Sam Cutler: I’ve had enough of Rock n Roll!

SOHINI DAS GUPTA | Sun, 8 Jan 2017 , Mumbai , DNA



...confesses Sam Cutler, former tour manager of The Rolling Stones, in the wake of a career spent working with musical greats like Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd and Eric Clapton. Credited with first uttering the famous Stones introduction “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World…The Rolling Stones!", the 73-year-old has now come to view life as a bigger journey where, thank goodness, ‘You can't always get what you want’. In Mumbai for a literature festival, Cutler spoke to Sohini Das Gupta about spending life in a bus with wife Jackie, his books and some long overdue silence


You’ve spent a good part of your life working, travelling and being friends with the biggest musicians in a booming rock ‘n’ roll scene. How does a man with such colourful experiences write a book titled You Can’t Always Get What You Want? (2010)

But you really can’t! That’s what’s so interesting about life. When you’re young you want everything. You want to rule the world. But as you grow old you realise it is unrealistic and you learn how to deal with being disappointed. I’ve been Buddhist for a while now. It just seemed like a fitting title.

So your memories of the infamous Altamount incident (The 1969 Altamont Speedway Free Fest ended in death, injury and property damage) did not directly influence the title?

Not at all. I derived it from my understanding of life, just like in the original song. (Hums) You can’t always get what you want / But if you try sometimes well you might find / You get what you need...Not sure about that either, but you certainly can’t always get what you want. Thank goodness!

Do you still really know what went wrong at the Altamount concert?

Lots. The stage was too low. In the middle of 300,000 people it was a stage this (gestures) low. What went wrong was it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. And if it had to happen, it should have been planned over at least a month.

The Rolling Stones left for England shortly afterwards, as you dealt with the aftermath. Did you feel let down?

Not particularly. When you are a tour manager you deal with the good stuff and the bad stuff. It was part of my job to take care of the mess. I didn’t like it, but someone had to do it and that someone was me. You can now look back and say, oooh that was wrong, that was right. But it was what it was. You learn from your mistakes.

Many of the artists you’ve worked with were contemporaries and rivals. Was there ever a point where you felt the need to choose sides?

I always admired The Beatles because of the fabulous songs they wrote but didn’t really love them till they made Sgt. Pepper’s. Point is, England, at that time, was very polarised—you either loved The Beatles or you loved The Rolling Stones. I was just more of Rolling Stones person.

As the Stone’s manager, you never thought that their anti-Beatles image could work against them?

That was more of a marketing exercise. Mick and Lennon were good friends, you know.

Yet his band member(s) have been known to accuse Mick of imitating The Beatles, especially with Their Satanic Majesties Request...

May be. But Lennon himself took his stuff from George Martin and others, so there was nothing exclusively original anyway.

Coming to life beyond Rock n Roll, what’s on your playlist now?

Oh, this is gonna sound terrible. You know what’s on my playlist? Silence. A rare commodity in this world. I love peace and quiet, contemplation. I’ve had enough of Rock ‘n’ Roll! It’s wonderful, but I’ve had 50 years of it. I love reading and writing. So I wrote my book.

You never found yourself coveting the adulation enjoyed by rocker friends?

Never. When I was very young, I played the guitar. I couldn’t imagine what it might be like to play it when you didn’t want to. Stand on a stage with the responsibility to entertain people? No, thank you.

You chose a different life with Jackie?

Absolutely. Jackie and I live in a bus. We travel all the time. Ours is not a life where we go...let’s go home and listen to our big record collection. We don’t have a record collection! It’d be nice to have one someday, when we have enough money and a house.

You’ve spoken about how Owsley Stanley’s LSD inspired lyrics...

It’s inspired people to all kinds of sanities and insanities. Psychedelics definitely changed life in the 60s

What did it do for music?

Confused it. Confused it and broadened it. Just like it did with individuals. It happened then. I’m not someone who’d say “Oh, I wish that didn’t happen”.

What’s one song that you and your wife both love?

Wild Horses (The Rolling Stones). But we like the cover by Old & In The Way (project by Grateful Dead member Jerry Garcia) even better.


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