Ain't It Time We Said Goodbye: The Rolling Stones on the Road to Exile

by Robert Greenfield

Overview

Although they did not know it then, when the Rolling Stones embarked on their farewell tour of Great Britain in March 1971 after having announced they were about to go into tax exile in the south of France, it was the end of an era. For the Stones, nothing would ever be the same again.

For ten days on that tour, the Rolling Stones traveled by train and bus to play two shows a night in many of the same small town halls and theaters where they had begun their career. Performing brand new songs like Bitch, Brown Sugar, Wild Horses, and Can't You Hear Me Knockin' from their as-yet-unreleased album Sticky Fingers live on stage for the very first time, they also played classics like Midnight Rambler, Honky Tonk Women, Satisfaction, Street Fighting Man, and Chuck Berry's Little Queenie and Let It Rock.

Because only one journalist--Robert Greenfield--was allowed to accompany the Stones on this tour, there has never before been a full-length account of the landmark event that marked the end of the first chapter of the Rolling Stones' extraordinary career.

In a larger sense, Ain't It Time We Said Goodbye is the story of two artists on the precipice. For Mick Jagger and Ketih Richards, as well as those who traveled with them, the Rolling Stones' farewell tour of England was the end of the innocence. No laminates. No backstage passes. No security. No sound checks and no rehearsals. Just the Rolling Stones on the road playing rock 'n' roll the way it was truly meant to be seen and heard.

Based on Greenfield's first-hand account as well as new interviews with many of the key players, Ain't It Time We Said Goodbye is a vibrant and thrilling look at the way it once was and would never be again in the world according to the Rolling Stones.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780306823121
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	05/13/2014
Pages:	216
Sales rank:	559,960
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Robert Greenfield, a former Associate Editor of the London bureau of Rolling Stone magazine, has been published in eight different anthologies. His short fiction has appeared in Esquire, GQ, and Playboy magazines. STP: A Journey Through America with the Rolling Stones has been re-published three times in England as well as in America by Da Capo Press in a thirtieth anniversary edition.

A long time member of the Writer's Guild, Greenfield has taught English at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California; film at Chapman College in Monterey, California; and served as an Adjunct Professor of Composition and Literature at the University of San Francisco. He lives in California.

Table of Contents

Prologue: Before the Train Left the Station 1

Part 1 Goodbye, Great Britain 5

Chapter 1 Newcastle, March 4, 1971 7

Chapter 2 Manchester, March 5, 1971 23

Chapter 3 Coventry, March 6, 1971 41

Chapter 4 Glasgow, March 8, 1971 49

Chapter 5 Bristol, March 9, 1971 63

Chapter 6 Brighton, March 10, 1971 67

Chapter 7 Liverpool, March 12, 1971 77

Chapter 8 Leeds, March 13, 1971 89

Chapter 9 London, March 14, 1971 101

Chapter 10 The Marquee, March 26, 1971 109

Chapter 11 Maidenhead, March 30, 1971 117

Part 2 Aftermath 123

Chapter 12 Belfast, Paris, and Nice, March 25-May 21, 1971 125

Chapter 13 Villa Nellgote I, May 27-June 4, 1971 131

Chapter 14 Villa Nellgote II, June 5-11, 1971 141

Chapter 15 Villa Eden, June 12-18, 1971 147

Chapter 16 Villa Nellcote III, June 19-November 30, 1971 151

Chapter 17 Los Angeles, March 24-25, 1972 157

Chapter 18 Vancouver, June 3, 1972-New York City, July 26, 1972 169

Chapter 19 Kingston, Jamaica, December 1972 177

Epilogue: Hail and Farewell 189

Acknowledgments 193

Sources 195

Editorial Reviews

Roanoke Times, 6/15/14
“Greenfield's engaging style pulls the reader into this Britain of the past. He writes in present tense, which makes the reader feel as if she is hanging out backstage with Mick and Keith, and not merely reading tales of the long ago youth of these now aging rock stars…Although all of the sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll one would expect in a Stones bio is here, Greenfield also highlights the band members' humanity.”

Hudson Valley News, 7/2/14
“If you loved the Stones, and want a trip down memory lane, pick up this book and remember.”

Portland Book Review, 7/9/14
“Easy to read.”

Houston Press, 7/1/14
“[Greenfield] has a keen literary take on super-strong personalities. And Ain't It Time We Said Goodbye…brings those personalities to life.”

Waterbury Sunday Republican, 6/29/14
“This book has it appeals, particularly in the portraits Greenfield provides of peripheral players in the Stones' orbit…The book also captures an England and Scotland that would be hard to find now…Some surprises await even those Stones fans who think they've heard it all.”

Curled Up with a Good Book, 6/5/14
“Provides a rare glimpse behind the curtain where all the magic and madness always happens on the road…[A] wonderful rock and roll travelogue…What we have is virtually an unobstructed view of the Rolling Stones in all their glorious decadence…An honest and eye-opening journal of life on the road with the world's greatest rock band.”

Curled Up with a Good Book, 6/5/14
“If anyone has the experience to write this book, it's him. Greenfield combines his observations at the time of the ten-day tour while also adding insights from 40 years of looking back on the events and the behind-the-scenes with the unique cast of characters…It's a fine, short snapshot of the Rolling Stones.”

Library Journal, 6/12/14
“Greenfield's narrative has a breathless, immediate tone that places readers in the middle of the action…This is a visceral and well-crafted portrait of the Stones at a crucial time in their career…An enjoyable look at the group that's likely to appeal to both Rolling Stones followers as well as fans of music journalism in general.”

InfoDad.com,7/3/14
“The chronicle of the end of an era as well as the beginning of a new one…Those of Greenfield's fellow aging baby boomers who were once deeply devoted to the Rolling Stones, and perhaps still are, will enjoy this foray into a dim past age by someone who…was certainly present while some portions of it were made.”

Campus Circle,7/31/14
“An incredibly intimate, behind-the-scenes look at the Rolling Stones. Robert Greenfield followed the band at the tender age of 25 with stunning results.”

Manhattan Mercury,7/20/14
“If you want to know more about secrets, truths and lies, pick up a copy…[An] excellent new read…[Greenfield] is one out of hundreds of Stones' biographers who captures the moods and climates of the group…You'll feel as if you are standing where he stands.”

The Weeklings,8/25/14
“Offers page after page of awesome backstage revelations.”

Bookviews,September 2014
“Greenfield chronicles the group during the ten days before their leave England in tax exile. The story is punctuated by Greenfield's analysis of the seething tensions between Mick and Keith on the cusp of their heyday.”

MusicTomes.com, 9/5/14
“I've been collecting Stones books since that first one in 1964 and, much as I love the huge coffee table jobs, you can't beat up close and personal eye witness accounts from back in the day. Plus he's cleverly added his 2014 insights and clarifications.”—NOT SURE, ANOTHER PERSON MENTIONED HIM IN THEIR INTERVIEW

Midwest Book Review, September 2014
“Offers an insider's survey of life backstage and the different personalities and encounters of each Stones member…An outstanding recommendation for any rock music history collection!”

PopMatters.com, 10/1/14
“Entertaining enough, not surprising given its characters—for whom ‘colorful' hardly covers it—and its evocation of a time when rock still had some countercultural edge and ‘the greatest rock ‘n roll band in the world' hadn't yet become a multimillion dollar corporation…Greenfield serves up some new stuff, including tasty gossip, to keep longtime Stones fans (like this reviewer) interested.”

Glide, 10/8/14
“Sitting down with this book makes for a perfect way to spend a lazy weekend.”

New York Waste, Halloween Issue 2014
“A diary of the Rolling Stones up close and personal.”


Kirkus Reviews, 4/15/14
“A book about one of the most interesting eras in the band's history.”

Folkrocks blog, 4/7/2014
“If you want some he-was-there insights into the band's quirky and changing dynamic, you'll get those.”

Macomb Daily, 4/13/14
“The all-access travelogue takes us inside Stonesworld at a time of shifting inner-band dynamics and in the midst of what was arguably the Stones' creative high point.”

UnderTheRadarMag.com, 5/19/14
“Insightful and informative…Anecdotes around.”

NoHoArtsDistrict.com (North Hollywood), 5/21/14
“[An] engaging book…Charming anecdotes of the comparatively ordinary life led by the Stones on what was announced at the time as well as their farewell tour of Great Britain.”

Milwaukee Shepherd Express, 6/3/14
“A breezy, enjoyable look back at a brief tour of smaller British venues by the Stones in early 1971, in between Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street.

From the Publisher

2014-03-31
A rock journalist mines the same vein for the third time, parlaying his brief access to the Rolling Stones into a short book that reads more like an annotated magazine article. Based in the London bureau of Rolling Stone, American journalist Greenfield (A Day in the Life: One Family, the Beautiful People, and the End of the Sixties, 2009, etc.) enjoyed exclusive access to the Stones' farewell tour of Britain, before tax issues (and drug laws) sent the band on self-imposed exile. Such access would be impossible to imagine today, and perhaps the main value of this book, written 40 years after the fact but expanding on a feature that he filed for the magazine at the time, is the difference between the rock life then and now. The Stones could actually move about without causing riots when they were recognized, and a journalist could just hang around without anyone questioning his presence. The author had never seen the Stones perform before 1970 and has never seen them again in concert since 1972, so his window of experience is narrow, though his insights into the relationship between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards remain valid (if familiar). That 1971 tour found Jagger courting his future wife, Bianca, (a marriage that the author asserts "put the final nail in the coffin of the personal relationship between Mick and Keith") and Richards out of control (and rarely on time) with heroin. The account provides a short companion piece to the book Greenfield wrote with greater detail, but less exclusivity, on the Stones' subsequent tour of the United States (S. T. P., 1974). A book about one of the most interesting eras in the band's history, for those who have never read anything about the Rolling Stones or who need to read everything.

Kirkus Reviews