Jagger: Rebel, Rock Star, Rambler, Rogue by Marc Spitz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"When we consider the Rolling Stones, we think of the heart and we think of the groin. We don't dwell on the brain. 'Keith is the heart,' [...] the music publicist Keith Altham remarked [...] 'Mick is the brain'."

Mick Jagger, "all brain and no heart." The metaphor appeals to me. Somehow I have never been a big fan of the Rolling Stones, even though in the 1960s I listened to their music every day. In the mid-Sixties I preferred The Kinks, The Animals, and later all progressive bands. In particular, I have never admired Mick Jagger and his scene persona. Mark Spitz's Jagger (2011) partly validates my prejudice. It is a well-written, readable, and quite detailed biography of the Rolling Stones front man and singer as well as a story of one of the most famous bands in popular music history.

We read about Mr. Jagger's childhood (he met his future band partner, Keith Richards, in primary school) and youth, when he aced the A levels and got into the London School of Economics, and about the band's debut at the Marquee in July 1962. Then the American tour in 1964 and the steady and fast rise to the very top of the world of popular music:

"By 1967, the Rolling Stones were more influential than ever, and it's easy to see how they might have felt invulnerable and a bit too messianic."

We read in minute detail about the infamous drug bust, trial, and sentencing of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards as well about the role of The Times editorial in their early release.

I particularly appreciate the author's attempts to characterize the frenetic atmosphere of the late 1960's and the cultural shift happening then - the impending clash of the beautiful yet utopian ideas of Flower Power with the cold and business-driven reality of society. I came of age at that time and, naturally, being "inside" the phenomenon, was not able to observe it.

Goodreads members might appreciate the mention of Mikhail Bulgakov's masterpiece novel The Master and Margarita. Mr. Jagger claims that the novel was one of the main inspirations for Sympathy for the Devil, a song that comes from the 1968 album Beggars Banquet and is my second most favorite piece by the Stones (the first is Paint It Black (1966)).

According to many contemporary historians the "End of the Sixties" was signified by the Altamont Free Concert tragedy in December of 1969. The author provides a detailed account of the events that, as he writes, "burned up a lot of utopian energy, leaving in its place fear and confusion, and, worse, cynicism and selfishness." He also, rather uncharacteristically, as the entire biography is pretty sympathetic to Mr. Jagger, offers a dramatic juxtaposition of the death of Meredith Hunter at Altamont with the mention of Mick Jagger depositing the money earned during the tour in a Swiss bank.

The later years of the Rolling Stones are less eventful as they slowly morph from a rock band into "a band full of rich and famous people." Mick Jagger enjoys an intermittent acting career, with most notable performances in Nicholas Roeg's Performance and Tony Richardson's Ned Kelly. In 2002 Mick Jagger is honored with knighthood by the Queen "for services to popular music," and the author provides slightly sarcastic remarks on that occasion.

Good biography, not quite four-star work, but solid, captivating, and readable. I am unable to refrain from quoting a neat pearl of wisdom:

"[...] canny businessman that he is, he knows that it's the past that has the most currency."

Naturally, that's about Sir Mick Jagger.

Three-and-a-half stars.

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