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The Rolling Stones released Exile On Main Street in May 1972, having been preceded by the Top 10 hit “Tumbling Dice”. Exile On Main Street hit #1 worldwide just as The Rolling Stones embarked on their famed 1972 American Tour, their first in the U.S. in three years, and during which they played many songs from Exile On Main Street.

However things were not as simple as they seemed for The Rolling Stones, but then they rarely were.

Exiles On Main Street

By 1972 The Rolling Stones had found themselves as Exiles On Main Street. Although they had just signed with Atlantic Records for a huge advance and with the healthy sales of “Sticky Fingers” they should have been in good financial shape. However all this had done was enable to stave off the UK’s inland revenue who were chasing them for an astronomical tax bill built up over the previous 7 years of stardom.

Much at Mick Jagger’s insistence, they took their weary bitterness at the situation on the road in 1971 for a “goodbye” tour of the UK before uprooting themselves to the Côte d’Azur. They all found places to live and began to re-create their lives amongst the sun and palm trees in the South of France.

Villa Nellcôte

Keith Richards rented a chateau called Villa Nellcôte and The Rolling Stones set up their studio in the basement. Nellcôte had been the Gestapo HQ during the Second World War, complete with swastikas still cast into the floor vents! It was soon dubbed “Keith’s Coffee Shop” in reference to the Coffee Shops in the Netherlands which sell coffee and some narcotics although it soon left this description behind as the Nellcôte became evermore squalid and decadent.

By now heroin was becoming a daily part of Keith Richards life. Bill Wyman said that by now The Rolling Stones were falling into the abstainers (Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, and Mick Jagger) and those that indulged in the shape of Keith Richards, Jimmy Miller, Bobby Keys, Mick Taylor and engineer Andy Johns. With visitors to Nellcôte including Gram Parsons and Hunter S Thompson, the consumption of narcotics was never going to be anything other than enthusiastic! One of those visitors was a young Frenchman called Dominique Tarlé, whose photographs documented the goings on during the recording on one of the greatest rock albums of all time.

As recording got underway, Mick Jagger, now married to the now pregnant Bianca Jagger (ne Macias), disappeared for days at a time. Added to his current state of domestic bliss, the fall-out from the UK tax man chasing them and their enforced exile and the vagaries of the pop business had taken it’s toll on Jagger. He was jaded and not as focused as he could have been.

Without the constraints of expensive recording studio time and Mick Jagger’s frequent absence allowed Keith Richards to potter away and experiment; he would sit for hours playing with new sounds and riffs, while the others sat around and “picked their nose” according to engineer Glyn Johns. This meant Exile On Main Street was far more Keith Richards‘ record than Mick Jagger’s. However, deciding to record the album in the basement of Nellcôte was never going to make it an efficient process.

The recording sessions were almost exclusively nocturnal, starting around 8pm and running through until 3 or 4 in the morning. Many evenings would start with nothing prepared and Keith Richards would simply experiment with sounds and rhythms and see what came up. Keith Richards drove Exile On Main Street, but not in a bossy, go-getting way, but in his own quest for the sound he wanted. If he was ever pushed to do something he did not want to do he would simply not go along with it. According to Bill Wyman if he was asked why he would simply say “because I don’t want to”.

Since Keith Richards, Bobby Keys, Mick Taylor, Charlie Watts and Jimmy Miller formed the core of the band that recorded most of the tracks between them, it proved to be a tortuous process. Rumors at the time suggest that getting “Tumbling Dice” took over 100 takes and even then, during the mixing, Mick Jagger commented “those cymbals sound like dustbin lids”!

Such was Bill Wyman’s distaste for the company kept at Nellcôte, he was only on eight out of the eighteen tracks. Unbelievably Charlie Watts found the perseverance to shut himself away in the drum isolation booth for hours at a time bashing out take after rejected take through the long hot summer of 1971 on the Côte d’Azur.

In other words it was a near perfect demonstration of how not to record an album.

On Release of “Exile On Main Street“

However disheveled and decadent the process, the result is now widely regarded as one of the great albums of all time, making number 7 in The Rolling Stone Magazine’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time for example.

This was not always the case though. The initial reception to Exile On Main Street was lukewarm from the media and while the album went to number one on both the UK and the USA’s Billboard album chart, it quickly fell away and failed to make Billboard’s top thirty best sellers of the year chart for 1972.

Even more galling was that The Rolling Stones pre-Atlantic Records greatest hits set, “Hot Rocks 1964-1971“, outsold Exile On Main Street in 1972 even though it never made it higher than number 4 on the Billboard chart!

On the initial reviews, Keith Richards said, “When Exile On Main Street came out it didn’t sell particularly well at the beginning, and it was also pretty much universally panned. But within a few years the people who had written the reviews saying it was a piece of crap were extolling it as the best frigging album in the world.”

Indeed, on first listen Exile On Main Street is a ragged record, a mish-mash of stunning tracks, the bizarre, the folly and frankly some pure filler. The mix is all over the place, at times even Mick Jagger is barely audible over the hand-claps, horns, hoots and toots that seem to be thrown in a seemingly random manner across tracks. However after a few listens the seemingly random selection of songs and sounds reflects perfectly The Rolling Stones at that time.

Exile On Main Street can leave a new listener underwhelmed, just take a look at some of the comments for Exile on Main Street’s entry in The Rolling Stone Magazine’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

But give Exile On Main Street a chance and it will get under your skin in a way few albums can. In the words of critic Robert Christgau, “It took me perhaps twenty-five listenings before I began to understand what The Rolling Stones were up to, and I still haven’t finished the job.”

To many this was the last of the great Rolling Stones albums. The heavy drug usage had not yet taken it’s toll and while they produced some very good albums after “Exile On Main Street” many of them used reworked pre-1972 material and none are as good as “Exile On Main Street” overall.

The Rolling Stones

Mick Jagger

• vocals
• backing vocals
• harmonica

Keith Richards

• acoustic
• electric guitar
• slide guitar
• bass
• vocals

Mick Taylor

• electric guitar
• slide guitar

Charlie Watts

• drums

Bill Wyman

• bass
• auto-harp
• vibes

Other Musicians

• Ian Stewart – piano
• Nicky Hopkins – piano
• Jim Price – trumpet, trombone, organ
• Bobby Keys – saxophone, percussion
• Billy Preston – piano, organ
• Clydie King – backing vocals
• Bill Plummer – upright bass
• Mac Rebennack (Dr. John) – backing vocals, piano
• Richard Washington – marimba
• Al Perkins – pedal steel guitar
• Jerry Kirkland – backing vocals
• Tami Lynn – backing vocals
• Kathi McDonald – backing vocals
• Jimmy Miller – drums, percussion, maracas
• Vanetta Field – backing vocals
• Shirley Goodman – backing vocals
• Joe Green – backing vocals

Production Team

• Jimmy Miller – Producer
• Glyn Johns – Engineer
• Andy Johns – Engineer
• Nick Watterton – Engineer
• Joe Zaganno – Engineer
• Jeremy Gee – Engineer

Tracklisting

Originally Exile On Main Street was released as a double album, the only non-compilation album The Rolling Stones released as a double album. We have shown the track-listing from this original release.

All songs written by Mick Jagger/Keith Richards unless otherwise stated.

Side One

1. “Rocks Off” – 4:32
2. “Rip This Joint” – 2:23
3. “Shake Your Hips” (Slim Harpo) – 2:59
4. “Casino Boogie” – 3:33
5. “Tumbling Dice” – 3:45

Side Two

1. “Sweet Virginia” – 4:25
2. “Torn and Frayed” – 4:17
3. “Sweet Black Angel” – 2:54
4. “Loving Cup” – 4:23

Side Three

1. “Happy” – 3:04
2. “Turd on the Run” – 2:37
3. “Ventilator Blues” (Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Mick Taylor) – 3:24
4. “I Just Want to See His Face” – 2:52
5. “Let It Loose” – 5:17

Side Four

1. “All Down the Line” – 3:49
2. “Stop Breaking Down” (Robert Johnson) – 4:34
3. “Shine a Light” – 4:14
4. “Soul Survivor” – 3:49

Release Information

Exile On Main Street was released in May 1972 on Atlantic Records/Rolling Stones Records in the USA (initially distributed through the Atlantic Records subsidiary Atco Records until 1973) The Rolling Stones have since had several distribution deals since then for their post 1970 back catalogue, the most recent was their 2008 deal with Polydor Records.

Mick Jagger Getting Married…Really?

The Rolling Stones were now tax exiles. They had all decamped to the South of France over a month earlier and planes were afoot to get the recording of their new album (which would eventually emerge as Exile on Main St) underway. A month to the day after Keith Richards had arrived on the Cote d’Azur, marked The Rolling Stones first rehearsal on May 5th, 1971. For reasons best known to himself, Mick Jagger left it until then to tell the rest of The Rolling Stones that he planned to marry a week later.

For various reasons this irked many. Firstly those in The Rolling Stones management knew that The Stones were broke. They were desperate for them to get on with their new album so they could release it, get out on the road and get cash back into The Rolling Stones overdrawn bank accounts. Mick was the one Stone not living in The South of France, he and Bianca were living in Paris. With Mick Jagger now deciding to get married, this would mean more time away from the band on honeymoon, thus delaying things still further.

Also he had not known Bianca that long. He had split from long-term lover Marianne Faithfull less than a year earlier. Many years later, Marianne Faithful would not be the first to comment on the similar looks of Mick and Bianca Jagger, writing

…in May 1971, Mick had finally given in to his narcissism and married…himself!

From Keith Richards point of view, marriage was just not the thing you did. The furore around the decision of Mick Jagger to actually get married was incredible. Mick Jagger is getting married – yes, Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones is getting married! It was seen as the anti-establishment becoming the establishment.

Keith had never married Anita, Paul McCartney never married Jane Asher, Eric Clapton never married Alice Ormsby-Gore….even Mick did not marry Marianne Faithful. But now here was Mick Jagger, getting married. For Keith it was something that “they” did and indeed it seemed that “they” thought this was akin to admitting that he and The Rolling Stones were accepting that the squares had been right all along.

A Guest List of Showbiz Royalty

To make matters worse, although this was supposed to be a quiet, personal wedding it did not stop a chartered jet taking off from Gatwick airport filled to the brim with a who’s who of the British entertainment world. Alongside Mick Jagger’s parents Basil and Eva Jagger, were Paul McCartney and Linda, Ringo Starr and his wife Maureen, although the fall-out from The Beatles had still not settled by this point and Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr were not talking to each other so sat at opposite ends of the plane.

They were joined on the flight by French film director Roger Vadim, photographer Lord Patrick Litchfield, Marshall Chess (of Chess Records) Eric Clapton and Alice Ormsby-Gore, Ronnie Wood (at this time still playing with The Faces, several years before joining the The Stones) and band-mates Ronnie Lane and Ian MacLagan. Also on the plane were Stephen Stills and several of The Rolling Stones regular collaborators in the shape of Nicky Hopkins, Jimmy Miller, Glyn Johns, Doris Troy and PP Arnold.

Even with all these people being shipped in for the wedding, Mick Jagger only got around to inviting band-mate Bill Wyman along to the reception (but neither of the ceremonies) the day before the wedding. Unsurprisingly Wyman is not happy and it is left to his long term companion Astrid and Rose Taylor to buy the couple a wedding present in the shape of a tandem.

With the furore about the very idea of Mick Jagger getting married causing a media storm and a plane packed with celebrities on it’s way to fill out the pews, Mick Jagger’s hope that this would be a quiet, personal wedding were looking more than a little naive.

The first clues started at London’s Gatwick Airport as hoardes of tabloid journalists descend, firing questions at anyone heading towards the Comet airliner. This included “Spanish” Tony Sanchez, one of The Rolling Stones‘ drug dealers, who he claims had been called by Mick Jagger and told to bring 3 ozs of cocaine with him as, “I’m not going to get through this gig without it.”

The “Civil” Ceremony

This may have been the effect of cold feet on Mick Jagger, but the chaos of the wedding day would have made anyone think twice about getting married.

The Civil Ceremony was due to begin at 4pm, however both Mick and Bianca are late. In front of the town hall is an assorted throng of pres photographers from every corner of the globe. Marius Estezan, the Mayor St. Tropez, awaits the couple and fields questions from the world’s press in the council chambers.

Estezan, obviously unhappy with the intrusion of the hoards of press and non-appearance of the couple told Les Perrin, The Rolling Stones press officer, that if they are not there by 4:30, there will be no wedding. So Perrin called Mick Jagger to tells him what is happening and gets an earful from Mick Jagger, “GET RID OF THEM! If there’s going to be that crowd, then I am not getting married.”

Jerry Pompili, who has only recently been working with The Stones after being house manager at The Filmore East, and Mick Jagger’s assistant and The Rolling Stones logistics man Allan Dunn try to clear the hall. This proves to be a tough task as the photographers do not want to leave and, much to the annoyance of The Rolling Stones camp, they do not have to leave as French law makes all public buildings public!

Perrin calls Mick Jagger again to tell him the news and Mick Jagger, by now not in the best of moods, says, “Fucking Hell! I wish to god I’d never said I was going to get married in the first place.” So Mick and Bianca arrived to find over 100 members of the world’s press fighting for pole position in the blazing hot sun. Flash bulbs fire off as questions in a multitude of languages and accents bombard the couple as the pushing, jostling and insanity descends on them.

During this bombardment Mick Jagger allegedly says something along the lines of “Fuck it I am not doing this” making Bianca cry, much to the joy of the photographers who think they may just have made their fortunes with the photos of Mick Jagger jilting his bride. However Perrin manages to persuade Mick and Bianca to pose for photographs and get it over with now. So they pose and the photographers then leave them to go to the civil ceremony.

The local chief of police and his guard and Jerry Pompili waited outside as Keith Richards ambled up to take on his role as Best Man wearing braided tights and a green combat jacket. Unbelievably, the cop did not recognize one of the most famous men on the planet and grabbed him, preventing him from entering. “They were standing there with their hands around each others throats screaming in their respective languages and I had to break it up” said Pompili. This is the first of four fights that Keith Richards will find himself embroiled in.

With everyone present, the civil ceremony passes and everyone moves on to St Anne’s church for the religious ceremony.

The St Anne’s Ceremony

Lord Litchfield escorts Bianca Macias, dressed in a white trouser suit by Tommy Nutter and displaying a large amount of cleavage for a Catholic wedding, down the isle to the theme from “Love Story”. Tommy Weber’s sons, eight year old Jake and six year old Charlie (or “Boo Boo”) act as page boys for the ceremony. Tommy Weber had brought a wedding gift of a pound of cocaine that he had smuggled in to France using Jake and Charlie as mules!

Tommy Weber, while not currently a close member of The Rolling Stones tribe, will soon become a fixture on the Nellcote scene after the suicide of his ex-wife, Susan Ann Caroline Coriat, better known as “Puss”, mother of Jake and Charlie and lover of Anita Pallenberg, takes her own life in a London hotel.

Father Lucien Baud manages to avoid eye contact with Bianca’s nearly exposed chest for long enough to complete the service with the words

You have told me that you believe youth seeks happiness and a certain ideal and faith. I think you are seeking it too and I hope it arrives today with your marriage. But when you are a personality like Mick Jagger, it is too much to hope for privacy for your own marriage.”

Reg Lancaster, photographer and long time friend of The Rolling Stones, described it as

The place was charged with atmosphere. It was colossal. The ceremony was all in French but Jagger followed it – he’s a good grammar school boy.

As the couple left St Anne’s the world’s press once again charge in to get the photos of the wedding of the year, or even decade. A few hundred feet away is the Bentley to take the happy couple away and they are escorted by Pompili and Dunn.

However the press do not make it easy, fighting for the shots they need for their papers and when they reach the Bentley, Pomili is unable to open the door due to the mass of people. He shoves an Italian photographer aside to make room and receives a blow to the head with a camera as reward. With blood spewing down his face from the cut on his forehead, Pompili grabs the responsible photographer and throws him against the car hard enough to dent the bodywork of both car and photographer.

The Bentley leaves for the reception to be held at the Cafe des Artes.

The Reception

The guests number from anywhere between 200 and 1000, depending on which report you read. All reports agree that it was quite some party though. As the night progressed, Keith got Pompili (still covered in blood) to assemble some of the rock n’ roll talent for an impromptu jam.

Pompili heads off to approach the great and the good assembled before returning to find Keith Richards passed out on the balcony. Depending on which version of events you read there is debate about whether Keith was back on heroin at this point. Most reports of this time say that Keith was not yet and was simply exhausted, but whatever he was not roused and the jam went on without him.

Terry Reid does some numbers before Mick gets in on the act singing with Doris Troy, PP Arnold, Steven Stills. Mick’s parents leave not having given their son his present and Bianca also heads off to their hotel, far from impressed at the lack of attention. She later comments that, “My marriage ended on my wedding day.”

The Honeymoon

The following day most of the guests make it back onto the plane to go home, except for Eric Clapton and Alice Ormsby-Gore. Eric Clapton is suffering badly from heroin withdrawal and cannot get on the plane. Keith Richards, only too aware of the nature of a junkie does not want to help, but Tommy Weber takes pity on him. Keith tells him

You can take the driver and go down to Marseilles and sort him out if you like. But you’ll find he’ll be on your back forever. He shouldn’t have come down here if he didn’t have his shit together.

Keith Richards was well aware of this having experienced it himself, but this would still not stop him finding his own way down that particular route again and very soon. Tommy Weber managed to score Eric Clapton enough heroin to get him home and he too left France.

Eric Clapton was not the only one leaving the country. 6 weeks after leaving the UK, The Rolling Stones had managed a single rehearsal and recorded precisely nothing for their new album. Now Mick Jagger was about to leave the band behind and take off on his honeymoon aboard a 97 foot long yacht with crew of six to take him and his new bride for a ten day cruise around Sardinia and Corsica. No work will be done while he is away, but other events will happen that have a bearing on the recording of Exile on Main Street.

Marianne Faithful

In another world, the woman marrying Mick Jagger would have been Marianne Faithful. She and Jagger had split a year earlier in May 1970 after many years together. Now, less than a year later, here was the man the seemingly did not believe in marriage getting married.

By now Marianne Faithful was a fully fledged junkie. She had been getting through her performances on London’s stage only with a large dose of chemical assistance, which she paid for by sleeping with Spanish Tony Sanchez, a man she described as “loathsome.” She had lost custody of her son and was seeing a doctor in London who she later recalled would simply “pump her full of valium.” She was not in a good way.

When she saw the headlines in London plastered across the newspapers proclaiming “Mick and Bianca wed in French Fracas” it was more than she could take. She immediately headed for a bar, downed several vodka martinis, staggered into a curry house and passed out in her meal.

She was locked in cells to sleep it off and charged with drunk and disorderly conduct and fined one pound. However her downward spiral continued and she was soon to find herself homeless, living on London’s Soho streets for several years suffering with addiction and anorexia nervosa.

The Rolling Stones Prepare to Leave England

However by April 5th, 1971, British taxes were due and The Rolling Stones owed taxes…..alot of them! Soon those that could afford to leave were heading leaving to become tax-exiles, however The Rolling Stones were the first to do this en-masse. As Mick Jagger said to Roy Carter of the NME shortly before the release of “Exile on Main Street”

So after working for eight years I discovered at the end that nobody had ever paid my taxes and I owed a fortune. So then you have to leave the country. So I said fuck it, and left the country.

At the time the tax rate in the UK for higher earners was astronomical. Remember the lyric from The Beatles’ “Tax Man” of “One for you, nineteen for me”? Well the truth was not far from this, the rate was 83% for earned income and 98% for un-earned income!

The Rolling Stones had also become the focus of much unwanted attention, with several drug busts and near misses with jail. Under the constant glare of the tabloid newspapers and with several members of London’s Metropolitan Police Force making a good income from busting musicians and pocketing the bribes (before sending them to court anyway) being a Rolling Stone was not the most comfortable thing to be.

On top of this The Rolling Stones were embroiled in legal wrangles. In the wild west of the early days of the Rock Music industry most artists found themselves entwined in a maze of legal contracts. Only the successful ones had the means to fight them and even they struggled and this was the situation The Rolling Stones found themselves in.

The largest legal action was against Allen Klein. Allan Klein was the man Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had picked to rescue The Rolling Stones from their Andrew Loog Oldham/Eric Easton management. However things had gone very sour and by now The Rolling Stones believed that Alla Klein owed them somewhere in the region of $17 million….a number well north of $100 million in today’s money. He also controls the masters to The Rolling Stones back catalog.

On top of this a large amount of their money had been frozen by a receiver due to a suit being brought by Eric Easton against his former partner and ex-Rolling Stones manager, Andrew Loog-Oldham for breach of contract. On top of this Andrew Loog-Oldham is in court with Allan Klein.

By the time The Rolling Stones were preparing to leave the UK, a memo from Jo Bergman, their office manager, stated that The Rolling Stones number 3 account is overdrawn and they need over $7000 to pay the most pressing debts and they do not have enough cash to keep the office running.

On top of this all the band’s personal accounts were over-drawn and each of the Stones owed almost a quarter of a million dollars in taxes – allowing for inflation this would be approaching ten times that sum in today’s money. In short The Rolling Stones are broke.

Prince Rupert Ludwig Ferdinand zu Loewenstein-Wertheim-Freudenberg

The man that cooked up the plan to exile The Rolling Stones was Prince Rupert Ludwig Ferdinand zu Loewenstein-Wertheim-Freudenberg or Prince Rupert as we shall now call him. Prince Rupert, a descendant of the Bavarian Royal Family, founded the Merchant Bank, Leopold Joseph with Jonathan Guiness and is it’s managing director.

Prince Rupert had met Mick Jagger and been persuaded to get involved with The Rolling Stones finances. Bill Wyman said that he thought this was for

The pleasant duty of investing surplus funds for a highly successful pop group

but found that

their assets did not cover their debts, mortgage payments or daily expenses

Allan Klein had set up a separate branch of The Rolling Stones publishing in New York under his sole control, which meant he is the gatekeeper to much of The Rolling Stones money. Allan Klein also has them under contract so they cannot take their music anywhere else and he was very reticent to distribute their funds, only ever offering to lend them money, never give them money.

At the time the French tax regime allowed The Rolling Stones to pay no French taxes on what they earn as long as they reside in France for at least a year and spend at least $500 000 a year – nothing too onerous for a Rolling Stone! So Prince Rupert came up with the plan to dump Allan Klein and decamp The Stones to the Cote d’Azur in the South of France while setting up companies in Amsterdam and The Dutch Antillies to protect and shelter their assets.

They knew they were very unlikely to get all their money back from Klein let alone get back control of their back-catalog. However they had to do this to allow them to effectively start again, at least from a financial standpoint. Bill Wyman described this as -

A heavy gamble but the only way, for Klein would certainly not willingly give us our freedom

The Rolling Stones had just come off the back of their most successful ever record in the shape of Sticky Fingers and made a huge amount during their last tour of the USA. Since they could not tour without a record and Atlantic, having just paid them a big advance for their signatures and to set up Rolling Stones Records, were also keen to get something out there. So it was decided that The Stones needed to get back into the studio as soon as possible.

So 1971 would see the band all leave the UK to set up in France and record an album. However we are talking about The Rolling Stones and things are never that easy.

Exiles on The Cote d’Azur

Charlie Watts and his wife Shirley were the first to go, staying in a hotel in Cannes before finding a rented house in La Borie in Thorais, near Arles. On April 1st, 1971, Bill Wyman, his long time lover Astrid Lundstrom, Mick Taylor, his girlfriend Rose Miller and their 3 month old daughter, Chloe board a chartered flight to Nice. Mick Taylor, as the new boy in The Rolling Stones, has not made the money of the others and so does not need to go into exile. Had he been in possession of a crystal ball, he may well have stayed at home.

Of the Glimmer Twins, Mick Jagger was now very much “with” Bianca. Bianca Pérez-Mora Macías, former girlfriend of Michael Caine and French playboy and record producer Eddie Barclay, was pregnant with Jade Jagger and would soon become Mrs. Bianca Jagger.

Keith Richards was “with” Anita Pallenberg, the mother of his 18 month old son Marlon and the former lover of Brian Jones and Mick Jagger. Anita Pallenberg had been around The Rolling Stones since meeting Brian Jones at a gig in Germany. Even among The Rolling Stones, she was the center of attention – glamorous, beautiful and insatiable in both narcotic intake and sex.

Mick Jagger’s previous girlfriend, Marianne Faithful had always got on well with Anita Pallenberg (they are still good friends to this day) but Bianca….Bianca was a threat to her position as number one female in The Rolling Stones clique. So with both Mick and Keef’s long standing rivalry added to this brewing rivalry between their significant others, the internal politics were already rampant.

Added to this was Keith and Anita’s drug habits. Since returning to the UK after the last US tour and fateful events at Altamont, Keith had taken it badly. His heroin usage had spiraled and it was reported that he could barely play on parts of Sticky Fingers and Anita was right there with him. So before they could leave for France they needed to get clean, both on legal grounds and because they did not have contacts in France that could score them heroin (although this would change during the summer….and then some!)

Keef had agreed to get clean first and Anita would go in after him. They decided not to go into rehab together so that one of them could look after Marlon while the other was away. Keef was the one who had earned the money and hence the one that had to leave the country by the April 5th deadline, so he went into Bowden House, a private hospital in North London, first.

Keef, came out clean and Anita went into Bowden House. Anita found detox hard going and made several trips outside Bowden House and whe that failed she called Keith to bring her some Heroin. Keith and Michael Cooper, both drunk and with plenty of cocaine running through his system, writes off his pink Bentley on their way to see Anita. The pair make a hasty getaway, leaving the steaming heap of Bentley impaled on some railings and look for somewhere to hide their stash before the police arrive. They remember they are near Nicky Hopkins house (he had been playing with The Stones as a session musician for years) and decide to bury their stash in his garden only to be discovered by Nicky Hopkins….who invites them in for tea!

As April 5th draws near, Keith appears no closer to leaving and Keith is not a man to be rushed (he did not make a single gig on time on the last tour). Jo Bergman and the others at Rolling Stones HQ are beginning to wonder if he will ever leave. As the team arrive at Keith’s Cheyene Walk house in Chelsea on April 5th to pack his stuff, they are relieved to find he is ready to leave. Dressed in one of Anita’s cardigans and floral flares, he and son Marlon board the plane to Nice with Jo Bergman and Shirley Arnold (another member of The Rolling Stones staff)

When they arrive in the spring sun on the Cote d’Azur, Jo Bergman takes Keef to see his potential new house, Villa Nellcôte, which would play a starring role in the summer’s escapades. She had originally earmarked the house for Mick Jagger and Bianca, but Bianca had not liked it as it was too public. Keith on the other hand loved it, much to Jo Bergman’s relief.

With all the Stones now living in the South of France this only left Mick and Bianca. They are in France but staying in the Plaza Authenee Hotel in Paris where Bianca had studied political science. Since nothing can happen without Mick being there, this means the recording is put on hold until after he has got married, had a honeymoon and found a place in the South of France.

During this time the other Stones looked for a studio to record in. After looking around they did not find anything they liked in France, so it was eventually decided to bring their mobile studio down from London and record in the basement of Nellcote. This would mean that Keef, one of the glimmer twins that were essential to the recording of a new Rolling Stones album, would be close at hand at all times.

It would Mick and Bianca several months before they would finally settle on a place in the South and when they did it was in Biot, Alpes-Maritimes. Biot is an ancient walled town overlooking the Mediterranean and home to many artisans and the Musée Fernand Léger, and significantly, a good distance from Nellcote.