Showing posts with label Marianne Faithfull. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marianne Faithfull. Show all posts
Friday, September 12, 2014
A Review:
The Rock And Roll Circus Movie
Of The Rolling Stones
by
R.E. Prindle
In December 1968 Mick Jagger decided to make a film, or rather, he shot the film having decided earlier. Perhaps he was inspired by The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour of the previous year. These years from 1966 to 1968-69 were a tumultuous time for Jagger and his sidekick Keith Richards. Not least significant was that Mick had taken up with the songstress Marianne Faithfull. Then in 1967 there was perhaps the most famous drug bust in history at Keith’s Redlands house.
The boys had been pushing the drug envelope hard more or less inviting a crackdown and it came in 1967 involving Mick, Keith and Marianne with devastating results for all three characters in the drama.
As the authorities wished to make an example of the baddest boys of rock and roll Mick and Keith received prison sentences of which however they only served two or three days. Nevertheless their psyches had been criminalized, changed their views on their role in society.
While the arrest and jail time were merited in society’s eyes, Mick and Keith who were among the legions marching to Altruria on the wings of pot convinced that their elders had irrevocably messed the world up while they were going to set it right under the influence of marijuana, LSD, amphetamines and whatever else was handy, saw the bust and conviction as unjustified interference in their dreams of perfection.
The revolution was on as far as they were concerned hence they began a string of songs along the lines of Street Fighting Man and Sympathy For The Devil, unintended consequences of the bust.
Oh yeah, Mick and Marianne, Keith and his main squeeze Anita Pallenberg had become involved in Satanism which was going around like the flu. Not necessarily dilettantish either like, say, I just read a great book by Satan, but the real kind as fostered by the Great Beast 666 Aleister Crowley himself as interpreted by his epigoni Kenneth Anger and Anton LaVey, not to mention the Process Church Of The Final Judgment. Mick and Marianne disavow any serious interest in Satanism but the Rock and Roll Circus contradicts that.
Combined with these irritants in their lives Mick had just starred in a Satanic movie, Performance, and Marianne had had the misfortune of a miscarriage. To say that they weren’t suffering at the time they made their movie would be a understatement.
In this hazy mental state, compounded by too many drugs, Mick cobbled together his Circus.
What is the meaning of the title Circus? Ostensibly it meant literally a circus, after all it had a fire eater and trapeze artists. However it could also be a double entendre. Just as the title of their 1967 album, Their Satanic Majesties Request, parodied the Queens request on passports so the word Circus also parodied the name the British intelligence agency gave to their gig. The title can be construed as a challenge to the establishment. It would seem clear then that Mick was still seething inside because of Redlands.
His film is negligible as a movie but a good concert film. The symbolism is non stop as the guest audience in dressed in some sort of Munchkin costumes. The cast was bizarre to say the least. While little more than a musical oddity Jethro Tull led by Ian Anderson in his disgusting dirty old man persona opens the show while he was followed by the Who caught in pre-Tommy persona. Never one of my favorite bands, others thought they were a good performance while we are treated to a young Pete Townshend doing a series of his trademark windmills.
The couple circus acts are entertaining enough; the fire eater is pretty spectacular.
John Lennon performing separately from the Beatles was probably the musical highlight of the show for me. While obviously in the throes of a serious depression personally, as a performer once on stage Lennon is charisma spilling out all over the place. The depression does show up in the name he chose for his ad hoc group- The Dirty Mac. The name characterizes the general depression and malaise of the whole show. Lennon’s group brought together some stellar lights of the time. Besides himself he had Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience on drums, Eric Clapton on lead guitar and Keith on rhythm. They are joined a by fiddler, I presume Ivry Gitlis, and the irrepressible Yoko Ono.
Yoko was in her Bagism phase. While the movie is loosely shot during Lennon’s gig, if you watch the lower right corner of the film you can see a black object sort of pulsing. That’s the bag Yoko is in. I suppose as she was a performance artist the bag was Yoko’s joke- that’s the bag I’m in, get it?
After a noisy rendition of Yer Blues Yoko wiggles out of the bag bouncing up with her arms outstretched as in Here I am, aren’t I wonderful? Well, she certainly shocked Ivry when she began to squeal. Yoko is very tiny so Ivry kind of looks down at Yoko with raised eyebrows, looks over at John, backs up a couple steps, stops playing momentarily and has this incredulous am I believing what I’m seeing and hearing look on his face. One might say Yoko stole the show. Really, I had to start laughing.
The real show stopper comes next when the camera shifts to Marianne Faithfull. She was decorously posed in a stunning black designer gown. At her most beautiful with a fine folky voice that entrancingly recalled her As Tears Go By but strong and more focused. I missed the words but caught the mood of this enchanting chanteuse. Marianne definitely trumped Yoko as a showstopper.
Taj Mahal was a special case. Believe it or not Taj is still out there challenging the Interminable Tourist Dylan himself. Taj works, or did, about 170 days a year, every year. While he is not well known he began as a duo with Ry Cooder called the Rising Sons then added a string of records on his own. The guitarist is Jesse Ed Davis, a failed guitar god, who had a couple solo Lps of his own. Taj’s first two records are superb blues Lps, two of my favorites of the period. The third LP, a two record set is also quite good but begins his political period that obviated his musical career. He goes rapidly down hill after that.
For some reason he chose a rather lame piece from his repertoire. If he was making an appeal for a girl or girls to join him backstage his salacious version of Hey, Little School Girl might have served him better.
The Stones rounded out the show at the end. While the Who were supposed to have buried the Stones I didn’t find it so. The tension had been well maintained throughout the show with the comic interlude of Yoko and the Stones maintained it through to the end with a climax of sorts.
It was obvious that Mick, Keith and Marianne were in a world of hurt….and Brian Jones. That tragedy would play out over the next year when Brian drowned and Marianne almost drowned in her own tears and Mick spawned a real live Satan at Altamont.
The movie ended in hurt and Satanism- homage to the Devil.
Mick and Marianne had gone to see Jimi Hendrix a few months earlier. After performing Hendrix had sat at Marianne and Mick’s table where he put the make on Marianne telling her to dump the White dude and go with him. Marianne hesitated a moment too long giving Mick offense so that he commemorated the evening in his song, You Can’t Always Get What You Want. Suddenly I realized the meaning of the line, you and your friend Jimi as Mick shouted it to someone off stage to the right. OK, not my problem.
So Jagger was still wearing his hair as he did in the movie Performance. That soul corrupting film was obviously still influencing him. As Marianne said, it changed his personality.
The show closed with Sympathy For The Devil. There was a little stage extension on which Mick prostrated himself as though doing obeisance as the song played. It looked like he was groveling, then he looked up making a couple goofy grimaces at the camera beginning to pull off his shirt. Not necessary, Mick, not necessary. Then with the shirt off he straightened to a kneeling position to reveal Satanic tattoos a la Kenneth Anger.
Anger had a large LUCIFER tattooed across his chest. Here Mick seemed to be imitating him apparently trying to tell us that the Great Satan had arrived. I hope they were transfers. Interesting, especially as the movie Rosemary’s Baby appeared in 1968 in which Rosemary gives birth to the Son of Satan. Even more interestingly in the 1990’s book sequel Son Of Rosemary Satan’s little lad was named Andy. After Andy Warhol, I presume.
I suppose then that Mick conceived the film as a coming out party for himself as The Great Beast. Apparently he took his Satanism very seriously. It make one wonder, was Altamont a projection of the Great Satan?
Sometime around or after the death of Tara Browne in an automobile accident in 1966 the rumor that Paul McCartney of the Beatles had died being replaced by a double began to circulate. The rumor itself, of course, is a fact that has been a center of controversy since 1966 although it didn‘t bloom in full until 1969 when a Detroit DJ spread the rumor through the colleges via UofM.
For my part I dismiss the notion that Paul did die and can find no solid evidence that the post-accident Paul is a double. Still the rumor calls for explanation especially in connection with the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s that depicts the demise of the whole group while it is reborn as Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The reborn group is surrounded by the pictures of, one presumes, the lonely hearts.
Who Can Explain These Things?
I can’t say that I have the solution for the rumor to be sure. What I offer here is a plausible explanation based on an interpretation of the social situation created by the phenomenal success of the Beatles. That success was too great a burden for the band members to bear. If anything caused the breakup of the band that overwhelming success was a principal cause. The success far exceeded the capability of any one of the members, in other words the whole was greater than its parts. But, to recreate the environment to some extent let us consider the members of the whole entourage.
At the base we find, I think, the notorious London criminals the Kray Twins,. Ronnie and Reggie. Their gang that they called The Firm terrorized the London of the Sixties.
David Bailey Portrait Of Reggie And Ronnie Kray
The Kray twins were born in 1933 making them seven to twelve during the war years. They experienced all the bombing and hardship of the war years as well as the post-war deprivation of rationing through 1954. They came from London’s East End rising through the crime ranks in the fifties to finally come into their own from 1960 to 1968. A short reign but one that coincided with the golden age of English rock and roll. The rockers were born mainly in 1942-43 making them nine or ten years younger than the Krays but still close enough in age. The rockers missed the war but faced the deprivations of the post-war years. These were character forming years for both the Krays and the rockers, primarily for us the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
The Krays were heavy handed protection racketeers moving into gambling. They, especially Ronnie, were enamored of the NYC and Philadelphia Mafia families. The Mafia families had many singers and performers under their control most notably at this time Judy Garland. When Garland performed in England the Mafia used the Krays for protection. Thus the Krays got used to associating with certain celebrities which they found exhilarating.
It was suggested to Ronnie by the Mafia that the Krays suborn English acts much as the Mafia had done with the US performers. For a good visualization of the process the 1958 film The Girl Can’t Help It is an accurate fictionalized account. The movie even features a couple of Mafia groups such as Teddy Randazzo And The Gumdrops. Right! We’d never heard of them either. Even the Mafia couldn’t promote them to fame.
Who better for the Krays to begin to build their stable than the premier English group, the Beatles?
The front line protecting the performers is always their management. The groups or singers themselves are artists not businessmen. As artists their concern is their art. They have to concentrate on their art to be successful. To realize the benefits of their art is a business. Hence managers who are businessmen enter in. The artists must trust the businessmen who are nearly all crooks so the artists were born to be fleeced. In the case of the Beatles producing all those millions and millions, they were a manager’s dream. Plus the hangers on.
Enter Brian Epstein, the manager and Robert Fraser, art dealer and hanger on.
Just as background the English managerial caste, as well as the US, were with very few exceptions Jewish and homosexual. In the late fifties and early sixties there were no groups, there were solo singer acts. These guys in most cases were not artists they were just kids off the street. Managers like Larry Parnes cast their eyes over good looking guys on the street and selected the ones that appealed to them such as Cliff Richard and the various Furys and Storms. They taught them a little stage presence, got them a good song, usually from a Jewish homosexual songwriter, put a band behind them and ballyhooed them into stardom.
Being Jewish they looked at the goi boys as so many cash cows and so they were. As Bob Dylan famously sang in Ballad Of Thin Man, ‘Give me some milk or go home.‘ However much was made from the singers efforts most went to the managers and pittances to the boys. But, then they were only created creatures, mere employees anyway.
The Beatles were dedicated artists who had a fairly long apprenticeship learning their craft in a tough environment in the red light district of Hamburg Germany. They not only developed a sound but Lennon and McCartney became a most prolifically successful songwriting team. That’s where the real money in records is and that’s where the Beatles got skinned the worst.
So they had talent but without management the talent would die on the vine. Enter manager Brian Epstein who saw their potential and acted. He was a Jewish homosexual flake but without him the Beatles would probably have become unemployed layabouts rather than wealthy rock and rollers. Brian Epstein’s rock and roll empire was born on the Beatles backs.
Brian had a couple weaknesses, drugs and gambling, other than his homosexuality that was then illegal, a crime, hence to be carefully concealed. Combined with the temptation of all those millions, there’s a recipe you’ll never find again.
Another character in the story is the avant garde art dealer Robert Fraser, also known as Groovy Bob, impeccably English but homosexual and a drug addict and, sure enough, an inveterate gambler. Fraser spent the first couple of years of the Sixties in the NYC art scene. There he was heavily influenced by Andy Warhol, less impeccably American, homosexual, but as far as we know free of the vices of gambling and drugs.
Fraser was also involved in the burgeoning Satanist scene that would take prominence beginning in 1966. He was involved with the American Satanist Kenneth Anger and through Anger the literary influence of the English Satanist Aleister Crowley and San Francisco’s Anton La Vey.
Wanting to be with it, Groovy Bob created a sort of salon for the young rock and rollers. Apparently the whole crowd, Beatles, Stones, Marianne Faithfull, Jimmy Page and the rest all hung out at Groovy Bob Fraser’s. Bob always had a plentiful supply of the best drugs.
To supply him with those drugs enter the young ambitious criminal, Spanish Tony Sanchez. Tony worked the gambling joints of the West End for the early fifties criminal Albert Dimes, an Italian. Dimes was a huge man, a fearsome enforcer, who successfully weathered his times until he died in his nineties. Either no or little jail time too.
Spanish Tony recorded his life in the Sixties in his two books, Up And Down With The Rolling Stones and I Was Keith Richards’ Drug Dealer. The latter is an updated edition of the former with additional material so the two are similar but not identical.
Tony met Groovy Bob in a bar before going to work his shift. The friendship developed and Tony began to hang at Fraser’s becoming acquainted with the Beatles, Stones and Marianne. Tony had access to drug suppliers.
Groovy Bob Fraser was the frivolous sort who found the minor details irrelevant. Thus while losing heavily in the Kray’s West End gambling joint, Esmeralda’s Barn, he paid for his losses with checks drawn on air. Any check may bounce once but Groovy Bob’s were the super balls of checks, they just kept bouncing.
I don’t have to tell you this irritated the Krays. They threatened grievous bodily harm. Bob appealed to the incipient criminal Spanish Tony to try to straighten things out. Dimes was Tony’s introduction to the Krays and according to him he worked out an agreement but Groovy Bob, well, honestly, just couldn’t find the money.
At the same time Brian Epstein had gambled and lost, gambled and lost, gambled and lost. One surmises that he made inroads into those Beatles millions that would have been difficult to explain in court. His contract with the group would expire in 1967 at which time it wouldn’t have been unreasonable for the Boys to call for an audit of the books. Not being businessmen and trusting Brian implicitly they probably wouldn’t have but the guilty Brian couldn’t count on it. Under pressure from the Krays to turn the Beatles over to them, probably suffering the pangs of guilt and befuddled by drugs, Brian either committed suicide in the summer of ‘67 or he was erased by other interested parties.
In the interim the Krays were increasing the pressure to get the Beatles from him. They had a sit down with Brian in a homosexual bar to force the issue. Brian patiently tried to explain to them that management was no bed of roses; there were a million nagging little details, heartbreaks and frustrations.
Maybe so. The Krays had earlier broached the subject of taking over the Beatles to the UK crime kingpin Arthur Thompson of Glasgow. He had advised them against it pointing out they were criminals who as a caste gave little thought to business details as did Groovy Bob Fraser and besides when it got out that the Beatles were criminally controlled it might kill their popularity. The Krays brushed the latter objection aside but paid attention to the former.
Now, the Krays had an associate named Laurie O’ Leary who had a clean record and could therefore function above ground and obtain licenses to manage clubs and an older brother Charlie who also had a clear record who could learn the management skills and establish a talent agency. That should take care of both of Arthur’s objections.
Bear in mind that part of the deal Tony worked out was that Groovy Bob was to work to bring the Beatles over to the Krays. There was a large homosexual ring recruiting young boys from orphanages for their criminal pleasure. This ring involved some notorious people of the period. One was the homosexual Tom Driberg. Driberg had made himself familiar with Mick Jagger who he tried to recruit as a politician. A fellow called Lord Boothby seemed to be the guiding light of this group. The group also included Ronnie Kray and members of the so-called Music Mafia including disc jockeys and many of those presiding over the music scene. As events have recently shown those involved in the music industry were heavily into pedophilia. How they link up to the Krays’ invasion of group management isn’t clear but I’m sure there is a connection.
A Picture Of Kevin MacDonald, 29 year old advertising executive according to caption.
A Beatles fan who wishes to remain anonymous sent me a package of press clippings dealing with Kevin MacDonald. The interview below appeared in the Evening Standard of 7/28/66. Kevin MacDonald Associates included himself Terry Howard and Bruce Higham. The interview gives some idea of the nature of the enterprise.
But the ultimate fascination of Sybylla's lies in its interest to the amateur sociologist. The three founders Terry Howard, Kevin MacDonald and Bruce Higham, all young professional men in their twenties who arranged bankers and backers to support their dream, claim that their club symbolizes a social revolution personified by the linkup between Marshall Field's great grand daughter, Miss Sibylla Edmonstone and Beatle George Harrison whose respective spheres of fashionability assured the club's success.
If the success needs an explanation it gets one from the most eloquent of the founders, 28 year old advertising executive Kevin MacDonald, a great-nephew of Lord Northcliffe, who was lyrically evangelical as what Sibylla's is doing for Britain when he told me using finger clicking for punctuation: "Sibylla's is the meeting ground for the new aristocracy of Britain (click) and by the new aristocracy I mean the current young meritocracy of style, taste and sensitivity. (click) We've got everyone here. (click) The top creative people. (click) The top exporters. (click) The top brains. (click) The top artists. (click) The top social people. (click) and the best of the PYPs (swingingese for pretty young people.) We're completely classless. (click). We are completely integrated. (click) We dig the spades man. (click)
Relationships here go off like firecrackers. Everyone here's got the message. (click) Can you read it, man?"
I confess to having originally looked upon the above statements of Mr. MacDonald as complete gibberish. However, although it may be due to the heady atmosphere of Swallow St., after three nights of Sibylla's I now admit to being converted to something near to Mr. MacDonald's doctrine.
As to MacDonald's death, the newspaper account state simply that it was a suicide from the tenth floor of a building that MacDonald had apparently never visited before. He was defenestrated.
It was said by finger print experts from Scotland Yard that he had been hanging from a window. Suicide is possible but defenestration is a favorite murder method of criminals such as the Krays.
MacDonald who was seeing a psychologist is alleged to have been depressed but as I read the above the guy was an A-head and probably on the down side of elation when his psychologist saw him. We do now have some idea of who MacDonald was. By the way advertising executive is a generous way of describing someone with no clients.
At this point MacDonald and others decided to open a club for the 'hipoisie' called Sibylla's. They chose to open on Swallow St. in Piccadilly. The street was a Kray hangout with three clubs already in existence. While the choice of street seems strange it may have been deliberate. In addition to all the other tops MacDonald had the top gangsters. The scene had a fascination with gangsters. David Bailey the famous fashion photographers had celebrated the Krays in his photographs so possibly Kevin thought he could play with fire and not get burned.
In addition the three mob clubs on the street a Kray associate, Laurie O' Leary was chose as the manager. He was fresh from managing the bars at the Krays gambling joint, Esmeralda's Barn.
While O' Leary professes a sort of innocence in regards to his connection to the Krays he quite clearly was operating under their umbrella. It seems probable that the club was formed and the ownership group was formed to put pressure on the Beatles through Harrison. MacDonald doesn't seem to have known the Beatles but Brown was very close to both the Beatles and Stones.
Probably pressure was put on both to force them to work on Harrison to bring the Beatles in. The two either failed or refused to do so. MacDonald, the first to go, was obviously thrown to his death from a rooftop as a first warning. When that was ignored Tara Browne died in an equally suspicious way in a late night car crash. This is important because Lennon and McCartney wrote A Day In The Life included on their Sgt. Pepper’s album to describe it. It was probably this song that gave some sort of credence for Browne replacing a dead McCartney.
The only witness to the crash was Browne’s companion in the car, a tiny Lotus, a girl named Suki Potier. While there are a plethora of details circulating about the accident such as Browne was racing McCartney down the street at 106 miles an hour, there would have been no witnesses to confirm this save McCartney and Potier and neither have anything substantial to say.
The Lotus is said to have hit a van. The wreck of the Lotus certainly indicates a very high speed yet we have no picture of the van to indicate how the crash occurred. By van is meant I suppose what we USers would call a panel truck or something equivalent to a SUV.
While Browne was killed Miss Potier escaped the really horrendous looking crash with nothing but a few bruises. This seems incredible. As the picture shows the roof is torn off the car while the hood or bonnet is driven up. The window on her side is intact. At the very least her head should have broken the windshield. It would seem probable that she would have been thrown through it or over it. The timing of the roof ripping off would have been important there.
The question is, was there an accident or was Browne killed and the accident staged. The intent of his death may have been meant as a second warning to the Beatles to surrender. So, now, why was the Paul Is Dead rumor circulated. Perhaps the first two warnings having failed Paul was targeted as next. Of course that would have been counter productive.
But if one connects the Paul Is Dead rumor to the Sgt. Pepper’s cover a possible Kray involvement through Groovy Bob Fraser is possible. The cover of Sgt. Peppers had been assigned to a Dutch commune called The Fool and had actually been completed, but Fraser persuaded the ‘Boys’ to switch to a group of his friends who then came up with a cover depicting the whole group as dead and buried.
The symbolism of the cover had never really engaged my attention till recently. On the lower right corner is a rag doll wearing a Rolling Stones sweater. The aspiring gangster and Fraser friend Spanish Tony Sanchez now indebted to the Krays through his association with Fraser had been hired by Keith Richards of the Stones as his factotum and drug procurer at a salary of 250 pounds a week as recorded in his Up And Down With The Rolling Stones and I Was Keith Richards Drug Dealer thus putting a Kray agent in the Stones. A coincidence perhaps but a mighty good paying job. I have no evidence but it is likely that Tony was forced on Keith by the Krays.
At any rate on this bizarre, less than hip cover, the Beatles are dressed in their Sgt. Pepper’s garb standing looking down at a grave labeled Beatles. Surrounding them are pictures of a band of lonely hearts, mostly dead people. So, what is the message? Join up or your group will be dead for real? In fact Paul’s Mini was involved in a crash but it was being driven by his factotum while bringing drugs to a party Paul was attending. It was likely thought that Paul was driving.
What is clear is that Fraser was unable to pay his gambling debts and had to make some move to show he was cooperating. The cover could be a very discreet attempt to show the Krays he was working on it. As he was involved in the Redlands bust of 1967 and sent to prison that at least got him off the street for a period of time. Then the Krays were busted in May of 1968 perhaps removing an immediate threat. Fraser chose the time after his release to vanish in India perhaps to avoid punishment.
Brian Epstein, dazed and confused, by his drug taking, continuing to rack up gambling debts was making his situation worse. He was probably deep into money that contractually belonged to the Beatles. In other words he had embezzled or misappropriated vast sums.
In a desperate move to generate more cash, perhaps, he had opened a Fillmore type rock emporium that would be competing with the Roundhouse. He also apparently attempted to sell his firm NEMS to RSO the Robert Stigwood Organization. As he was giving NEMS up for the fire sale price of 500,000 pounds it would seem that he was desperate for a way out.
Post-Sgt. Peppers the Krays seem to have been no closer to annexing the Beatles than before. Epstein died on August 27, 1967 from an apparent drug overdose. He intended to spend that weekend with friends at his home but suddenly changed his mind and left to return to London. No one knows what happened in London or who he may have met. It’s possible the Krays called him and commanded a meeting. A sort of now or never thing. He returned home, locked himself in his room and died in bed. Never. The door was broken down the next morning when he was found dead in his bed.
The Krays themselves were arrested in May of 1968 and never released spending the rest of their lives in prison, or, in Ronnie’s case, Bedlam.
Prior to the Krays’ arrest in May the Beatles chose February of that year to visit the Maharishi in India thus out of the country for those months.
Spanish Tony continued with Keith Richards after the Krays were sentenced although his relationship became more strained. The Krays are said to have had influence in the underworld from prison so Keith may not have thought it wise to dismiss Tony at that time. The relationship was ended in 1976 when Tony was refused backstage entry at a concert.
When Reggie Kray died at the end of the century thus leaving Tony without any protection Tony is said to have died in 2000 also.
There is a chance his death was merely rumored. There are people who think he is still alive. I have comments from a T. at the end of my essay Who Is Spanish Tony Sanchez. The email address purports to be from Spanish Tony. My email to the address went unanswered. You may read T.’s comments and see what you think. I think it is likely that Tony is still out there. Maybe actually in Spain where all good English criminals seem to go.
If anyone has definite proof of Tony’s demise don’t hesitate to communicate the fact.
There you have it. To my mind there is no question that the man killed in the car crash was Tara Browne. I find it improbable to impossible that McCartney died somehow or was killed with his being replaced by Browne after plastic surgery while the Paul Is Dead story didn’t actually gain credence until 1969.
The murders of MacDonald and Browne have to be explained. The above is my attempt to do it. More information is certainly a desideratum.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Faithfull, Marianne: An Autobiography with David Dalton: 1994, Cooper Square Press Edition, 2000
Fry, Colin: The Krays, The Final Countdown, 2001, Starlyte Limited, Reprinted 2006
Fry, Colin: The Krays, A Violent Business, 2011, Mainstream Publishing Co.
Hodkinson, Mark: Marianne Faithfull, As Tears Go By, 1991, Omnibus Press.
Hodkinson, Mark: Marianne Faithfull, As Years Go By, 2013, Omnibus Press
Kray, Charlie with Colin Fray: Doing The Business, 1993 John Blake Pub. 2011 Edition
Kray, Reggie, with Peter Gerrard: Reggie Kray's East End Stories, 2010, Sphere
O' Leary, Laurie: Ronnie Kray, A Man Among Men, 2001, Headline Book Publishing
Oldham, Andrew Loog: Stoned, 2000, Seeker and Warburg, 2001 Vintage Edition
Oldham, Andrew Loog: 2Stoned, 2002, Seeker and Warburg, 2003, Vintage Edition
Oldham, Andrew Loog: Stone Free, 2012, Escargot Books
Sanchez, Spanish Tony: Up And Down With The Rolling Stones, 1979, Da Capo Press
Sanchez, Spanish Tony: I Was Keith Richards' Drug Dealer, 2003, John Blake
Thomas, Donald: Villain's Paradise, A History Of Britain's Underworld, 2006 Pegasus
Umland, Rebecca and Sam: Donald Cammel, Life On The Wild Side, 2006, FAB Press
Vyner, Harriet: Groovy Bob, The Life And Times Of Robert Fraser, 1999, Faver and Faber
Numerous blogs but most prominently The Beatles, Conspiracy, A Dandy In Aspic, Invanddis and Another Nickel In The Machine, all outstanding blogs.
Would anybody like to try the changes I’m going through?
--Donovan.
In Her Glory
Note: See website Faithfull Forever
for huge collection of photos.
Life at best is difficult. Change after difficult change presents itself. Of necessity life is lived on the fly. One must always deal with fixtures and forces one cannot comprehend on first confrontation. In a way then we can hardly be responsible for the decisions we make unless we have enough experience to interpret that with which we are confronted correctly. At any point a controlling psychological fixation through misinterpretation may cause to act against our best interests. All further experience then will be interpreted through and disturbed by one or more fixations in our subconscious of which we probably are not aware.
Sexually Marianne was probably confused by the sexual scenes she observed at her father’s Braziers Institute contrasted with her subsequent teaching of abstinence at St. Joseph’s Convent School. The confusions conflicted her sexual attitudes in later life, attitudes she was unaware of and never resolved.
Once she left her father’s governance passing into that of her mother’s she lived not in poverty but in relative hardship; luxuries if experienced at all were few and far between yet she did received an upper class education and outlook at St. Joseph’s.
Her mother was apparently strongly Bohemian having been involved with the stage pre-WWII. She encouraged Marianne in the Bohemian direction which Marianne found congenial, sought and never abandoned. The girl was interested in the stage while becoming a Joan Baez style folk singer after leaving convent school in Reading at seventeen.
Young Marianne
While not beautiful in any classic sense she was yet attractive with a great figure making her a desirable sexual object. The sixties was the decade of wide open sex making all women mere sexual objects. Her first reaction was to seek a stable married life choosing John Dunbar as an appropriate husband. Dunbar was Bohemian in outlook while apparently headed for an academic career.
At this point fate intervened. At a party with Dunbar she met the record producer Andrew Loog Oldham who perceived her persona as a marketable commodity in the pop music world. As an added bonus Marianne could actually sing, having performed as a folk singer.
She was still an impressionable girl of just seventeen just after the Pill had been introduced with little ability to successfully traverse the changes she would be called upon to go through. These would be formidable and rapid calling for huge energy reserves on a day to day basis. Not an enviable situation.
While most musicians go through a relatively long learning process and struggle to succeed Marianne struck gold the first time out without even trying. Her first minimal three minute effort, if it was an effort, established her as the pop princess or queen of the generation. Her innocent convent school persona was perfect in a vulgar world. But it was a persona at odds with the one Marianne would seek and embrace- she became the devil with a blue dress on.
While the music or, really, record business seems very attractive from a distance it is literally vile from the inside. Everything connected with it is dishonest, the record companies, musicians, lackeys, the whole number. Nobody remains unstained.
It is truly a man’s world, even a gay man’s world, in which the men have no respect for womankind. Women are expected to merely service the sexual desires of the male performers. They have no use beyond that. Thus one has the phenomenally debauched groupie scene that amazed the world during the sixties. After that there was no longer anything amazing.
Having witnessed sex acts at Braziers of numerous descriptions the pop music world satisfied this side of Marianne’s psyche. At the same time a desire for a chaste life pushed her in the direction of marriage with Dunbar which desire she consummated, however Dunbar proved to be not the ideal choice.
While Marianne thought she would be leading a sedate intellectual academic life with him as a professor he turned out to be as much or more a Bohemian as she was. Quite frankly he failed her.
Having acquired a wife he did not act responsibly toward her. He was blindsided by her recording success and perhaps belittled by her financial success. In effect he was supported by his wife which is always a difficult situation. The changes he faced were in themselves formidable and he didn’t have the character to meet them. Still, a man doesn’t fill his house with dopers and heroin addicts. Marianne can hardly be faulted for resenting it after getting up in the morning to find a house full of conked out junkies in rooms littered with used needles. The transition from Braziers to St. Joseph’s to high degeneration must have been changes hard to adapt to. Sent her head spinning.
The change from the straitened circumstances of her childhood and youth still actually in progress to one of affluence in which she could indulge her wildest fancies in buying clothes and more clothes. Her lack of maturity hurt her badly. In this case her hero William Blake’s notion that the road of excess leads to wisdom was not quite true, it led to penury.
Not clearly seen by many at the time the pop world split into two streams, the British pop stream of the fifties soon to be extinct and the Rock world of pop princes and princesses of the future. The Beatles straddled both worlds while curiously Marianne may have been the first to emerge as a star of the Rock world soon to be followed by the Rolling Stones.
As such even though having only one hit single to her name she was on a par with the Beatles and the Stones while being superior to the lesser groups following in the train of the Beatles and Stones. Thus in the salon formed around the pop art dealer Robert Fraser she held a place of primacy that she never realized. Her tragedy was that she was too young and inexperienced to grasp her opportunity making a series of inept decisions while being seen only as so much poontang by the Rockers and of transitory fame by a series of inept managers.
Thus, unable to find someone capable of carefully building her career she did become transitory, or her career going into hiatus, she did lose her place while gravitating to the dominance of Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones. Gradually her royalties diminished so that she was financially dependent on Jagger while still married to John Dunbar. Deep in a milieu of drug users she found their allure irresistible.
However conscious she was that she had been and still was to some extent a celebrity she thought to regain that identity. Feeling unable to compete with Jagger as a recording star she chose to follow her mother’s wishes and take up acting. In her enthusiasm to and need to show Jagger that she was somebody too, that she was his equal, as a performing artist she aroused Jagger’s interest in also being a movie star. He, being a more marketable commodity soon gave evidence of eclipsing her as an actor rather than staying in recording as she assumed he would.
Her own space having been preempted she developed an affinity for Brian Jones of the Stones who was essentially in her situation in his relation to the group. He too was being forced out thereby losing his identity.
When Brian died she then in sympathy decided to follow him overdosing with pills that would have killed her had not Jagger been alert enough to rush her to the hospital. As much as anything her suicide attempt was meant to get away from Jagger’s dominance. That move now being thwarted she had no choice but to walk out which she did in 1970. Thus began the rest of her life.
II
The Rock and Art scene was a drug scene. Bob Fraser’s salon centered around Rock musicians was also a drug center. Fraser introduced members of his salon to all drugs including heroin. Marianne had a favored position in Fraser’s salon early learning of heroin to which Fraser himself was addicted. By the time she walked out on Jagger in 1970 she had been addicted for some time. Heroin was to remain her central fixation throughout her life.
Jagger disapproved of her addiction so she was forced to conceal it from him. When her royalties decreased she no longer had her own money becoming dependent on Jagger. Not wishing to plead for large sums of money from Jagger in order to obtain her heroin she prostituted herself to Keith Richard’s factotum Spanish Tony Sanchez.
Sanchez was an aspiring criminal who came to Richards through Groovy Bob Fraser. Sanchez had met Fraser in a bar after which the friendship blossomed. Fraser had contracted gambling debts to the notorious Kray Brothers, the criminal kingpins of London. The Krays were threatening Fraser with grievous bodily harm if they didn’t get their money. According to Sanchez in his autos Up And Down With The Rollings Stones and I was Keith Richard’s Drug Dealer he volunteered to negotiate the debt with the Krays which he did.
At that time, following their US Mafia model, the Krays were attempting to lift the Beatles from Brian Epstein who also had large gambling debts to them so there is no reason to disbelieve Sanchez. Following the episode with Fraser Sanchez was employed by Richards as drug/procurer-factotum at the fabulous salary of two hundred fifty pounds a week. This leads me to believe that the Krays were using Sanchez to infiltrate the Stones possibly with the intent of taking them over.
Sanchez was always resented by Richards and the Stones but he managed to stick with them until the mid seventies when Richards was able to shake him. In his vanity Sanchez considered himself an essential member of the Stones’ entourage, if not an actual member of the Stones.
Marianne’s misfortune was that everyone wanted to sleep with her, a further misfortune was that she obliged. Thus she and Tony had a sexual liaison for several years. This raises the question then whether Tony was also pimping for her. Certainly as his criminal associates knew he was sleeping with her they would want to also. Not being a fool Tony may have named a price and received it. Whether he or she could have successfully resisted is open to question. The US Mafia certainly used their female artists to gratify their desires.
In the mid sixties additionally, once again, through Fraser Marianne had become part of the Satanic crowd. Through Fraser she was introduced to the arch US Satanist, Kenneth Anger. Through them she was introduced to the writing of Great Satanist of the twentieth century, Aleister Crowley and also the writing of the nineteenth century French arch Satanist, Eliphas Levi, not Jewish despite the name. And then the modern Satanist classic the Russian Bulgakov’s The Master And Margarita published in 1968.
Also in this period she became involved with the Satanist Process Church Of The Final Judgment. Marianne downplays her involvement with Satanism but it was much more serious than she is willing to admit.
Playing against this background Marianne renewed an acquaintance with the Irishman Lord Patrick Rossmore. He was 43 to her 24. I merely mention this, it makes me no never mind what the ages are so long as the couple is comfortable with each other. In this case they weren’t comfortable. The two, in a sort of a farce became engaged but never married parting as they met in a friendly sort of way within several months.
While Mick was aggressively dominating, Marianne seems to have chosen Lord Rossmore because shy and retiring as he was she could dominate him. According to Hodkinson the couple rarely saw each other, he being in Ireland while Marianne remained in London closer to her dope supply.
True to her interpretation of William S. Burroughs degenerate novel, Naked Lunch, she led a totally debased and degraded life as a street junkie or, at least, her version of it. Remember it was her movie of Marianne and she was pretending to be a sociologist. She cultivated the friendship of total degenerates such as the artists Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud. She also became friends with the total junkie, writer Alexander Trocchi. Also at this time becoming fast friends with another lowlife, Henrietta Moraes who she says was a close friend until she died. Marianne was able to sink to lower levels than any of these people and gloried in it.
It was during this period of 1970-71 that she says she sat on the wall in Soho staring into the bomb crater. In his first biography Hodkinson scoffed at this. According to him this wall was a waiting station lined with junkies alert for their supply.
By 1971 the Stones had become tax exiles in the South of France so that Spanish Tony was with Keith no longer able to supply Marianne with her drugs, thus, we suppose, the wall. As Marianne had no regular income during this period, although adequate royalty checks still arrived irregularly, there does arise the question of how she paid for her dope. As a junkie Marianne had no qualms about running up tabs she couldn’t pay and apparently didn’t. At one point she boasts she left New York owing several dealers 20K each while flippantly adding she had no intention of ever paying. Whether she succeeded or not is not known.
Marianne vehemently denies that she resorted to prostitution although there is a fair amount of circumstantial evidence she did. A careful reading of her second auto, Memories, Dreams And Reflections, gives some hints. At one point she retorts to an admirer that she is not a two-bit prostitute, that it would take 200 pounds to be with her. Perhaps a joke but the price sounds right, her retort has the ring of authenticity.
In the same auto she claims first hand acquaintance with all the working girls of the area. There is only one way such first hand knowledge could be obtained. There is or was a video on the internet in which a camera had been placed within a building between two half open doors. Marianne dressed in some pretty snappy expensive looking working girl gear walks in front of the camera, notices it, shows alarm, then quickly turns a corner then flattening herself against the wall to peer back at the camera. It seems evident that she was going to or returning from a job.
She seems to have worked from 1970-71 through at least 1974 through her association with Madeleine D’Arcy. In 1971- during the recording of Exile On Main Street when Tony Sanchez accompanied Keith to the South of France Tony met Madeleine with whom he fell deeply in love and had a relationship with her in France.
Upon returning to England he apparently resumed some sort of relationship with Marianne as well as Madeleine. Marianne in her turn began a lesbian relationship with Madeleine, perhaps to spite Tony, who she despised personally, or so she says. Tony was angry at the relationship.
It then appears that Marianne and Madeleine functioned as high price prostitutes or perhaps call girls between ‘72 to ‘74. In ‘74 Madeleine as Marianne recalls had gone back to turning fifteen pound tricks in Brighton. ’Going back’ implies that formerly she received higher payouts, perhaps 200+ as Marianne received.
As she hadn’t heard from Madeleine for a little while she called at her apartment. When no one answered she called a couple bravos to break down the door. One was a Maltese pimp and drug dealer. At that time in London the Maltese are said to have controlled crime in the West End. That Marianne could call on them to supply help implies a certain degree of familiarity with the underworld. The other person’s identity Marianne doesn’t indicate so there is the possibility it could have been Tony. When no one answered the door the two men broke it down.
Entering the apartment Madeleine was found dead on her bed. She had apparently been beaten to death although not molested as she was artfully laid out in a beautiful full gown. Thus whoever killed her loved her. This points to Tony although the crime was never solved.
So, if Marianne says she never turned to prostitution perhaps not, but there is sufficient evidence to indicate she did. The whole period from 1970-1974 is very hazy in her memoirs.
While she was supposedly incognito on the streets of Soho, as if Marianne could ever be incognito, lost to view of the music world, Michael Leander, who had been her producer suddenly got the idea to make an LP with her so he beat the bushes, scoured the walls so to speak, like any good detective, tracking her down in Soho supposedly sitting on her wall staring into the bomb pit. He induced her back into the studio where they recorded the LP Rich Kid Blues, a return to Marianne’s folk roots.
For some reason the record was shelved not being released until decades later. After this she took up with Oliver Musker who she was associated with for the two years from ’72 to ’74.
III
The Myth Of Marianne
Marianne & Teddy 1974
For all her emotional problems Marianne was a bright girl. She read. Among her readings were those of the psychologist C.G. Jung. Among Jung’s ideas was that of the personal myth. By that he means everyone must have a personal myth to survive, to make sense of what one is doing or what is happening to you. This was more or less the same notion of Andy Warhol’s that if you don’t like the way your life is going pretend it’s a movie. That’s a sort of displacement so what’s happening is just a script that was written for you. Your own personal myth. Lots of people were living in their own movie.
It seems probable, in observing Marianne’s life, that she came across Jung’s observation and set about creating her myth. For proper understanding I quote Jung: p. 197 of the Red Book as quoted in the introduction by Sonu Shamdesani:
I was driven to ask myself in all seriousness: “what is the myth you are living?” I found no answer to the question and had to admit that I was not living with a myth, but rather in an uncertain cloud of theoretical possibilities which I was beginning to regard with increasing distrust…
So in the most natural way, I took on myself to know “my” myth-- so I told myself-- how could I, when treating my patients, make due allowance for the personal factor, for my personal equation, which is yet so necessary for a knowledge of the other person, if I was unconscious of it.”
Published In 1979 Spanish Tony Sanchez’ memoir is now thirty-four years old. Tony tanked it in the year 2000. Had he lived he might be surprised but gratified at the success his book is enjoying. According to reviews the book as been very well received by book buyers although there are dissident views by others finding the book unbelievable.
Part of the problem is that the book was co-written by a former journalist named John Blake who appears to detest Jagger, Richards and the whole scene they created. As a journalist he was privy to all the gossip about Jagger and Richards and so chips in with opinions of his own while also citing newspaper reports. Although written as a continuous narrative, with careful reading you can separate Blake from Sanchez.
After his journalistic career blew up Blake went on to publishing at which he has been successful. His collaboration with Sanchez was fruitful. The book is a great read anyway you look at it. The question is not what Sanchez tells us but what he doesn’t tell us.
Tony says that he was under he protection of a gang boss by the name of Albert Dimes who ran the West End apparently sharing Soho with the notorious Kray twins, Reggie and Ronnie and their brother Charlie. Sanchez then can be classed as a hoodlum. As Charlie Kray says his gang ran a bodyguard company it seems probable that Tony was employed by Keith in that function.
Brian Jones
One of his chief functions for the Stones was as a drug supplier. Opening the book he says apropos of Brian Jones:
I’m not a pusher, but as a boy I’d worked in Soho, first as a night club bouncer, then as a croupier, so I know exactly where to go for anything from a lid of grass to a Thompson submachine gun. Consequently people in the rock world had come to me as a reluctant go-between in their flirtations with the London underworld.
That short paragraph says an awful lot. We know, according to Tony, that he was sufficiently well known in gangland to come under the protection of Albert Dimes, a gangster dating back to the early fifties. Tony says that he worked as a bouncer in gambling joints and that would require the attitude and the temper to use violence whether necessary or not.
And then he says he was a croupier. He later tells us that the games were rigged so that he was knowingly bilking his customers, a form of theft. He then tells us that he could get anything from a bag of grass to submachines guns. This would mean that he was very knowledgeable in criminal matters.
He repeatedly professes that he didn’t sell drugs for profit but apparently had access to commercial amounts. At the same time he is married with two children, dresses like a dandy and hangs out in pricey bars. At no time does he appear to be gainfully employed until for some reason Keith Richards puts him on the payroll at 16,000 pounds a year. Well in excess of the pay for a working stiff. Plus, as Tony never seems to visit the wife and kids, room and board. Kind of a dream deal, you might say. What’s up? We’ll have to guess because Tony and John kept it quiet.
So, how did Tony get so close to Keith? Well, this is fairly interesting stuff. The stuff Swinging London was made of. The story’s real beginning is on page 39 when Tony meets Groovy Bob Fraser who was his entrance to the rock world. Tony tells it like this:
Into this world of intrigue, sudden violence, and bitter feuds dropped Robert Fraser. We met as I sipped a solitary espresso at the Bar Italian in Soho’s Frith Street. It was afternoon and I was killing time before going to work at the club.
Robert sat next to me, and we fell into conversation. Robert mentioned that he had gone to college in Spain…I speak Spanish as fluently as I speak English. This excited Robert and he jumped at the chance to talk to me in his very erudite Spanish…
From there a friendship developed around Tony’s ability to score drugs. Fraser was a gambler who had lost 20K pounds to the Kray Twins and couldn’t pay. He asked and Tony offered to deal with the Krays. Tony approached Dimes who wasn’t willing to jeopardize his wicket for an impecunious gambler. Tony decided to approach the Krays on his own. Bold move. Now, two versions exist; the improbable one of the book and another version in what purports to be a chapter of the book deleted by the publishers that might be more accurate.
The story involves criminal attempts to take over the music business. Sanchez was in a criminal occupation within the underworld while he confesses to wanting to be a criminal. p. 37:
As a teenager my great passions were rock music and big-time villainy- roughly in that order. I had a cousin who had gone way, way off the rails and who had become deeply immersed in organized crime. While my parents complained about the shame he was bringing to our family, I could only look at his big car and beautiful women and pray to God he would show me how it was done.
So, his cousin got Tony a job as a croupier and Tony began to meet big time crooks like Albert Dimes.
Rock and Roll bands at that time played in clubs and clubs are almost universally under the control of the underworld. Thus band members of the Beatles and Rolling Stones are in much closer contact with the underworld than one might assume while that is very carefully obscured by their biographers.
The Beatles played for months in the red light district of Hamburg one of the toughest criminal areas in the world. They witnessed much crime and mayhem. They were no angels. Albert Grossman in his biography gives examples while Andrew Oldham in his latest effort, Stone Free, tells of the time John and Paul dressed as priests and while so posing anointed communicants with their own piss, for which Oldham says they were arrested. At any rate they were under the protection of the crime lord of all Europe. The Krays of England would have been old hat to them.
Tony’s relationship with Keith then is suspicious.
The Kray Twins, who were England’s most prominent villains, as the English say, had taken over a prominent West End gambling spot called Esmeralda’s Barn. Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein gambled here, losing heavily so that the enormous amounts of money the Beatles were generating came to the attention of the Krays. They also knew that Epstein was gay. As they had made the previous owner of the Barn the irrefusable offer they believed they could do the same with Epstein. This aspect of the story is detailed in Colin Fry’s book, The Krays: A Violent Business so the account is not dependent on the missing chapter.
The Krays arranged a meeting with Epstein in a homosexual bar. That it was a homosexual bar indicates nothing to me as gay bars aren’t in the habit of hanging signs out saying: Gay Bar. I have been in several gay venues without knowing where I was until I was being served. The question is, would one go back?
Epstein patiently explained that managing bands was not as easy and effortless as it looked. The Krays then consulted the alleged godfather of British crime Arthur Thompson of Glasgow who as Epstein pointed out indicated to the Krays that managing the Beatles would require sustained effort and concentration to which criminals are not accustomed. Fry says the Krays thought it over, deciding to blackmail Epstein instead which they did collecting a sum every month for years.
Now to the Antiphoney’s missing chapter. Tony says, if the chapter is authentic, that Robert Fraser owed the Krays 20K in unpaid gambling debts. Tony says in Up And Down he tried to arrange a deal in which Fraser paid 30% or less thus freeing him and making him grateful to Tony.
According to the missing chapter the Krays showed him a sheaf of bounced checks and suggested that perhaps Fraser could clear the debt by delivering the Beatles into their hands, apparently not having given up their desire for the Beatles. When Tony told Fraser the idea he says Fraser embraced it setting about to woo the group. Fraser was fairly tight with McCartney to whom he sold a lot of artwork but not so much with Lennon.
In order then to co-opt Lennon, this sounds like a stretcher, he enlisted the aid of Yoko Ono who had arrived from NYC. As an avant-garde personality cum artist she would have looked Fraser up on her arrival so it is at least probable that she knew him. Yoko according to this account had been hanging around Paul who was the Beatle she wanted. Whatever the intent she did besiege John relentlessly until she got her entry and then she seduced him baffling his mind with all that avant garde BS and heroin.
If Fraser had his agenda Yoko had her own. Having conquered John she used his fame to pull off the Performance Art project of the century when he and she staged the Bed-In For Peace.
While all this was going on the Guiness heir Tara Browne entered this scene when he and his friend, , opened a night club called Sybilla’s. George Harrison of the Beatles was a significant investor. You can’t operate a club without dealing with some Mob. Perhaps the Krays saw Sybilla’s as a chance to co-opt the Beatles. Although the story is not yet clear I imagine that the Krays put pressure on Kevin MacDonald and Browne to sell their interest thus giving them direct access to Harrison as a partner. The two apparently refused so MacDonald was thrown off a roof to his death which left Tara Browne to deal with.
Bearing in mind that Paul had been under the protection of the European crime lord and one doesn’t receive favors without returning them, for that or some other reason Paul was probably compelled to lure Browne to his death. It is said, perhaps conjectured, that on that night Paul challenged Tara to a high speed auto race through London. The object being to draw Tara to a certain intersection where he could be caused to crash his car, a little flimsy Lotus. The crash ruse succeeded and Browne was killed although his supposed passenger, Suzy Poitier survived in a demolished car without a scratch sans seat belt or air bag. Doesn’t seem likely.
Browne’s death left Harrison as the sole surviving investor. I have no information as to his reaction but the club was closed and Harrison went his way. Harrison and Browne had been enough of an attraction to make Sybilla’s a hot spot with the In Crowd. That kind of lightning can strike many times.
Whatever, but Fraser was still not delivering and the Krays were getting pushy. Here comes a real leap of belief. Fraser could deliver neither the Beatles nor the money owed so, says Tony, he conceived the notion of going to prison to escape the Krays. An odd choice as the Krays had as many men on the inside as on the outside. But if you’ve snorted, puffed dropped and shot enough stuff I’m sure anything can seem like a reasonable plan.
Thus Tony says in the deleted chapter it was he, Fraser, who tipped the News Of The World to the Redlands bust which sent him to prison for six months. During that time the Krays murdered Jack McVitie, for which crime they were finally nailed. They went in as Fraser came out thus freeing him of the threat although Tony says prison was a life changing experience for Bob who became a less groovy Bob.
Alright. That makes a good story, doesn’t it?
2.
Nor was the above the only contact of the Krays with show biz and Rock.
It may be time to give a little perspective to the arch-criminals, The Krays, for those who may be unfamiliar with them, at least in the US, the English underworld reformed after WWII, a whole new cast of characters emerged formed by the wartime experience. The Kray twins were born in 1933 while their brother Charlie was a few years older. Ronnie and Reggie, the twins, began to emerge after 1954 becoming powers as the sixties began.
Perhaps their main racket was Protection of which providing bodyguards was a sub-division.
As the sixties progressed and their fame grew the Sicilian Mafia of the US began to take notice of them. The Mafia had always had a stable of singers, actors and performers they controlled for their nightclubs, such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Judy Garland et al. They suggested the Krays do the same.
In that manner the Krays provided bodyguards for visiting Mafia acts in England. When gambling became legal in England during the early sixties the US Mafia opened casinos installing such as the ex-actor George Raft as front men. The Krays were flattered by the attention showered on them by Raft.
Thus the Krays moved in on the Beatles, the Stones, the Kinks and others. While the Beatles Brian Epstein was paying large monthly there was probably a connection to group members also. If McCartney was used to lure Tara Browne to his death, and maybe it was only intended as a scare and a few bruises, then there was mob influence at the personal level.
As I have implied if not stated, Spanish Tony was foisted on Keith as a bodyguard and minder.
The Krays also made a move to co-opt the Kinks but that deal is said to have fallen through. Ronnie Kray as part of the deal wanted to date Kink drummer, Mick Avery. Very flattering to Mick, I’m sure.
Later, when the Sicilian US Mafia wanted to launder money they offered the Krays 2,000,000 dollars to set up a label. The Krays went about it signing a few acts including Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas. Kramer was spared further indignities when the money was withdrawn and the deal fell through
.
And then in Prison after 1968 Reggie Kray decided he wanted to be a songwriter so his songs were foisted on groups who were required to record them.
Much has been made of the homosexual Communist MP Tom Driberg trying to lure Mick into politics. In point of fact Driberg was well connected with Ronnie Kray and part of ring that borrowed boys from an orphanage for their sexual deviance.
This then is quite involved and while Mick was probably not lured into this pervert scene with the Krays it would seem that there was some attempt to draw him in thus co-opting him into the underworld. The scene and Redlands situation needs a little in depth investigation to clear up details of what might have been going on behind the scene of the Bust.
3.
And then there was Tony’s ongoing relationship with Marianne Faithfull. No one associated with the Stones has anything positive to say about Tony. But, listen to Marianne, autobiography, p. 162:
…(Tony) was a dreadful person. You only had to see him eat to know how loathsome he was. He was a lowlife, a small-time spiv, but a weakling at the same time. He was as enchained as anyone else, completely hung up on his particular sickness.
And yet,
…I was getting deeper and deeper into drugs…I was also getting involved in a long affair with Tony Sanchez, dealer by appointment to the Stones. I can’t believe I did that! I didn’t get enough pocket money fom Mick and I didn’t have any money of my own, so how else would I have been able to get my own drugs?
There’s a problem. And then:
It’s odd to realize that the person you’re sleeping with is there only because you’re Mick Jagger’s girl friend. Or were.
This was as Marianne moved into her lost years during the seventies. During this period she makes it sound as though she were sitting on her wall over the bomb site beyond the ken of the world. It makes a good story and it drew me in. But, she says she never resorted to prostitution. Well, maybe.
While in France with Keith Tony met a woman named Madeleine D’Arcy for whom he fell hard, ditching the wife and kids. Love of his life, he said. She returned to England with Tony where Marianne apparently fell for her as hard as Tony. Sanchez came home one day to find Madeleine and Marianne getting it on. He blamed Marianne.
As all three were heroin addicts with pretty good habits; one wonders where Tony got the money if he wasn’t dealing. He was not closely associated with Keith after Keith fled the Riviera a step or to ahead of the cops so Tony may then have been off the payroll.
He would have had to be hustling something.
Madeleine was hooking. Marianne pp.225-26:
I hadn’t heard from Madeleine for several days. Her phone was off the hook and I suspected the worst. I had a feeling she’d OD’d, and I might have to smash down her door, so when I went over to the flat in Maida Vale I took with me as muscle a burly Maltese drug dealer and a lowlife friend…Eventually the boys broke down the door and in the bedroom we found Madeleine lying fully clothed in a long gown on the bed. She was obviously dead and looked bruised and bloody…By the time of her death, she had gone back to turning tricks at Brighton for fifteen pounds a night.
The Maltese gangs in London were known both for drug dealing and running prostitution. That Marianne contacted a Maltese and ‘a lowlife friend’ might point to prostitution. I saw a clip on the internet in which the photographer was hidden in a sort of alcove shooting through an opening. Marianne walked in front of the camera obviously dressed as a hooker but very classy in her mini skirt and jacket. She spotted the camera, looked alarmed, and quickly ducked around a corner looking back to ascertain what was going on.
There are numerous pictures of her during her lost years so that when the record producers went looking for her she wouldn’t have been as hard to find as she says.
And then, this: p.221:
I was constantly reminded during these years of my parasitic status in the pop world. I remember once going out dancing to a club and Rod Stewart came home with me. He thought I was just one of those girls that sort of floated around pop stars and tried to put the whole thing across like that… (Pop stars) are looking for their particular type, a girly sort of woman with pretty underwear and frocks and the whole female fantasy….I laughed and threw him out.
Sort of a hard Marianne. The other side of the Faerie Queen.
In 1976 Tony was cut loose by Jagger and Richards for good. I presume he passed out of Marianne’s life at that time. In any event she met her second husband, Ben Brierly, in 1976 and began a different, if not a new, life.
4.
Tony’s primary job after securing drugs was to look after Keith. Keith needed some serious looking after. As Keith says Tony’s facts are straight then the only disagreement would be that Tony mentioned things Keith preferred not be mentioned. Indeed, when a London newspaper was going to publish an excerpt concerning Marianne she got an injunction to prevent it.
If the incidents are true as Keith attests then the evidence is that Keith was, at the very least, off the rails, carefree and reckless. He seemed to be conducting a vendetta against society attempting to see how many rules and laws he could break with impunity not unlike the Droogs of A Clockwork Orange.
Unable to pass the driver’s license test Keith had someone else take the test for him. Although, test or no test, practice should have made perfect. Keith was a slow learner cracking up car after car. As he was usually carrying, he grabbed the dope then ran off leaving Tony to deal with the police. Rather annoying from Tony’s point of view who must have been on the police radar himself.
I’m sure that Tony considered himself more than a minder or drug procurer, thinking of himself as more of a member of the group, especially as he was a friend of Robert Fraser’s before linking up with Keith.
The Redlands drug bust is far from cleared up. There is no certainty as to who alerted the News Of The World paper that drugs would be at the party and where the party was. The drug dealer Schneiderman may have been the one. His presence is certainly suspicious. I am going to suggest another possibility, admittedly a conjecture, that Tony himself might be the culprit. Sanchez ran a lot of risks for Jagger and Keith while being included in most things. Then, he wasn’t invited to the Redlands party at which he knew the regulars well. To be excluded is often considered an insult for hangers on for which vengeance is due. It is possible, then, that to wipe the perceived insult Tony himself alerted the News Of The World. It would certainly have avenged a number of indignities he had suffered at the hands of Keith.
It might have been Fraser who alerted the News as the missing chapter asserts, it might have been Schneiderman or, perhaps, it was Tony himself.
At any rate it appears that Tony was tolerated by Keith but not really welcome. As he was linked to London’s underworld it is possible if not probable that there was some link between it and Keith and Mick. When the Krays were sent up for thirty years in 1968, probably freeing Mick and Keith from their influence Tony’s days were probably numbered.
He was still useful in France but when Keith overplayed his hand finding it necessary to leave France and unable to return to England, he became a man without a country of sorts, the connection with Tony was broken, it being only necessary to sever the relationship.
Tony tells it in the brief epilogue to his book:
I had been running from death too long, knew that I could not live this life much longer. But I wasn’t ready to draw completely away. Keith still called me occasionally asking me to get drugs for him, and usually I would cooperate. It had become my way of life. It was on August 21, 1976, that the Stones were playing an outdoor concert at Knebworth House in Hertfordshire, and Keith and Mick asked me to bring some cocaine to the dressing room for them. I was given the wrong type pass, however, and in the midst of a wrangle with a security man I suddenly realized it was all over. I turned on my heel, walked away and the next day reserved a room at Bowden House for a cure.
And so Tony was eased out. I have found nothing that mentions his last twenty-five years. However he died in the year 2000 short after Charlie, Ronnie and Reggie Kray had all passed away. It may have been coincidence or as some suggest…
March 20, 2013 at 3:44 ame I know it says in the end of his book “I Was Keith Richards’ Drug Dealer” that he died in 2000, but do you really think Tony is dead? Keith was very concerned about the release of this book, and asked Tony not to do it. I recall the ending of this book having two of Keith’s goons mess Tony up during a visit to Keith’s hotel room, and something about Keith flashing guns to Tony asking him which one he wanted. Personally, I think Tony collected his royalties and vanished. Think about it… Tony’s main connections in the criminal underworld died before he “died”. His only protection at that point was to take the money and run. He is/was a slippery guy with far more street smarts than anyone who befriended him. I wouldn’t put anything past him.
March 20, 2013 at 4:25 ame I have no positive information on Tony although I read that he spent his advance in fine style and went bust which I think likely as he was a dopehead.
He did lose his protection when the Krays peeled off by 2000 so it’s possible that at that point Keith may not only have threatened him but did him. I’m not sure I’ve got an adequate notion of what dying peacefully is but a hot shot would do that.
If Tony’s still hanging in there he’s seventy which isn’t that old. I wouldn’t put it past him. If he is alive time for volume II.
March 20, 2013 at 2:26 pme I find it peculiar that some rock-and-roll historian hasn’t at least found Tony’s death certificate (to the best of my knowledge). Although he wasn’t a Rolling Stone, he was a major part of their history, and is responsible for popularizing their personal life. He is, in fact, a part of rock-and-roll history. One could argue that saying Tony “passed peacefully away” may be more metaphorical than literal (i.e. the Tony Sanchez that we knew, was at that point, “dead”).
There is a guy floating around on the internet named Nick Dominguez who claims to be Tony’s great grandson or grandson (not sure which). He claims to have a vast number of never before seen pictures carried through the family. Of course, anyone could say such a thing, but anything is possible I suppose. In any event, Nick confirmed in several posts on other website(s) that Tony is in fact dead.
On the other side of the coin, Tony WAS sexually involved with an exotic dancer/prostitute who was an injection drug user, was quite the opportunist when it came to females with drug debts, and also became an injection user himself. All of this was going on in the early to mid 1970′s when everyone was still blind to “safe practices”. Who knows what health issues he may have developed from this. Like you say, rumor has it that he blew his book royalties on drugs which may also have contributed to his “death”.
March 21, 2013 at 3:18 ame I agree that it’s time for some serious research to be undertaken, especially with so many still alive. There is no reason to speculate on Tony’s death when a certificate must be available…somewhere.
Tony’s wife may still be alive to be interviewed with her view of things. Her and his children are most likely living while if his grandson has scads of pictures, post a few on the internet as a teaser and if nothing else put together a three or four hundred pager with an on demand publisher like Blurb and make some money.
If you know Nick’s websites pass them on, I haven’t found access yet.
We weren’t blind to ‘safe practices’, we didn’t need them until the Magic Dick airline steward got back from Africa and spread AIDS all over San Francisco. Even then you had to be a fairie, straights didn’t get AIDS.
So as Tony appears to have been straight no worries that anti-biotics wouldn’t have resolved.
A lot more work on Tony, Bob Fraser, Chris Gibbs, the Crowley crowd, and Tara Browne among other peripheral players is much needed. The main problem is some might get their feelings hurt, so for those who dally, if you did it, you did it. Walk like a man my son.
T Says:
March 21, 2013 at 11:42 pme I guess I should have been a little clearer about the 1970′s and “safe practices”. I was more implying that heroin addicts probably wouldn’t be in the state of mind to do anything safely. There are plenty of things that can go undetected for years and cause serious complications. Also, there is medical evidence suggesting that people had contracted HIV well before it became a “well known” problem. Anything is possible really.
People have suggested to Nick Dominguez that he make a website with these never before seen pictures, but he was hesitant from what I recall. He has since deleted his YouTube channel so contacting him would be hard. He could have just made the whole thing up, which wouldn’t surprise me really.
I have both of Tony’s books. I will glance through them again and see if I can find any information which may be relevant to finding out who his wife and/or relatives are.
What would really be useful is if someone compiled all known information about Tony and started a Wikipedia page.
March 22, 2013 at 10:11 ame The first one was “Up and Down With The Rolling Stones” and the second one was “I Was Keith Richards’ Drug Dealer”.
The second is basically a re-hash of the first, with the addition of some previously untold stories and maybe some pictures not included in the first.
March 22, 2013 at 4:30 pme Oh, Keith’s Dealer. That was published in 2003 by Blake three years after Tony’s alleged death. Assuming the death report accurate that means Blake was just exploiting the situation to sell a few extra copies.
Any changes would have been made by him at his discretion and thus suspect. As Tony would have had noting to do with the edition no weight can be given it.
T Says:
March 25, 2013 at 12:27 ame It could have been re-worked by Tony in the years before his death. For argument sake, lets say this book was actually finished up shortly before his death. After he died, the publishing company likely had to work out various legalities with Tony’s estate before releasing it, which could have taken several years to do.
March 25, 2013 at 1:24 ame Sure, it’s all speculation without any additional information. Something tells me though that Blake didn’t worry a lot about Tony’s estate. There’s something though. Did he have any assets when he died and did he even have a will.
Any idea where he died. Every once in a while I come across some English movie where English criminals move to Spain and track each other down. Great scenery. I didn’t understand what the situation was until I read up on the Krays and then it all came clear.
What do you know about the London criminal scene? Anything?
March 25, 2013 at 1:52 ame Everything is speculation, no doubt. Even if Tony didn’t have a will or anything to his name, there is no doubt that his surviving family members might have surfaced for a cut of the pie from his new book, since someone would have had to collect his royalties. And, if Tony did die intestate, things would be further complicated for them from a legal standpoint, which might explain the delay of the book until almost three years after Tony’s alleged death.
No idea where he died.
Interesting fact: It was either in his second book, or in Keith’s new book, that Tony’s father owned an Italian restaurant in England somewhere. I wonder if it still exists…
As for what I know of the criminal scene in London, I’m not an expert, but I have knowledge of it. Feel free to pass along any suggested reading.
March 20, 2013 at 3:44 am e I know it says in the end of his book “I Was Keith Richards’ Drug Dealer” that he died in 2000, but do you really think Tony is dead? Keith was very concerned about the release of this book, and asked Tony not to do it. I recall the ending of this book having two of Keith’s goons mess Tony up during a visit to Keith’s hotel room, and something about Keith flashing guns to Tony asking him which one he wanted. Personally, I think Tony collected his royalties and vanished. Think about it… Tony’s main connections in the criminal underworld died before he “died”. His only protection at that point was to take the money and run. He is/was a slippery guy with far more street smarts than anyone who befriended him. I wouldn’t put anything past him.
March 20, 2013 at 4:25 am e I have no positive information on Tony although I read that he spent his advance in fine style and went bust which I think likely as he was a dopehead.
He did lose his protection when the Krays peeled off by 2000 so it’s possible that at that point Keith may not only have threatened him but did him. I’m not sure I’ve got an adequate notion of what dying peacefully is but a hot shot would do that.
If Tony’s still hanging in there he’s seventy which isn’t that old. I wouldn’t put it past him. If he is alive time for volume II.
March 20, 2013 at 2:26 pm e I find it peculiar that some rock-and-roll historian hasn’t at least found Tony’s death certificate (to the best of my knowledge). Although he wasn’t a Rolling Stone, he was a major part of their history, and is responsible for popularizing their personal life. He is, in fact, a part of rock-and-roll history. One could argue that saying Tony “passed peacefully away” may be more metaphorical than literal (i.e. the Tony Sanchez that we knew, was at that point, “dead”).
There is a guy floating around on the internet named Nick Dominguez who claims to be Tony’s great grandson or grandson (not sure which). He claims to have a vast number of never before seen pictures carried through the family. Of course, anyone could say such a thing, but anything is possible I suppose. In any event, Nick confirmed in several posts on other website(s) that Tony is in fact dead.
On the other side of the coin, Tony WAS sexually involved with an exotic dancer/prostitute who was an injection drug user, was quite the opportunist when it came to females with drug debts, and also became an injection user himself. All of this was going on in the early to mid 1970′s when everyone was still blind to “safe practices”. Who knows what health issues he may have developed from this. Like you say, rumor has it that he blew his book royalties on drugs which may also have contributed to his “death”.
March 21, 2013 at 3:18 am e I agree that it’s time for some serious research to be undertaken, especially with so many still alive. There is no reason to speculate on Tony’s death when a certificate must be available…somewhere.
Tony’s wife may still be alive to be interviewed with her view of things. Her and his children are most likely living while if his grandson has scads of pictures, post a few on the internet as a teaser and if nothing else put together a three or four hundred pager with an on demand publisher like Blurb and make some money.
If you know Nick’s websites pass them on, I haven’t found access yet.
We weren’t blind to ‘safe practices’, we didn’t need them until the Magic Dick airline steward got back from Africa and spread AIDS all over San Francisco. Even then you had to be a fairie, straights didn’t get AIDS.
So as Tony appears to have been straight no worries that anti-biotics wouldn’t have resolved.
A lot more work on Tony, Bob Fraser, Chris Gibbs, the Crowley crowd, and Tara Browne among other peripheral players is much needed. The main problem is some might get their feelings hurt, so for those who dally, if you did it, you did it. Walk like a man my son.
March 21, 2013 at 11:42 pm e I guess I should have been a little clearer about the 1970′s and “safe practices”. I was more implying that heroin addicts probably wouldn’t be in the state of mind to do anything safely. There are plenty of things that can go undetected for years and cause serious complications. Also, there is medical evidence suggesting that people had contracted HIV well before it became a “well known” problem. Anything is possible really.
People have suggested to Nick Dominguez that he make a website with these never before seen pictures, but he was hesitant from what I recall. He has since deleted his YouTube channel so contacting him would be hard. He could have just made the whole thing up, which wouldn’t surprise me really.
I have both of Tony’s books. I will glance through them again and see if I can find any information which may be relevant to finding out who his wife and/or relatives are.
What would really be useful is if someone compiled all known information about Tony and started a Wikipedia page.
March 21, 2013 at 11:51 pm e What’s the other Sanchez book?
March 22, 2013 at 10:11 am e The first one was “Up and Down With The Rolling Stones” and the second one was “I Was Keith Richards’ Drug Dealer”.
The second is basically a re-hash of the first, with the addition of some previously untold stories and maybe some pictures not included in the first.
March 22, 2013 at 4:30 pm e Oh, Keith’s Dealer. That was published in 2003 by Blake three years after Tony’s alleged death. Assuming the death report accurate that means Blake was just exploiting the situation to sell a few extra copies.
Any changes would have been made by him at his discretion and thus suspect. As Tony would have had noting to do with the edition no weight can be given it.
March 25, 2013 at 12:27 am e It could have been re-worked by Tony in the years before his death. For argument sake, lets say this book was actually finished up shortly before his death. After he died, the publishing company likely had to work out various legalities with Tony’s estate before releasing it, which could have taken several years to do.
March 25, 2013 at 1:24 am e Sure, it’s all speculation without any additional information. Something tells me though that Blake didn’t worry a lot about Tony’s estate. There’s something though. Did he have any assets when he died and did he even have a will.
Any idea where he died. Every once in a while I come across some English movie where English criminals move to Spain and track each other down. Great scenery. I didn’t understand what the situation was until I read up on the Krays and then it all came clear.
What do you know about the London criminal scene? Anything?
March 25, 2013 at 1:52 am e Everything is speculation, no doubt. Even if Tony didn’t have a will or anything to his name, there is no doubt that his surviving family members might have surfaced for a cut of the pie from his new book, since someone would have had to collect his royalties. And, if Tony did die intestate, things would be further complicated for them from a legal standpoint, which might explain the delay of the book until almost three years after Tony’s alleged death.
No idea where he died.
Interesting fact: It was either in his second book, or in Keith’s new book, that Tony’s father owned an Italian restaurant in England somewhere. I wonder if it still exists…
As for what I know of the criminal scene in London, I’m not an expert, but I have knowledge of it. Feel free to pass along any suggested reading.