Turd on the Shelf: "Exile on Main Street: A Season in Hell with the Rolling Stones"

Rock Turtleneck Book Club

Exile in Main St.: A Season in Hell with the Rolling Stones
By Robert Greenfield
(Da Capo Press)

For music geeks raised on the canon of classic rock albums, it is an accepted fact that a true masterpiece must rise like a phoenix from the ashes of madness, drugs, hangers-on, too much cash or too many chicks. The Beatles' White Album, Blood on the Tracks, Rumours, Wish You Were Here, In Utero, Tonight’s the Night, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and of course, Exile on Main St. are almost as celebrated for their backstories as for their music.

Exile on Main St.: A Season in Hell with the Rolling Stones has all the makings of great book: It's 1971, and the Stones are at the top of their game but losing money due to England's 95% tax rate on the well-off. (As George Harrison said in “Taxman,” here’s one for you, 19 for me.) To stay afloat financially, they need to get back on the road, but first they need to make an album. (These were the days before a mega-band could routinely go three or four years between releases.) So Keith rents an old mansion in the south of France called Villa Nellcote and the Stones become rock’s first tax exiles. With nowhere to go, the Stones take their decadence to a new level: the humid basement where they head late each night to lay down their swampiest blues to date. They emerge months later with their first double LP, their fourth consecutive masterpiece and arguably their best album.

But unlike Exile on Main St., which is the ultimate elegantly wasted rock & roll statement, Exile the book is just a waste.

Instead of focusing on the music, Greenfield dishes on the never-ending parade of despicable Eurotrash that passes through Nellcote’s gates, and Keith’s various attempts to “score” or have someone score for him, and the huge, frequent cash payouts to various international authorities to keep Keith out of the clink. We also learn — make sure you’re sitting down — Mick is an aloof, two-faced jetsetter with an even more aloof bride Bianca. Charlie and Bill are quiet and punctual. And relative newcomer Mick Taylor is totally miserable. Reading this, it’s a wonder Taylor, who didn’t have the same tax issues as the rest of the band, stayed in the Stones as long as he did. (Turns out Keith was actually not a fan of the rhythm/lead dynamic between him & Taylor, and preferred the guitar mesh he perfected with Brian Jones and later with Woody.)

To spare my dear readers the chore of trudging through the manure to sniff out a Stones truffle, I’ll share the book's other worthwhile passages.

•After nodding off earlier in the evening, Keith calls producer/fellow junkie Jimmy Miller at three in the morning to drive back to the Villa so he can lay down the six-string bedrock of what will become “Rocks Off.” Miller has just gotten home from Keith’s place but turns around and is glad he did.
•Keith bangs out “Happy” when he’s feeling uh… happy.
•“Sweet Black Angel,” one of Exile’s great deep cuts, was recorded not in France but at Mick’s English countryside estate.
•Many Exile cuts actually date as far back as the 1969 Let it Bleed sessions.

Somehow, 18 songs were given lyrics and melodies and recorded in France, then mixed and mastered in L.A., and housed in one of the most memorable covers ever. Greenfield doesn’t bother to tell us how this happened, but he does mention that the Glimmer Twins had a couple of wild nights at the Playboy mansion. Even more incredibly, the book inexplicably changes direction at the end to current times to talk about Mick’s unrivaled financial acumen and the millions the band makes from sponsorship by irresponsible corporations. Yawn.

For a real look in the Exile on Main St. sessions, download the outtakes. You’ll hear “Tumbling Dice” in its raw form of “Good Time Woman.” A slowed-down seven-minute “Loving Cup.” “All Down the Line” as an acoustic demo along the lines of “Street Fighting Man.” And if you have several hundred dollars to blow, Genesis Publications has a beautiful limited edition photo book of the Exile sessions.

But really, everything you need to know about the making of Exile on Main St. – the dank basement, bottle after bottle of champagne and Jack Daniels, the overflowing ashtrays, the spirit of Gram Parsons, the beautiful tension between Mick & Keith, the "H," the hangers-on, the decaying Mediterranean mansion — has been right here all along, in the music.