Into the Rolling Stones phenom
Rich Cohen was a very young journalist when he was assigned by Rolling Stone magazine to boot up to Toronto to write a profile on his boyhood rock ’n’ roll idols, the Rolling Stones.
In one interview, Keith Richards asks Cohen when he was born. “1968.” The legendarily monosyllabic guitarist was dumbfounded and asks a telling question: “What’s it like to live in a world where the Stones were always there? For you, there’s always been the sun, the moon and the Rolling Stones.” The sentiment that Mick and Keith and Charlie and Bill have “always been there” will resonate with millions of music fans.
Cohen’s initial gig turned into a very long relationship with the rock icons, so The Sun and the Moon and the Rolling Stones, his biography of “the greatest rock ’n’ roll band of all time,” reeks of authenticity.
When he first met them, Mick and the others were in their 50s and, many thought, past their “best before” date. Now, 20 years on and in their 70s, they’re still popular.
Cohen clearly loves Keith and Charlie, but it’s the looming presence of Jagger that stalks this book. Cohen notes: “Mick has always been defined by sex and satisfaction — and youth. He’s now reached the far shore of that country. An old man defined by sex is a strange thing.”
His presence also might explain the band’s longevity, because, Cohen writes, everyone he asked to explain the cultural phenomenon gave the same answer: Mick Jagger.
But his pre-eminence has come at a cost — to others. The Stones’ most famous victim? Its founder, Brian Jones, or as Cohen writes, “the grandest goat yet sacrificed to the insatiable Pan.”
Cohen has penned a truly fascinating tale: Mick and Keith’s chance meeting on October 17, 1961, on a Dartford railway platform; the sex scandals; the drug busts; Altamont; the 1980s breakup; the 1990s reconciliation; and the creation of endless hits during the “golden run” of the 1970s.
After finishing his initial story, the Stones invited Cohen to return to Toronto for the “pre-tour warm-up show” at the El Mocambo. “. . . in that smoky club the Stones put on the best rock show I’ve ever seen . . . That band exists only in a bar after you’ve had three drinks, Charlie has gotten loose, and Keith has found the groove. And Mick has remembered who he really is.” Not a bad way to sum up the Stones.