Contents; Club27.
1
Brian Hopkins Jones.
2-3
27 Years Earlier.
4-5
Rolling Stones.
6-13
Images.
14-17
Death of Brian Jones.
18-22
T
he 27 Club, also occasionally known as the Forever 27 Club or Club 27, is a name for a group of influential rock and blues musicians who all died at the age of 27. The 27 Club consists of two related phenomena, both in the realm of popular culture. The first is a list of five famous rock musicians who died at age 27, names includings Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, Rolling Stones, Brian Jones, Most talented man to pick up a guitar, Jimi Hendrix, Solo talent Janis Joplin, & The Doors, Jim Morrison. The second is the idea that many other notable musicians have also died at the age of 27. The impetus for the club’s creation were the deaths of Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. Kurt Cobain, who died in 1994, was later added by some. With the exception of Joplin, there is controversy surrounding their deaths. According to the book ‘Heavier Than Heaven,’ A book based on the life of Kurt Cobain, when Cobain died, his sister claimed that as a kid he would talk about how he wanted to join the 27 Club. On the fifteenth anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death, National Public Radio’s Robert Smith said, “The deaths of these rock stars at the age of 27 really changed the way we look at rock music.”
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Club27
brian hopkins jones. 1942 - 1969 Lewis Brian Hopkins Jones, born 28 February 1942 – passed away, 3 July 1969. Known as Brian Jones, was an English musician and a founding member of The Rolling Stones. His main instruments were the guitar and the harmonica, but he played a wide variety of other instruments. His innovative use of traditional or folk instruments, such as the sitar and marimba, was integral to the changing sound of the band. He was originally the leader of the group, but Mick Jagger and Keith Richards soon overshadowed him, especially after they became a successful songwriting team. Jones developed a serious substance abuse problem over the years and his role in the band steadily diminished. He left the Rolling Stones in June 1969 to be replaced by guitarist Mick Taylor, and died less than a month later when he drowned in his own swimming pool.
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Brian Hopkins Jones
27 years earlier. BEFORE The Rolling Stones & Death
Jones was born in the Park Nursing Home in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, on 28 February 1942. An attack of croup at the age of four left him with asthma, which lasted for the rest of his life. His middle-class parents, Lewis Blount Jones and Louisa Beatrice Jones (née Simmonds) were of Welsh descent. Brian had two sisters: Pamela, who was born on 3 October 1943 and who died on 14 October 1945 of leukaemia; and Barbara, born in 1946. Both Jones’s parents were interested in music: his mother Louisa was a piano teacher, and in addition to his job as an aeronautical engineer, Lewis Jones played piano and organ and led the choir at the local church. In 1957 Jones first heard Cannonball Adderley’s music, which inspired his interest in jazz. Jones persuaded his parents to buy him a saxophone, and two years later his parents gave him his first acoustic guitar as a 17th birthday present.
September 1953 after passing the Eleven-plus exam. He enjoyed badminton and diving at school and became first clarinet in the school orchestra. In 1957 he reportedly obtained seven O-level passes, then he continued into the sixth form and obtained a further two O-levels. He also took three A-levels in Physics, Chemistry and Biology and passed in Physics and Chemistry, but failed in Biology. Despite academic ability, however, he found school regimented and disliked conforming. He disliked the school uniforms and angered teachers with his behaviour, though he was generally popular among students. His hostility to authority figures resulted in his suspension from school on two occasions. According to Dick Hattrell, a childhood friend: “He was a rebel without a cause, but when examinations came he was brilliant.” In the spring of 1959, Jones’s 14-year-old girlfriend, a Cheltenham schoolgirl named Valerie Corbett, became pregnant. Although Jones is said to have encouraged her to have an abortion,
Jones attended local schools, including Dean Close School, from September 1949 to July 1953 and Cheltenham Grammar School for Boys, which he entered in
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she placed the baby boy up for adoption by an infertile couple. Corbett later married one of Jones’s friends, author Graham Ride. Jones quit school in disgrace and left home, travelling through northern Europe and Scandinavia for a summer. During this period, he lived a bohemian lifestyle, busking with his guitar on the streets for money, and living off the charity of others. While Jones was fond of telling others stories concerning his adventures in Europe, it remains uncertain as to how much was fact, and how much was fiction. Other friends claimed Jones merely stayed with friends and relatives outside the UK. Jones grew up listening to classical music, but he preferred blues, particularly Elmore James and Robert Johnson. He began playing at local blues and jazz clubs in addition to busking and working odd jobs. He was also known to steal small amounts of money from work to pay for cigarettes, which tended to get him fired. In November 1959, Jones went to the Wooden Bridge Hotel in Guildford to see a band. He met a young married woman named Angeline, and the two had a one-night stand that resulted in her pregnancy. Angeline and her husband decided to raise the baby together, a girl, born on 4 August the following year. Jones never knew about her birth. On 23 October 1961, Jones’s girlfriend Pat Andrews gave birth to his third child, Julian Mark Andrews. Jones sold his record collection to buy flowers for Pat and clothes for the newborn and lived with them for a while. However, on 23 July 1964, another woman, Linda Lawrence, gave birth to Jones’s fourth child, Julian Brian Lawrence. Julian adopted the surname Leitch after Linda Lawrence married folk singer Donovan on 2 October 1970. Jones is said to have named both of his sons Julian in tribute to the jazz saxophonist Julian “Cannonball” Adderley.
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27 Years Earlier
Bleach Nevermind In Utero
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MICK JAGGER. Vocals. Born 26 July 1943 is an English musician, singer-songwriter, actor, and producer, best known as the lead vocalist of rock band, The Rolling Stones. Jagger has also acted in and produced several films.
IAN STEWART. Keyboard. 18 July 1938 – 12 December 1985 was a Scottish keyboardist, co-founder of The Rolling Stones and inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was dismissed from the line-up in May 1963 but he remained as road manager and pianist.
BRIAN JONES. Guitar. 28 February 1942 – 3 July 1969, known as Brian Jones, was an English musician and a founding member of The Rolling Stones. His main instruments were the guitar and the harmonica, but he played a wide variety of other instruments. His innovative use of traditional or folk instruments, such as the sitar and marimba, was integral to the changing sound of the band
CHARLIE WATT. Drums Born 2 June 1941 is an English drummer, best known as a member of The Rolling Stones. He is also the leader of a jazz band,as well as a record producer, commercial artist, and horse breeder.
KEITH RICHARDS. Guitar. Born 18 December 1943 is an English musician, songwriter, and founding member of the rock band the Rolling Stones ranked by Rolling Stone magazine as the “10th greatest guitarist of all time.” Fourteen songs Richards wrote with songwriting partner and the Rolling Stones’ vocalist Mick Jagger were listed on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”
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The Rolling Stones
8 Between The Buttons; 1967
Aftermath; 1966
Beggars Banquet; 1968
Let It Bleed; 1969
Decembers Children (& Everyones); 1965
Their Satanic Majesties Request; 1967
Out Of Our Heads; 1965
The Rolling Stones, Now!; 1965
The Rolling Stones No.2; 1965
12x5; 1964
Englands Newest Hit Makers; 1964
The Rolling Stones; 1964
Jones left Cheltenham and moved to London where he became friends with fellow musicians Alexis Korner, future Manfred Mann singer Paul Jones, future Cream bassist Jack Bruce and others who made up the small London rhythm and blues and jazz scene there. He became a blues musician, for a brief time calling himself “Elmo Lewis”, and playing slide guitar. Jones also started a band with Paul Jones called The Roosters and in January 1963, after both Brian and Paul left the group, Eric Clapton took over Brian’s position as guitarist. Jones placed an advertisement in Jazz News (a Soho club information sheet) of 2 May 1962 inviting musicians to audition for a new R&B group at the Bricklayers Arms pub; pianist Ian “Stu” Stewart was the first to respond. Later singer Mick Jagger also joined this band; Jagger and his childhood friend Keith Richards had met Jones when he and Paul Jones were playing Elmore James’ “Dust My Broom” with Korner’s band at The Ealing Club. Jagger brought guitarist Richards to rehearsals; Richards then joined the band. Jones’s and Stewart’s acceptance of Richards and the Chuck Berry songs he wanted to play coincided with the departure of blues purists Geoff Bradford and Brian Knight, who had no tolerance for Chuck Berry As Keith Richards tells it, Jones came up with the name ‘The Rollin’ Stones’ (later with the ‘g’), Rolling Stones while on the phone with a venue owner. “The voice on the other end of the line obviously said,
‘What are you called?’ Panic. The Best of Muddy Waters album was lying on the floor—and track one was ‘Rollin’ Stone Blues’” The Rollin’ Stones played their first gig on 12 July 1962 in the Marquee Club in London with Jagger, Richards, Jones, Stewart, bass player Dick Taylor (later of The Pretty Things) and drummer Tony Chapman. From September 1962 to September 1963 Jones, Jagger and Richards shared an apartment, referred to by Richards as “a beautiful dump” in Chelsea, London at 102 Edith Grove, Chelsea, with James Phelge, a future photographer whose last name was used in some of the band’s early “Nanker/Phelge” writing credits. Jones and Richards spent day after day playing guitar while listening to blues records (notably Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Howlin’ Wolf). During this time, Jones also taught Jagger how to play harmonica. The four Rollin’ Stones went searching for a bassist and drummer, finally settling on Bill Wyman on bass because he had a spare VOX AC30 guitar amplifierTemplate:Keith Richards ‘Life’ and always had cigarettes, as well as a bass guitar that he had built himself. After playing with Mick Avory, Tony Chapman and Carlo Little, in January 1963 they finally persuaded jazz-influenced Charlie Watts to join them. At the time, Watts was considered by fellow musicians to be one of the better drummers in
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The Rolling Stones
London; he had played with (among others) Alexis Korner’s group Blues Incorporated. Watts described Jones’s role in these early days: “Brian was very instrumental in pushing the band at the beginning. Keith and I would look at him and say he was barmy. It was a crusade to him to get us on the stage in a club and be paid a half-crown and to be billed as an R&B band”. The group played at local blues and jazz clubs, garnering fans in spite of resistance from traditional jazz musicians who felt threatened by their popularity. While Jagger was lead singer, Jones, in the group’s embryonic period, was the leader — promoting the band, landing gigs, and negotiating with venue owners. Jones played guitar and harmonica, and during performances, especially at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, he proved to be a more lively and engaging performer than even Jagger. While acting as the band’s business manager, Jones received £5 more than the other members, which did not sit well with the rest of the band and created resentment. Keith Richards has said that both he and Mick were surprised to learn that Brian considered himself the leader and was receiving the extra £5, especially as other people, like Giorgio Gomelsky appeared to be doing the gig arrangements. Musical Influence, Jones’s main guitar in the early years was a Harmony Stratotone, which he replaced with a Gretsch Double Anniversary in two-tone green. In 1964 and 1965 he often used a teardropshaped prototype Vox Mark VI. From late 1965 until his death, Jones used Gibson models (various Firebirds, ES-330, and a Les Paul model), as well as two Rickenbacker 12-string models. He can also be seen playing a Fender Telecaster in the 1968 “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” promo video. Examples of Jones’s contributions are his slide guitar on ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’ 1963, ‘I’m a King Bee’ 1964, ‘Little Red Rooster’ 1964, ‘I Can’t Be Satisfied’ 1965, ‘I’m Movin’ On’ 1965, ‘Doncha Bother Me’ 1966 and ‘No Expectations’ 1968. Jones can also be heard playing Bo Diddley-style rhythm guitar on ‘I Need You Baby (Mona)’, the guitar riff in ‘The Last Time’ sitar on ‘Street Fighting Man’ and ‘Paint It Black’; organ on ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’, ‘Complicated’ and ‘2000 Man’; marimba on ‘Under My Thumb’, ‘Out Of Time’ and ‘Yesterday’s Papers’ recorder on ‘Ruby Tuesday’ and ‘All Sold Out’; trumpet on ‘Child of the Moon’ Appalachian dulcimer on ‘I Am Waiting’ and ‘Lady Jane” and harpsichord on ‘Lady Jane’; accordion on
‘Backstreet Girl’; saxophone and oboe on ‘Dandelion’; mellotron on ‘She’s a Rainbow’, ‘We Love You’, ‘Stray Cat Blues’ and ‘2000 Light Years from Home’; and (for his final recording as a Rolling Stone) the autoharp on “ ‘You Got the Silver’. Richards maintains that what he calls “guitar weaving” emerged from this period, from listening to Jimmy Reed albums: “We listened to the teamwork, trying to work out what was going on in those records; how you could play together with two guitars and make it sound like four or five” Jones’s and Richards’s guitars became a signature of the sound of the Rolling Stones, with both guitarists playing rhythm and lead without clear boundaries between the two roles. From 1966 onwards Jones’s contributions in the recording studio were more as a multi-instrumentalist than as a guitarist. His aptitude for playing a wide variety of instruments is particularly evident on the albums Aftermath, 1966, Between The Buttons 1967, and Their Satanic Majesties Request 1967. Departure From The Band, Jones was arrested a second time on 21 May 1968, for possession of cannabis, which Jones said had been left by previous tenants of the flat. He was facing a long jail sentence if found guilty, owing to his probation. Wyman commented, “The fact that the police had secured a warrant with no evidence showed the arrest was part of a carefully orchestrated plan. Brian and the Stones were being targeted in an effort to deter the public from taking drugs”. The jury found him guilty, but the judge had sympathy for Jones; instead of jailing him, he fined him £50 plus £105 in costs and told him: “For goodness sake, don’t get into trouble again or it really will be serious”. Jones’s legal troubles, estrangement from his bandmates, substance abuse and mood swings became too much of an obstacle to active participation in the band. The Rolling Stones wanted to tour the United States in 1969 for the first time in three years, but Jones was not in fit condition to tour and his second arrest exacerbated problems with acquiring a US work visa. In addition, Jones’s attendance of rehearsals and recording sessions had become erratic; and when he did appear, he rarely contributed anything musically, or his bandmates would switch off his guitar, leaving Richards playing nearly all the guitars. According to Gary Herman,
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The Rolling Stones
This behaviour was problematic during the Beggar’s Banquet sessions, and had worsened by the time the band commenced recording Let It Bleed. While the band was recording ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’, Jones asked Jagger, “What can I play?”; Jagger’s response was, “I don’t know, Brian, what can you play?” From this point, he made himself scarce, rarely attending sessions. By May, he had made two contributions to the work in progress: autoharp on ‘You Got the Silver’ and percussion on ‘Midnight Rambler’. Jagger informed Jones that he would be dismissed from the band if Jones did not appear at a photo shoot on 21 May 1969 for the compilation album Through The Past Darkly. He showed. The Stones decided that following the release of the Let It Bleed album, they would start a North American tour in November 1969. However, the Stones management was informed that because of his drug convictions, Jones would not receive a work permit. At the suggestion of pianist and road manager Ian Stewart, the Stones decided to add a new guitarist, and on 8 June 1969, Jones was visited by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Charlie Watts, and was told that the group he had formed would continue without him. To the public, it appeared as if Jones had left voluntarily; the other band members told him that although he was being asked to leave, it was his choice how to break it to the public. Jones released a statement on 9 June 1969 announcing his departure. In this statement he said, among other things, that “I no longer see eye-to-eye with the others over the discs we are cutting”. Jones was replaced by 20-year-old guitarist Mick Taylor (formerly of John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers). During the period of his decreasing involvement in the band, Jones was living at Cotchford Farm in East Sussex, the residence formerly owned by Winnie-the-Pooh author A. A. Milne, which Jones had purchased in November 1968. There is uncertainty as to the mental and physical state Jones was in. The last known photographs of Jones, taken by schoolgirl Helen Spittal on 23 June 1969, shortly after his departure from the Stones, are not flattering; he appears bloated, with deep-set eyes. However, Alexis Korner, who visited in late June only shortly after the Spittal photos were taken, noted that Jones seemed “happier than he had ever been”. He is known to have contacted Korner, Ian Stewart, Mitch Mitchell and Jimmy Miller about intentions to put together another band.
DEATH OF Brian Jones. 1969 At around midnight on the night of 2–3 July 1969, Jones was discovered motionless at the bottom of his swimming pool at Cotchford Farm. His Swedish girlfriend, Anna Wohlin, was convinced he was alive when they took him out, insisting he still had a pulse. However, by the time the doctors arrived, it was too late, and he was pronounced dead. The coroner’s report stated “death by misadventure”, and noted his liver and heart were heavily enlarged by drug and alcohol abuse.
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Wohlin claimed in 1999 that Jones had been murdered by a builder who had been renovating the house the couple shared. The builder, Frank Thorogood, allegedly confessed to the murder on his deathbed to the Rolling Stones’ driver, Tom Keylock, who later denied this. In the book The Murder of Brian Jones, Wohlin alleges that Thorogood behaved suspiciously and showed little sympathy when Jones was discovered in the pool (he was the last to see Jones alive), but she has stated that she was not present at Jones’s death. Witnesses who claim to have seen the “murder” have been interviewed by journalists; however, these witnesses have almost always used pseudonyms, and none has been willing to go on record or report to the police. A critical witness, still alive, is a man called “Marty” in the Hotchner book Blown Away.
that Cobain was in any negative or suicidal state of mind. He spent the day talking to counselors about his drug abuse and personal problems, happily playing with his daughter Frances. These interactions were the last time she would see her father. The following night, Cobain walked outside to have a cigarette, and climbed over a six-foot-high fence to leave the facility (which he had joked earlier in the day would be a stupid feat to attempt). He took a taxi to Los Angeles Airport and flew back to Seattle. On the flight, he sat next to Duff McKagan of Guns N’ Roses. Despite Cobain’s own personal animosity. When asked if he felt guilty about Jones’s death, Mick Jagger told Rolling Stone in 1995: “No, I don’t really. I do feel that I behaved in a very childish way, but we were very young, and in some ways we picked on him. But, unfortunately, he made himself a target for it; he was very, very jealous, very difficult, very manipulative, and if you do that in this kind of a group of people, you get back as good as you give, to be honest. I wasn’t understanding enough about his drug addiction. No one seemed to know much about drug addiction. Things like LSD were all new. No one knew the harm. People thought cocaine was good for you.”
Many items, such as instruments and expensive furniture, reportedly were stolen from the home after Jones’s death. Rumours also exist that recordings by Jones for his future projects were stolen but nothing has surfaced to date. A watch given by Alexis Korner to Jones, with a personal inscription, surfaced in an auction at Christie’s in New York. The Rolling Stones performed at a free concert in Hyde Park on 5 July 1969, two days after Jones’s death. The concert had been scheduled weeks earlier as an opportunity to present the new guitarist, and the band decided to dedicate the concert to Jones. Before the Rolling Stones’ set, Jagger read excerpts from “Adonais”, a poem by Percy Shelley about the death of his friend John Keats, and stagehands released hundreds of white butterflies as part of the tribute. The band opened with a Johnny Winter song that was one of Jones’s favourites, “I’m Yours and I’m Hers”.
In August 2009 it was reported around the world that Sussex Police had decided to review Brian Jones’ death for the first time since 1969, after new evidence was handed to them by Scott Jones, an investigative journalist in the UK. Scott Jones has traced many of the people who were at Brian Jones’ house the night he died, plus unseen police files held at the National Archives. In the Mail on Sunday in November 2008 Scott Jones said Frank Thorogood killed Brian Jones in a fight and the senior police officers covered up the true cause of death. Robert Greenfield wrote about the police review in the March 2010 edition of Playboy. Depending on the results of this review, the 1969 case that was originally ruled to be death by misadventure could be reopened as a murder investigation or the coroner may be asked to review the inquest verdict. According to Ben Harris, the main person of interest in Brian Jones’s death was the builder Frank Thorogood, who died in 1994. Thorogood was interviewed by police but not charged; other witnesses were not interviewed. As Jones was 27 at the time of his death, he is one of the well known members of the 27 Club.
Jones was reportedly buried 12 feet (3.7 m) deep in Cheltenham Cemetery in a lavish casket sent by Bob Dylan.Watts and Wyman were the only Rolling Stones who attended the funeral. Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull were travelling to Australia to begin filming the movie Ned Kelly; they stated that their contracts did not allow them to delay the trip to attend the funeral. Keith Richards reportedly remained in the recording studio. day, Cobain had agreed to undergo a detox program. Cobain arrived at the Exodus Recovery Center in Los Angeles, California on March 30, 1994. The staff at the facility were unaware of Cobain’s history of depression and prior attempts at suicide. When visited by friends, there was no indication to them
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Death of Brian Jones
Upon Jones’s death, Pete Townshend of The Who wrote a poem titled “A Normal Day for Brian, A Man Who Died Every Day”, Jimi Hendrix dedicated a song to him on US television, and Jim Morrison of The Doors published a poem entitled “Ode to L.A. While Thinking of Brian Jones, Deceased”.
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Death of Brian Jones
1942 - 1969