Just to explain why I'm now claiming to be from Louisiana, that's because since my days of the five-bob membership, I've become a dual-citizenship Anglo-American--I live in northern La. these days, but visit the UK often too. (So, hi there, Edith Grove!)
Oh, and to make a long story short--Taylor. Loved Jones (especially on slide), and Woody's pretty good, but the great thing about Taylor was that he turned out to be so incredible just when we were wondering if the band was on its last legs--and it turned out the best was yet to come!
Well, hoping not to bore you all to death, I'll throw out a few memories from the very earliest days. 'Twas the very beginning of the British blues boom, and I heard I Wanna Be Your Man on the radio, bought it and then Not Fade Away, and lost my heart forever. (I'm still a major blues fan, and heard about most of those guys initially because of the Stones.) Plus, I lived about 20 miles from Dartford, where Mick and Keith were raised, so I felt we were, like, neighbors. So I parted with the 5/- to join the fan club, and I received the glossy pics, and the newsletters, and I wrote to ask for autographs and they sent them--to this day, of course, I have no idea if they're genuine, but they looked real enough, and they weren't famous enough to make their signatures worth forging, I reckoned. I collected a complete set of the Rolling Stones Monthly. I became the penpal of a girl who was associated with the fan club and had met the band because she kept leaving apple pies outside their dressing rooms, which apparently they appreciated (I was way too naive in those days to know if she was really some sort of groupie!). Finally my chance rolled around and I got tix for my first show, the Albert Hall in Sept. 1966, the day Have You Seen Your Mother Baby was released as a single. Long John Baldry, Terry Reid and his band, plus the Yardbirds, and the Ike and Tina Turner Review were on the bill. Then the Stones appeared, my heroes in the flesh at long last--I stood on my seat (center aisle, about row 20) and screamed like everyone else.
Well, we did that then.
A few songs into the show, some girls got onto the stage, grabbed Brian (who was wearing a groovy velvet regency-style jacket--the pic in my avatar is me at about that time in a corduroy pantsuit I bought in Carnaby St. that was supposed to look like it), and tried to drag him off--the cops leapt on stage, and the show was temporarily halted. I remember Mick and Keith looking really shocked. Anyway, they went off, and after a while the show resumed, and I continued shrieking . . . .
The only specifics I remember, I'm ashamed to say, are of what they were wearing, and how out of my mind I was with joy.
Well, the next time I saw them live, time had moved on, the band first had become more pop-oriented, then Jumping Jack Flash had come out, complete with that amazing video, all seemed headed in the right direction, then there were the trials etc., we lost Brian, I'd become a hippie--I'll get into more detail about that era at some point if you'd like. Don't want everybody putting me on "ignore" just yet!