Exile on Main Street: A Season in Hell with the Rolling Stones

It never ceases to amaze me how a bunch of people can judge something that they have no real knowledge of other than from some other guys book that was written only to make a buck at the expense of their "friends".. First let me say that Bob Greenfield is a long time friend of mine from the time of this book. We met while he was interviewing Keith Richards for his Rolling Stone interview that year. I was there working with the Stones from March to September of that year and saw much, but not all, of what was going on. "It was what it was!" Weird as that may sound...it was a very weird place and time. Maybe Bob got a bit carried away with the way he presented it, but after 35 years of dealing with these guys do you blame him? I can tell you one thing from my perspective...After spending 6 months in the south of France with the Rolling Stones...and the French, I began feeling like a character in a Jean-Luc Godard movie. As much as I love and loved working with the Stones this was not their finest hour and that is what Bob was trying to capture and I think that he did.

EXILE ON MAIN STREET is arguably one of the Rolling Stones' top five albums. It was recorded in the summer of 1971 in a rented French villa in a murky haze of drugs, sex, alcohol, drugs, mind games, sex, clashes with the local police and - did I mention it already? -drugs? Anyone wishing to read of the making of the album should read John Perry's excellent book. The book in question deals with what went on in between the music making. Reading this account of Mick, "Keef" and the others in action leaves an odd taste in your mouth. As you plow through the endless drug-taking, boozing, mate swapping and game playing, it's kind of interesting but also sad and appalling. All those talented people wasting their lives nodding off from a fix, all those inner circle wannabees dying from trying to handle the Stones lifestyle, all the mind games, the chief gamer being Anita Pallenberg, a combination of the Acid Queen and Margo Channing. On the plus side, I liked Greenfield's hippy/dippy/artsy/fartsy writing style; he certainly knows how to turn a phrase. Yet, at book's end, I felt like washing my hands. More importantly, I wondered how much of what I just read actually happened. It's interesting that, even though Keith Richards is the major idiot (read: doper) in the book, you still like him at the end. Unlike Mick Jagger who seems interested in control and money and scoring (women), Keith's priorities seem to be rock 'n roll, enjoying life and scoring (drugs). Perhaps it's because he's survived and is still plugging along. Granted his twice-melted play-doh face should be adorning a "Just Say No to Drugs and Booze" poster but the old guy still rocks. In short, an interesting if appalling book.

EXILE ON MAIN STREET: A SEASON IN HELL WITH THE ROLLING STONES uses one of the rock group's most famous albums as its foundation to probe the evolution of a band which created its own exile milieu, spending its days drinking and taking drugs and its nights sequestered in a home recording studio. The Stones' villa attracted some of the biggest names in recording history and the season in which all names met and joined is that which produced EXILE ON MAIN STREET. Avid Rolling Stones fans will be thrilled to find such a close, dedicated examination of the power and times of one of their most notable albums.

I have read several books about the Rolling Stones. This one is by far the best I've read in years. I highly recommend it to Stones fans or fans of Rock and Roll music. This book is not about each song from the Exile on Main Street album, but about the people involved with the Stones during the making of the album.

The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is because of the author's glaring (and repeated) mistake of assigning "Jumpin Jack Flash" to the Sticky Fingers track listing. I don't pretend to know when and if that song was recrded during the same seesions as Sticky Fingers, but I do know that it isn't on any Sticky Fingers pressing I've ever seen, and I've seen alot (both vinyl and cd)! Anyway, Keith being one of my hereos, this book gives an excellent account of what went on during the beginnings of what would evolve into perhaps the Stones best album ( I don't think anyone would argue that what came after Exile was nothing more than a footnote to the Stones relevance, except perhaps "Some Girls"). Whether it's merits, Exile could not be what it is without the social context described so well by the author. This might be tautalogical, but again, I think understanding the goings on during the summer before Exile was released only serves to increase the import of this masterwork. Suffice it to say that I immensely enjoyed this book, although there is nothing particularly revealing to a hardcore Stones fan. Still, I was laughing aloud at many passages, especially the description of Keith's famed car incident. Amyone even remotely interested the the Stones will appreciate this book.