] I felt something like I'd never felt in my life,
I felt like 20,000 people's energy looking at Mick
and I couldn't believe the sensation of that focused energy.
It's undescribable.
- When all these lights come on in red,
I'd like the whole stage to be red
and not to have just the front area.
- We've gone back to the crane.
I mean we talked about just losing the crane.
- [Patrick] Steel Wheels in '89
was a ground-breaking stadium tour.
The Stones did the first tours of stadia,
as they got bigger and bigger,
three or four nights at Madison Square Garden wasn't enough.
- [Bon Jovi] They did create the stadium rock show.
That generations of people go to see the Rolling Stones
because it's a bucket-list item, it's a life experience,
it's a rite of passage.
That stadium experience was mind-blowing.
- [Mick] I was just designing a playroom
for myself that was huge.
And I used to climb up the back of this stage
that was 90 foot high, and no one had seen anything like it.
It's like in the old days when the circus would come.
- [Andy] When rock music got to that level
it became this giant thing.
Mick was running the show
and I think he's always run the show,
and I think they're all happy that he did.
(Mick speaking indistinctly)
- Are you ready?
We would go through the ideas for these big stadium tours
with the massive stages that were very expensive.
Some of them were just crazy and wonderful,
there were so many ideas, and not all of them practical.
(gentle music) (crowd cheering)
- [Patrick] Mick wanted to have an elephant come out
at the end of a performance and present him with a rose
in the end of his trunk.
What was he thinking?
And Mick will always push the envelope a bit.
Keith is the person who might stop that.
He famously stopped the elephant on the stage.
(Keith giggles)
- Everybody,
the sigh of relief almost blew the building down.
- [Bernard] I think that at times Mick might push further
than the band would like to go.
And when that happens, I guess there's a little discussion,
or there's no discussion, there's just no, no,
I'm not doing it and you can't make me.
- [Journalist] Would you tell me
about your relationship with Keith?
- No.
We have a pretty good relationship,
we have our ups and downs.
But I mean, after 30-something years,
I mean if you don't have any ups and downs,
there's something wrong with your relationship.
- [Bernard] There was a time you would never see Mick
and Keith put their arm around each other,
'cause for a lot of years,
they weren't laughing so much together.
- [Chrissie] The band isn't really meant to be touchy-feely,
that's what's great about them.
- You've been playing a bit of guitar, haven't you?
- Yeah, on stage.
Yeah, but I haven't played so much.
I enjoyed it very much, playing guitar.
Keith keeps adjusting my settings
when I'm singing of course.
If I did that with him he'd probably go bananas.
- [Bernard] That anger created a type of spark,
anger makes for good song writing.
- [Rod] Mick has always been the captain of the ship,
I know Keith won't like to hear that
but in the early '70s I thought,
like we all felt at the time,
you don't know how lucky you are, mate.
(gentle music)
- [Bernard] After a while,
I'm now seeing the love and respect
that they have each other, it warms the shit out of me.
(gentle music)
♪ I'm the man on the mountain, come on up ♪
♪ I'm the plowman in the valley with a face full of mud ♪
♪ Well, I'm fumbling and I know my car don't start ♪
♪ Yes, I'm stumbling and I know I play a bad guitar ♪
♪ But I just wanna drink ♪
♪ From your loving cup ♪
♪ Just one drink and I'll fall down ♪
- The thing about bands is that, that it's a band,
it's a collection of individuals a band,
they say you're just like brothers,
you're just like a family.
It's not like a family at all.
I actually have a brother
and I know what it's like to have a brother
and it's not like being with Keith at all.
It's friendship and it's friendship and working together.
♪ Give me little drink ♪
♪ From your loving cup ♪
As in friendships or love affairs people have roles to play,
but those roles change, and so it's in a state of flux,
so it's never the same.
So if you're talking about a band like the Rolling Stones
who have been around for such a long time
then all of these things apply.
- [Brian] Jagger and Richards depend on each other
more than they'll ever know.
♪ What a beautiful buzz ♪
- Oh, they've had an argument.
Oh, my God, and I mean it's all talk
about storms in teacups.
And so before I know it,
Mick and I are actually making up fights
just to keep everybody happy, you know what I mean.
And so it gets ridiculous.
No, we're tight.
♪ Give me little drink ♪
♪ From your loving cup ♪
♪ Just one drink and I'll fall down drunk ♪
- [Journalist] Have you got any idea
why your group particularly has lasted as long as it has?
- Because we stay together I suppose.
- [Keith] And we enjoy it.
- We all have little sort of disagreements,
and we haven't had any violence since 1965 I don't think.
- [Journalist] And what happened in 1965?
- Was that the chicken?
(both chuckle)
Someone stole someone's chicken sandwich.
That was the last fight we had.
- [Journalist] Can you picture yourself
at the age of 60 doing what you do now?
- Yeah, easily, yeah.
- [Journalist] What happens to someone like yourself,
Mick Jagger, when you get old? - When you get old, yeah,
the same as what happens to you, love.
(crowd cheering)
- [Narrator] The Stones have now played live
in front of more than 15 million people
on every continent on Earth.
Drawing record-breaking crowds in Rio in 2006
and Havana 10 years later,
in a country that banned their music for decades.
- But I try to do things that haven't been done before
or difficult to do.
But I don't honestly enjoy doing business per se very much.
I'd much rather be a performer
and I wish I didn't have to do any of the business things.
But I am interested in creating shows.
(crowd cheering)
The whole thing of trying to go to Cuba was impossible.
Let's see if we can do it.
And the answer's not really, we can't.
And you push and you push and you push,
and then you keep pushing and you keep pushing.
Well, we'll find a way of just getting round this.
♪ And you can't always get what you want ♪
- [Patrick] I like to hear on the radio
at five past eight, you'll hear the tour manager
to the production manager, and he just says,
"We're walking, we're walking."
We know that it's three minutes to the stage
and then they start the intro music,
and then the show starts, and you still get butterflies
and excitement when you do that.
♪ You get what you need ♪
(gentle music)
(choir vocalizing)
- Sometimes I think the Stones would go on
without Mick or me or something,
it would still carry on somehow.
- If you look at musical history, pop music history,
nothing lasts forever.
(Mick giggles)
(gentle music)
- [Andy] You have to go
how did this rebel rock and roll band stand the test
of time, still stay together.
Mick is the answer to that.
(crowd cheering)
- [Lisa] He doesn't beat his own butt
about I'm not who I was 40 years ago.
It's like I know who I was 40 years ago,
I knew who I was 50, 60 years ago.
(crowd cheering)
- [Don] They're not gonna end.
(Don giggles)
They've been doing this since I was in the sixth grade,
and they're gonna keep doing it 'til they drop.
♪ You get what you need ♪
- [Bernard] The hardest thing in rock and roll
is to keep the band together.
Got to keep the band together.
And Mick Jagger did.
(crowd cheering)
(gentle music)