Big Optimism: 'I hope they don’t think we’re a Rock ‘n Roll outfit ... '
Here's to the thousands of people who probably claimed they were in the 300-person capacity Marquee Club 64 years ago.
Yesterday was the 64th anniversary of the time a band at a club on Oxford Street in London met a very mixed reception — straight down the middle: Blues and rock fans cheered; jazz purists booed.
Honestly, this was a barely put-together band, and it was their first-ever gig. They had no regular drummer, and a bassist and pianist who everyone agreed were each only there for the short-term, if the band survived past the short-term at all.
Heck, they almost didn’t even have a name, except that their founder had to come up with one on the spot when he booked the gig. He glanced at an LP on the floor: The Best of Muddy Waters.
The title of track five on the first side caught his eye: “Rollin’ Stone Blues.”
We’re the Rolling Stones, he told the manager, coining a name that I’ll bet every single one of the 120,000 subscribers of this newsletter recognized, nearly six and a half decades later.
More about the gig:
The Stones were a bit less than three months old at this point; formed after guitarist Brian Jones ran an ad in Jazz News. Mick Jagger saw it (he’d known Jones casually from playing in the same circles), and he brought his childhood friend Keith Richards along.
The gig itself was a last-minute replacement opportunity because a band called Blues Incorporated that had a weekly residency at the club — the Marquee Club — got called to do a BBC Radio slot. Jones managed to squeeze in to take over.
The lineup that night: Jagger on vocals, Jones and Keith Richards on guitars, Ian Stewart on piano, Dick Taylor on bass, and a drummer whose identity remains disputed to this day — probably Tony Chapman, possibly Mick Avory, who would later become a founding member of the Kinks.
Charlie Watts, who would become one of the most respected drummers in rock history, had already been asked to join and kept saying no — he had a steady job and wasn’t convinced the band would last. Bill Wyman, who would anchor the band on bass for the next three decades, wasn’t there yet either.
“I hope they don’t think we’re a Rock ‘n Roll outfit,” Jagger had told a Jazz News writer who did a report ahead of the gig.
I have to say there are a few things happening this week that could well have been the subject of the “big essay” for Big Optimism. You’ll see at the end of this newsletter.
But on Saturday, England beat Norway in the World Cup quarterfinals. I was rooting for Norway, but I was struck when the cameras lingered on one of the luxury boxes, where 82-year-old England fan Mick Jagger was watching the game.
I said to my wife: “Want to know what’s wild? Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones were already popular the last time England won the World Cup — and here we are six decades later, and he’s still famous and touring.”
Then I made the connection, and I realized we were just one day away from the anniversary of their first gig.
Here’s to longevity, last-minute replacements, and the Muddy Waters LP that gave the band its name.
Way back then the Marquee Club was a small ground-floor venue that could fit 300 people officially; maybe a few more if you crammed them in. But I’ll bet there were thousands who later claimed to have been there on July 12, 1962.
7 other moments to know from history this week
July 12: “Relax, you are in Paris!” — The opening line of a seven-minute French television program broadcast on this day in 1962 via the Telstar satellite — the first transatlantic television transmission in history. Telstar had been launched just two days earlier by NASA, weighed 170 pounds, and could relay a signal for only 18 minutes per orbit.
July 13: “His easy phrasing is especially commendable.” — Metronome magazine’s George Simon, reviewing a young vocalist performing with the Harry James Orchestra at the Roseland Ballroom in New York this day in 1939 — one of the first published notices of any kind for a 23-year-old singer named Frank Sinatra.
July 14: “Climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are nought without prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime.” — Edward Whymper, from his account of the first ascent of the Matterhorn, completed on this day in 1865. It took him nine tries; four of his fellow climbers died during the descent afterward.
July 15: “Come in here and shake hands.” — American commander Thomas Stafford, on this day in 1975, opening the hatch between the Apollo spacecraft and the Soviet Soyuz capsule. Soviet commander Alexei Leonov later joked that three languages had been spoken on the mission — Russian, English, and “Oklahomski,” a reference to Stafford’s pronounced drawl when attempting Russian. He and Stafford remained close friends until Leonov’s death in 2019.
July 16: “Within the first few days, I knew this was going to be huge” — Jeff Bezos, recalling the launch of Amazon.com on this day in 1995, when the site went live as an online bookstore operating out of the garage of his rented house in Bellevue, Washington. “
July 17: “To all who come to this happy place, welcome.” — Walt Disney, at the opening of Disneyland in Anaheim, California, on this day in 1955 — words he read from a bronze plaque at the park’s entrance as it opened to the public for the first time. Within its first year, Disneyland had more visitors than the Statue of Liberty, the Washington Monument, and the Grand Canyon combined.
July 18: “The Tour is an ordeal, and it is the courage to endure and to complete it that makes the champions.” — Henri Desgrange, founder and editor of the French newspaper L’Auto, who created the Tour de France as a publicity stunt to boost circulation — and whose race was completed for the first time on this day in 1903. The Tour has been held every year since, except during the two world wars.