MY LIFE IN THE DAY - Sally Stevens

BYWATER STREET CHRONICLES - MICK TAYLOR HOOK-UP Part Two

Sometime mid-afternoon, I wend my way by taxi to the Royal Albert Hall to meet Kansas and return John's keys to him, as well as to briefly say hi to my buddies in the Mothers, who were scheduled for performance that night.  

I initially met the Mothers during my first visit to Los Angeles, November 1968 through the end of January 1969, and lived at Jim Sherwood's house in Laurel Canyon. 

I  spend that Christmas with Jim in Lancaster, meet his Dad, Cecil, and a few of the old compadres from his Antelope Valley High school days, who were also friends/players with and of Frank's and Don Van Vliet's (Captain Beefheart).  

After driving around the neighborhood in Jim's MG, I understand why one might want to be from Lancaster in those days.  Something spooky about the high desert.  Gravity roads.  Great lonely expanses of sky and empty land.  An odd Irish castle, transported by a millionaire to be plonked down in the middle of nowhere. Unexplained deaths and disappearances.

(Photo: The Mothers 1969: L-R Ian Underwood, Frank, Don Preston; back row L-R Bunk Gardner, Jim "Motorhead" Sherwood, Roy Estrada,  Jimmy Carl Black - "the Indian of the Group," and Art Tripp.)

I also make friends with Lowell George, who had been recruited into the band by Frank to replace Ray Collins for the Ruben & The Jets project - Lowell and Ray were both high-falsetto doo-wop singers.  I don't believe Ray claimed superior guitar skills as part of his resume.  Frank did.  Lowell did.

  As rock history has recorded, Lowell and Frank never hit it off as bandmates, and during a rehearsal at the Lindy Opera House on Wilshire, Frank told Lowell to stop messing about and go put his own band together, which of course Lowell did in the coming days.   And I'm sitting on the window sill in the rehearsal room watching the whole thing go down.  (Photo: a rare performance with Frank, Lowell, and Art Tripp on percussion.)

I'd already seen the upheaval of  the status quo at work in the big British bands in the 67-69 era in London. 

The whole Brian Jones/Rolling Stones thing was a scandal in the making, and it was all about to blow high wide and handsome as we slid into the late spring of 1969.  

The Beatles were also teetering on the edge of goodbye, and the Hollies the same, with Graham Nash going in one musical/artistic direction and Allan Clarke still wanting to stick to the tried and true formula. But I digress ...

After returning the keys to Kansas, I walk into the impressive auditorium at the Royal Albert Hall. The sound-check is not yet happening,  and  I couldn't see anyone from the band, not even manager Herbie Cohen.  The crew are at work on stage, but that's about it. (Photo: Kansas and Frank.)

However, smack in the middle of the house, I see three guys sitting.  When I get closer, I see that one of them is Mick Taylor, who I hadn't seen for about two years, since we gave up the flat on the Gloucester Road.  I walk up behind them and tap Mick on the back of the head.  He's delighted to see me, as I was him of course, and wants to know what I've been up to, and so on.  We get the brief updates out of the way, and then I casually announce that I have a message for him from Mick Jagger.  At this point, Taylor obviously thinks I'm teasing him.  "Oh yeah?  What did he want, then?"  "He wants you to join the Rolling Stones." 

Mick laughs uneasily, still thinks/hopes I'm joking.  "Right,"  he says.   "Honestly.  I was at Mayall's last night, flat-sitting, and Jagger called this morning.  I've left a message for John about it.  You'll probably hear from him when he gets back into town."  "Do you have his phone number?  Mick's?"  "No.  You'll have to wait for John to get home."  I probably told him to talk to Kansas to get hold of Mayall on the road, which would have been logical. At this point, I think he starts believing me.  He had done some session work with the Stones in the very recent past, so ...  "But, what about Brian?" 

Yes, Mick, damn good question.   And why Mick Taylor was at the Royal Albert Hall in June 1969, waiting for a Mothers' sound-check is another one, because we never got to that.     

In ironic answer to Mick's question about Brian, almost exactly one month later, right before midnight on July 2, 1969, Brian Jones was found drowned in the swimming pool at Cotchford Farm, his house in Hartfield (formerly the home of A.A. Milne, creator of Winnie the Pooh, and childhood home to Christopher Robin Milne), under circumstances that have never been satisfactorily explained, although a death-bed confession from a contractor working on the house at the time indicates that in fact Brian was murdered by this individual. 

Some of the associated drama leading up to this sad ending also swirled through the doors at Bywater Street, but more about that later ...

 

 

 

 

 

BYWATER STREET CHRONICLES - THE MICK TAYLOR HOOK-UP

Returning from my first visit to Los Angeles in November 1968, in March 1969 I was based at the Cordova House Hotel in Paddington.  I'd allowed "K" to sublet my flat and use my possessions, on the clear understanding (I thought) that I would be returning to London.  "K" was introduced to me by mutual friends in the business.  Apparently, she had accompanied Chas Chandler and another rock luminary on a trans-Atlantic voyage on the now-retired "Queen Elizabeth," which was on a regular route between New York and the UK.  

 My lawyer and trustee, John Fearon, and my good friend Angela Wayne, were keeping an eye out for me while I was gone, and Angela told me that" K" had nicked my stuff, hadn't paid the rent, which got me kicked out of the flat.   I was far from happy.

Anyway, I ran into "K" in the Chelsea Antique Market. Never one to pull a punch, I called her out, to the amusement of the shoppers, after which we arranged to chat.  Turned out my television had been given to some poet,  and she had no idea where the other stuff was, vaguely saying that other people may have taken things while visiting.  

End result - I wound up with a referral to rent-free digs at her former abode on  Bywater Street, in Chelsea.   She was moving out and headed for Hampstead.

The Bywater Street place was a five-storey townhouse, just off the Kings Road, handy to Sainsbury's, the Chelsea Potter, the Chelsea Drugstore. It was being rented by the affable "T,"- a well-connected scenester -  with rooms reserved by the likes of Shawn Phillips, Lou Gossett, Jr. , Donyale Luna (g.f. of Keith Richards),as well as being a civilized hang for the cognoscenti of Chelsea in 1969, including ex-pat, New York jazz pianist Freddie Redd, producer Jonathan Weston, Marianne Faithfull, Donovan, David Ormsby-Gore, etc.  I was told that the homeowner/landlord was a filmmaker associated with Fellini, and we lived with this person's furniture and effects.  (I have pot-pourri from the house, and it's still fragrant - 42 years later.)   

So, after this transition from Paddington to Chelsea, at the beginning of June, I got a phone call from one of my Mothers of Invention pals, "Kansas," one of their trusted road crew.  The Mothers were in London at the time;  Kansas had agreed to flat-sit for John Mayall  and needed some help.  A  well-paying out of town gig had turned up, and he needed someone to sit in for him for a night.  I was happy to oblige. 

John Mayall was someone I knew peripherally, and a musician I very much admired (and still do).  More than one of his sidemen and crew had scurried across my life by that time.  Besides a sax player named Rip Kant, who landed on our couch for a while, the most notable was Mick Taylor, the 17 year old guitar genius, who used to stop by my flat in the Gloucester Road in the company of the road crew, after gigs. Their job was to deliver Mick to his parents' home and he was in no more of a hurry than anyone else.  We'd all have coffee and chat, while everyone unwound, and then off they'd go into the night.  This was in 1966, when I first moved to London.

  Mick was already a brilliant player at that time, and after some uncertain starts in live performance, Mayall had the wisdom to have Mick stand between the Marshall stacks while playing solos, so he didn't have to deal with the audience. That did the trick and by 1969  Mick had a couple of years out on the circuit with Mayall,  and was gaining a great reputation.  

So, I stayed at Mayall's flat over the railway yard on the Friday night - between the zebra-striped sheets, surrounded by a distinct African theme, masks, carvings, etc.    I believe John was actually gigging in Africa at the time.  It was a neat atmosphere, have to say.

Kansas said to answer the phone, take messages, and tell people John would be back the following week.  He didn't think there'd be too many calls, most of John's associates knowing John was gigging out of town.   

This turned out to be true, until a call came in on Saturday morning.  I struggled out of the zebra sheets and put on my best answering service voice. "Hello?"  "Is John there?" "No, sorry, out of town at the moment.  Can I take a message?"  "This is Mick Jagger." (Oh right, who else?) "Hi Mick, John's on the road at the moment.  Anything you want me to tell him?"  "Yes, I'm looking for Mick Taylor.  We want him to join the Rolling Stones." 

Blimey.  Guess Brian's out on his ear, like we've all been hearing.  What a break for Mick Taylor.  Hope he's ready for prime time. 

 "All right, I'll leave a note."  "Fanks."  Click - dial tone. 

I wrote a note, something like call Mick Jagger, wants to find Mick Taylor.  And then I left the flat, and went back to Bywater Street. I was planning on going to the Royal Albert Hall for the Mother's sound check in the afternoon.  (To be continued).