The Rolling Stones’ Doomed Genius

Charlie Watts had the decency to go to his funeral. He was always a class act.

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards both had their own legal woes due to their respective drug use. Jones was no saint, but neither were Jagger and Richards. The biggest problem with these three was battling egos.

Had there been no Brian Jones, there would be no Brian Jonestown Massacre.

Fun fact, when Jethro Tull played at the Rolling Stone's Rock and Roll Circus, Tommy Iommi was playing lead guitar for Tull

Jagger, called him manipulative, the tea pot calling the kettle black.

I'm a fan of the early Rolling Stones, and that means when Brian Jones made essential musical contributions to the band. At that time you never knew how their new song would be. Which instruments would figure in them, which pre-world music vibe would be in it. I always knew that Brian Jones was the musical genius behind all that. As to drugs and all kind of rivalries, almost every group of these times was doing them.

Robert Johnson was the first member of the 27 Club. He died in 1938.

"Brian was a brilliant, fluent multi-instrumentalist, he was the one who founded the Rolling Stones and he had the creative vision that helped them to evolve organically from a mop-top blues-pop group into the mystical rock gods they became--something that many people today might not realise."--Mick Fleetwood

According to one excellent biography, Frank Thoroughgood and his workers had been allowed far too much freedom by B.J. when renovating his home. Brian gave them pretty much the run of the place and they abused the privilege and treated the place like their personal squat! Brian was finally getting his act together and realising that things had gone too far, tried to wind-up the arrangement and get them out. Frank took exception to this and a huge bust-up ensued. F.T. on his deathbed confessed to drowning Brian.

To eke out my student grant I took a summer job that year as a deck chair collector in London's Royal Parks. My pitch was Victoria Tower Gardens. The Stones' concert was held in a part of Hyde Park called the Cockpit, also one of our deck chair pitches, that backed onto the Serpentine. The concert became a memorial to Jones. We saw a good deal of it stage-side and the remainder from a rowing boat floating on the Serpentine with a picnic hamper. Happy days.

First, our favorite narrator again! I don't think Jagger's answer was twisted at all. I think the group's animosity towards Jones (who probably was afflicted with bipolar disorder) was the inevitable result of his persistently contemptuous attitude towards the group. I am curious as to why someone would hear what was essentially a deathbed confession and then not follow up right then and there. Makes me wonder if he said it at all, because the fewer the details, the harder it is to prove.

“Brian’s pioneering status as a musician has become steadily less obvious thanks to the very success of his mission. The blues and world music that he championed and dragged into the mainstream have become so ubiquitous that we all suffer a hindsight bias—we find it impossible to imagine what the world was like without this music. As counter-intuitive as it might seem, this is proof of Brian’s accomplishment.”—Sympathy for the Devil by Paul Trynka

Poor Brian. Rehab could have helped him. He was the most talented.

I was in Vancouver, BC visiting my aunt when Brian Jones died. My late older brother, about 23 years later, was invited over to Keith Richards' house, where he would spend much of the 90s and early 2000s. We saw the original lineup of The Stones perform live (NYC-1966). They performed 'Lady Jane' and ended their set with 'Paint It, Black'. If I remember correctly, my brother told me that the front door of Keith Richards' house is painted red (or, at least it was in the 90s). After my brother died, a message arrived at his memorial service from Keith Richards' business manager: A lady named Jane. I remember asking my brother how come he's wasn't in Keith Richards' autobiography ('Life', released in 2010). After all, he spent virtually a dozen years at his house. His reply was-"I heard all the stories that didn't make it into the book first hand.' For instance, Brian Jones was not the first one to be kicked out of The Stones. Keith was-in the very early days of the band. My brother claimed it was Keith's mother, Doris, who told that story in their presence!

Didn't He Start, The Rolling Stones, Group, ORIGINALLY????!!!!

The great Alan Wilson from Canned Heat is also, sadly, a part of the 27 Club..

Perfectly logical statement from Jagger.

Jealousy of the highest order. Brian was the genius of the RS.

"In 1966, I witnessed, on numerous occasions, the remarkable spell Brian would cast while working in the recording studio. Mick and Keith would bring songs in, Brian would listen and effectively take charge, and everyone was in awe of him. He was a real perfectionist. While recording the recorder part in Ruby Tuesday he explained to me that he had to do it over again as he had been a quarter tone off tune."--Prince Stash Klossowski de Rola (artist and friend of the Stones) in Brian Jones: Butterfly in the Park.

He was the Boss! -- Inspiration, Founder, Teacher, and All Round Grand Master, Brian Jones made the Rolling Stones into the kind of band he wanted. They are still, to this day, his creation.