Jagger’s Magical Persona

In the late 60s when Old Number One and I were living in the UK and working with RingMaker Management, we were invited to a recording session at Olympic Studios.

The band recording was named Balls, a super group made up of Trevor Burton of the Move, Steve Gibbons from The Uglys, Denny Laine of the Moody Blues—who eventually joined Wings with Paul McCartney—Mike Kellie who left to rejoin Spooky Tooth . Alan White former keyboardist with the Animals. Actually, Denny Laine joined Ginger Baker’s band AirForce before joining Wings.  If those names don’t mean anything to you, it was a long, long time ago, folks. That was 1969 and I’m telling you about it in 2024.

Balls was a short lived band, but the night we were in the studio with them—Mick Jagger was there too. Now there was a table of food and lots of other stuff was available: however, I was not partaking. Which makes my experience even more surreal.

Mick stood above the mixing board and moved his right arm from the far right to his far left.  What I saw resembled the effect of a strobe light, stop action arms every few inches in a slow motion blur. No kidding. I immediately went to the restroom and washed my face in cold water, but discovered the stop action effect was still with me.  I hadn’t taken any mind altering alcohol or drugs so I attributed it to Jagger’s magical persona.  

Since then a few folks “in the know” have said it was probably a “contact high” from the company I was keeping.  I don’t know what I believe really happened. Back then many bands did get stoned and just jam. After those sessions were sliced and diced, they were taught the songs that emerged on the album. It was rumored that “Fresh Cream” had over 200 hours of studio time for one album.

Old Number One and I were somewhat square. We practiced everything to death. If we couldn’t play a song ten times in a row without making a mistake—-we didn’t know it. We recorded all our performances and timed the audience’s applause with a stopwatch to see what really worked. 

 As it turned out, our duo only opened one show for Balls before the company imploded and the owners divided up the acts.  But after it all, I got to meet the brilliant and quixotic Mick Jagger. 

Old Number One, who felt compelled to embellish any truth, claimed that we had opened for The Rolling Stones.  Not true, trust me.

I have friends who are disgusted by the idea of celebrity. I think it depends upon how you use it. My opinion is just the meandering of another “Honky Tonk Woman.”