The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones

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The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones

4.13 of 5 stars 4.13 · rating details · 516 ratings · 48 reviews

Stanley Booth, a member of the Rolling Stones’ inner circle, met the band just a few months before Brian Jones drowned in a swimming pool in 1968. He lived with them throughout their 1969 American tour, staying up all night together listening to blues, talking about music, ingesting drugs, and consorting with groupies. His thrilling account culminates with their final conc...more

Paperback, 416 pages

Published May 1st 2000 by Chicago Review Press (first published 1984)

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Jul 20, 2012 Ben Winch rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: music

Reading about the Stones makes me feel like the hero of the French comedy Brice de Nice, a 30-something surfer who hangs around his waveless bay on the Mediterranean watching Point Break and waiting for the perfect swell. Watching whoever is the latest craze on MTV doesn't help either; the man-made swells that power those 'stars' are less awe-inspiring than sad, conjuring visions of a time when things were different, picking away at the wound. What the Stones did was to ride an uncontrollable wa...more Reading about the Stones makes me feel like the hero of the French comedy Brice de Nice, a 30-something surfer who hangs around his waveless bay on the Mediterranean watching Point Break and waiting for the perfect swell. Watching whoever is the latest craze on MTV doesn't help either; the man-made swells that power those 'stars' are less awe-inspiring than sad, conjuring visions of a time when things were different, picking away at the wound. What the Stones did was to ride an uncontrollable wave from out of an unknown ocean, and any book about them that claims to be more than a litany, a homage or just plain gossip should surely lead us to a greater understanding of the nature of that wave and that ocean. Stanley Booth comprehends this challenge, but ultimately does little more than describe (or suggest) the feeling at the centre - the sense of time standing still as the wave curls around you. Yeah, he was there; he took the drugs and watched the days/months/years slip away. But in a way his book feels like a purgatory, because what point in living that life without the release of being able to jump on stage or write a song or record it now and then? He's not quite a Stone but not a civilian, not entirely in the wave but unable to step out of it and see it from a distance. And ultimately maybe he too has something of Brice de Nice about him - a man waiting for a revelation that can never happen. Listen...

Mark Twain said if you wrote well enough your work would last 'forever - and by forever I mean thirty years.' The True Adventures, first published in the United States in 1984, has lasted slightly more than one half of forever. Whatever they are now, or may be in the future, the Rolling Stones, when they were young, put themselves in jeopardy many times because of who they were, what they were, how they lived, what they believed. During portions of those years, I was with them. Some people survived that era and some didn't. The True Adventures is the story of those days, when the world was younger, and meanings were, or seemed for a time to be, clearer. Almost forever ago.

I mean, wow, that's sad, right? 'Almost forever ago' - I feel that, I really do. And the guy can write, no question. But what does it amount to, this half-remembered transcript of a time when meanings 'seemed for a time to be' clearer? Not much, it seems - and I'm sorry, sorry for this kid who follows around a rock band as if he might find in them the substance necessary to animate his writing, sorry for the older man who looks back on it and wonders what has slipped through his fingers. Music writers, it seems likely, are often frustrated 'literary' writers. That Greil Marcus and Peter Guralnick (who supposedly called Booth's book 'The one authentic masterpiece of rock 'n' roll writing'(!)) should so revere this piece of autobiography-with-scenery-by-the-Stones perhaps says more about their own aspirations to something 'beyond' rock 'n' roll writing than about the value of this book to people who care about rock 'n' roll. Yeah, there's a neat summation of the Stones' careers up to 1969, a couple of vivid descriptions of gigs and a good few pages on the recording of 'You Gotta Move', 'Brown Sugar' and 'Wild Horses' at Muscle Shoals - but taken together that adds up to about a third of the bulk of this monster. I want to like this; I want to believe there's more to it than the realisation that what had seemed so simple and obvious on the drugs is no longer comprehensible; but after 600 pages of nameless dread and no revelation I don't think I can. Stones fans, read it, by all means, but don't expect any great insight. No matter what he says, Stanley Booth was too busy partying to comprehend what 'really' happened.(less)

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Feb 21, 2009 Brian rated it 5 of 5 stars

Brilliantly constructed, explosive, masterful imagery...the best book on rock and roll I have ever read, and I have read far too many books on rock and roll. Covering the Stones at their peak, the chapters alternate and tell two stories in one: the odd chapters build up to Altamont, and the even chapters build up to the death of Brian Jones. The book didn't come out until 1984, and by that point, the culture had so irrevocably changed (and the rebellious relevance of the Rolling Stones)that this...more

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Jan 05, 2012 Aberjhani rated it 5 of 5 stars

On Stanley Booth: Rolling with the Stones on Waves of the Times

This is less a formal review of Stanley Booth’s now-classic book, The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones, than it is a statement of appreciation for the same. In fact, I can state at this time that my biggest criticism of the title, or at least of the edition I own, is that it lacks an index. Having become the modern essential reference text on the Rolling Stones that it is, a reader can only hope that someone plans to publish an...more

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Aug 10, 2012 Alan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Very possibly the strongest rock bio I've read. But it's not truly a member of the genre. Instead, Booth's book is a very personal account of a brief period with The Rolling Stones - the period in which they were simultaneously hitting their peak and facing a tragic, defining note in their career.

Booth's personal account serves to calibrate the experience in your mind. By understanding him, you have a frame of reference to know The Rolling Stones and their context better than would have been pos...more

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Apr 21, 2013 Simon Reid rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Vaguely commissioned to write a book about the Stones, Stanley Booth joined them on their late 1969 US tour, which culminated in the infamous free Altamont Speedway concert. The resulting work alternates chapter-by-chapter between two timelines, one a very good history of the Stones' rise to fame in the 60s, the other the more detailed and first-hand '69 tour diary.

With the benefit of hindsight, Booth is aware of all of that (perhaps overstated) Altamont 'end of an era' baggage, and smartly uses...more Vaguely commissioned to write a book about the Stones, Stanley Booth joined them on their late 1969 US tour, which culminated in the infamous free Altamont Speedway concert. The resulting work alternates chapter-by-chapter between two timelines, one a very good history of the Stones' rise to fame in the 60s, the other the more detailed and first-hand '69 tour diary.

With the benefit of hindsight, Booth is aware of all of that (perhaps overstated) Altamont 'end of an era' baggage, and smartly uses the event as a structural device to build dread into his version of events. He opens the book with a flash-forward - Mick and Keith arrive by night and poke around the place, looking at the desert hippies glugging their jugs of wine, taking in the strange vibe before it all escalates horribly and tragically some hours later. With this rather novelistic trick, he establishes that True Adventures will be unlike most rock writing. It has a fluid, almost novelistic prose style, and when he gets descriptive, Booth's eye (and memory) for detail amongst the haze and chaos of the tour is actually quite incredible. As Greil Marcus points out in the foreword, Booth has largely succeeded in his ambition to channel Raymond Chandler in every sentence. An oddly effective literary role model for a rock bio.

I'd agree that this should appeal even to those who aren't fans of the Stones, but for those who are, it's peppered with priceless insight. For example, the passage about the undercover recording session at Muscle Shoals that begat 'Brown Sugar', 'Wild Horses' and 'You Gotta Move' is thrilling. I've read elsewhere about the Stones sounding hopelessly terrible ("Just awful, like anti-music," in the words of Mick Taylor, their lead guitarist at the time) until their jam somehow stumbles into an epiphany, and I always find accounts of this quite amusing.

There's also some good stuff on Gram Parsons of The Flying Burrito Brothers, who crosses paths with the band several times and was a pal.(less)

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Oct 25, 2012 Ethan Russell") rated it 5 of 5 stars

There is not, nor will there ever be, another book on The Rolling Stones that you can read five or even ten times and be rewarded, every time. I know whereof I speak.

Ethan Russell

posted: 10/25/2012

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Mar 01, 2013 Robert Morrow rated it 1 of 5 stars

The author dominates the book so much you learn very little about the Rolling Stones that you couldn't read in a gossip column. His version of the history of The Stones focuses more on drugs and women than the music, a choice that may sell the book to the public but is hardly a fair assessment of The Stones' contribution to musical history. We hear Mr. Booth whine about his contract, bitch about his life situation and about how many joints he lit, but very little about the subjects of the story....more

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Jan 14, 2013 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

Portrays in bittersweet, Chandleresque style the death of the 60's, the tragedy of Brian Jones and the power of the Rolling Stones just hitting their peak. The sense of impending doom as it crawls towards Altamont is constant and chilling and the Coda provides the inevitable, but no less true for it, grumble about the current dissolution of music and how we once believed that it could make a difference.
Stanley Booth is a true artist, in the heroic sense, I thank him for writing it and I wish I'd...more

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Jul 23, 2012 Dante rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Music fans (esp. Stones fans)

I had the good fortune of finding this paperback in the Used Books for Sale section of the Evanston Public Library, shortly after getting my first-ever root canal at my dentist, whose office is across the street from the library. I paid a whopping 25¢ (maybe 50¢ - not much, in any case...) for it, and in terms of cost/benefit analysis, it might be the best book I've ever paid for. No less an authority than Peter Guralnick -- who wrote the definitive (two-part) biography of Elvis Presley (Last Tr...more

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May 27, 2012 Tim rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: music

If I had to name a ten-year period of music that is not only my personal favorite, but that I believe has had the greatest impact on modern Western music, it would without question be 1965-1975. The beginning of that time period seems to have marked a quickening of the momentum of the 60's, which was reflected in the music. The Beatles engaged in more complex musical creativity with "Rubber Soul" in 1965, as did Bob Dylan with his rock trilogy of "Bringing It all Back Home", "Highway 61 Revisit...more
If I had to name a ten-year period of music that is not only my personal favorite, but that I believe has had the greatest impact on modern Western music, it would without question be 1965-1975. The beginning of that time period seems to have marked a quickening of the momentum of the 60's, which was reflected in the music. The Beatles engaged in more complex musical creativity with "Rubber Soul" in 1965, as did Bob Dylan with his rock trilogy of "Bringing It all Back Home", "Highway 61 Revisited", and "Blonde On Blonde". The Stones too had recorded their first full album of original material in '65, released in '66 as "Aftermath". Many other artists were heading in new directions as well, and the music really did reflect the times in a way that hasn't been done since. There was authenticity and a belief in the spirit of change that was an inherent part of society, and was thus reflected in the music. Black music had always been based on social commentary...the blues/spirituals/jazz being the oldest truly original American music, and the decade of '65-'75 saw artists like Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone and Tina Turner turning towards more socially conscious and bold lyrics rather than staying restricted to the mold of pop hitmakers. Booth refers to the people - the musical audience - as believing "that dancing and music could have a major role in changing the structure of society. They may have been naive, but they were much more interesting than the sensible people who came along later."

Music does have an unexplainable mystic nature about it that I strongly believe can impact personal change, and maybe societal change too, but not society as we know it or change as we know it. Music to me is more personal - healing, reflective and able to communicate in a way that speech alone cannot. Hence why many of us have music as a part of our lives. it touches something that nothing else can.

Stanley Booth is one of the greatest rock bio writers, and this book is an excellent illustration as to why. His way of capturing the Stones '69 tour was not just about the band, but is also about giving the reader a sense of the context/setting (i.e. time period) in which the tour took place. He takes us right up to the infamous Altamont concert, which was an effective mark and abrupt halt to the spirit of the 60's. The music would continue to express a great deal of unmatched creative power (for the Stones and many others) into the early 70's, but eventually commercialization fully co-opted whatever was left, slowly moving many genuine authentic artists into the realm of indie music.

When I first started in radio, I worked at a station that played 50's, 60's and 70's music, and I've always had an appreciation for the Stones, but over the years they've become my favorite band. Life has made it that way, as I've learned to know what the blues and blues-based music is all about - which is to say adversity and the expression of the pain that accompanies it. It is a knowledge that requires a certain amount of life experience (but not necessarily age) to understand.

Ultimately the music to which we find ourselves listening can tell us a lot about who we are. It is interesting to think back on the artists I've enjoyed over the years, and why I've enjoyed them. This is what this book is about - expressions of an author who loves music, and attempts to portray the reason why he loves it by tying it to a time period, a mood, the experiences of the artists themselves, and the society that listens to them. If you read one book about The Rolling Stones, or even Western music in the 1960's, this should be the one.
(less)

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Jul 04, 2012 Jeff rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: rock-criticism, california-subcult, documentary-narrative

In the mid-'60s Stanley Booth wrote apparently on spec a sensitively descriptive, narrative piece on Furry Lewis, the one-legged Memphis bluesman, a piece that was not published until Playboy brought it out in 1970 -- but it seems by then to have been enough to secure Booth an agent, a 1968 assignment to go to London and cover the Rolling Stones, and ultimately, a book-contract to tour with the Stones in the aftermath of the death of their bandmate, Brian Jones, and the free July 5, 1969 Hyde Pa...more In the mid-'60s Stanley Booth wrote apparently on spec a sensitively descriptive, narrative piece on Furry Lewis, the one-legged Memphis bluesman, a piece that was not published until Playboy brought it out in 1970 -- but it seems by then to have been enough to secure Booth an agent, a 1968 assignment to go to London and cover the Rolling Stones, and ultimately, a book-contract to tour with the Stones in the aftermath of the death of their bandmate, Brian Jones, and the free July 5, 1969 Hyde Park concert at which they memorialized him.

Booth's book is an account of traveling with the Stones in America from August 1969 to the December 6, 1969 date on which they offered a free concert at Altamont with the Flying Burrito Brothers, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane & CSNY -- a concert at which four people died, plus one, Meredith Hunter, murdered, apparently for dancing with his white girlfriend in the presence of the Hells Angels. Booth continued to travel with the Stones for several years after this, but this book (not published until 1984, under the dumb-bunny title Dance With the Devil), while one half its chapters narrate in oral history the formation of the band, its growing popularity, and its legal troubles and alienation from Jones, in its other half offers a "history's first draft" of that American fall with the Stones, a crucial one both for the country (it was The Days of Rage) and for the band itself.

The book has many flaws, too many to recount here. Its basic strength will not be gainsaid. It provides a documentary account by one flawed eye-witness to the Stones' scene, as that scene is besieged by sharks, hangers-on, groupies, "birds", pimps, mezzes, frauds, pulp heads, and fans, among whom, the author must of course sort himself out. A moment of unprecedented access to the Stones, and to the basic generosity that worked itself out in the collaboration of Mick Jagger and Keith Richard. The moment was beyond ripe, and Stanley Booth made himself a very productive little fruit fly. I resist the metonymy by which destination Altamont is made to substitute for something idealistic in the counter-culture; nonetheless, as agents of that particular form of what Robert Christgau calls "mass bohemianism," the Rolling Stones will not be resisted, indeed, listening to them, one may still reflect on what is most exigent in that form they so beautifully exemplified. (less)

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Dec 10, 2007 Paul Wilner rated it 5 of 5 stars

Chilling account of Altamont, etc. from one who was there, and everywhere.
Among its (many) other virtues, the book is in part an ode to the legacy of Brian Jones, the tragic protagonist whose travails caused Booth to cross paths with the Stones in the first place; suitably, it ends at his gravesite. In between, it pays deserved tribute to the intrepid spirit of Keith Richards, the late Gram Parsons and too many more to tell.
It is up there with the masterpieces of nonfiction of its period - Mail...more

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Mar 15, 2008 Greta rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography

I liked this book, but feel that it is over rated. This may be due my expectations which hoped for more insights into the stones themselves. This book read more like a concert reporter to me, and I expected more.The author's use of heavy and intellectually artistic quotes from music and literature to start off chapters annoyed me. I felt that they were meaningful moments that attempted to flesh out and even mask some surface and boring material in the chapters. Take these interesting quotes out....more

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Jan 26, 2009 Brent Wilson rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography

This book could have been so much better if the author had had his act together when he was traveling with the Stones. Of course that would have been impossible given the lifestyle and situation.

The result is a text far too focused on the author, and not enough on the Stones. I left with favorable impressions of most of them, but still wishing I knew them better. Shame.

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Jul 03, 2009 Joe rated it 5 of 5 stars

A sad farewell to the 60s, a journal of the Stones 1969 US Tour and the story of Brian Jones and his band, written by somone who was a true believer as well as an insider. Entertaining and very moving.
I recommend it to all the 'Flower Power Week at Bloomingdales' kids who have NO IDEA just how free and crazy that era was. Their parents won't ever tell them, that's for sure!

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Jul 29, 2012 Markku rated it 4 of 5 stars

If you know the film Cocksucker blues, this is a written version of it. But it is more. Booth's presence in the book is strong and while the idea of going throught Stones's history in every other chapter sometimes does not work very well, you get the feeling that this is not like any other tourbook. Well, the merciless details of the Altamont alone makes this stand out from others.

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Jul 04, 2012 Clinton added it

"IF you're going to read a book about the Stones, you may as well read this one because Booth knew the Stones and we knew Booth"... Mick Jagger
Insider's view of the 69 Tour, including Altamont, and excellently written to boot.

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Aug 10, 2010 Stoiph rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

i gotta return this to jeremy

"We knew in our cribs something was wrong. Now some of us by acting together were beginning to defy the forces that made war and to get away with it."

This ruled. Not a typical bio in that it was more about Stanley Booth's experience with the band and commented on things going on in his own life, too. He didn't step outside of it. So many awesome passages detailing his personal thoughts (and realizations) on the music just while watching them play that i had to re-rea...more

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Feb 01, 2008 Joe fortune rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: lovers of debauchary, writers, obsessed fans

Recommended to Joe by: a good friend

Stanley Booth's writing is fascinatingly poetic, yet well researched, journalistic.
This is the type of journalism that people like Hunter S. Thompson subscribed to, but most professors used to frown upon. I refer to the kind where the author becomes part of the subject and really can't say he's objective.
You might not need to be a fan of the band to enjoy it, but if you are then there's nothing better. The portions about Keith Richards, Brian Jones and Gram Parsons(not a Stone) are great.
I...more

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Apr 01, 2013 Jack W Perry rated it 4 of 5 stars

Good inside look at the Stones. It was written in the early-80s, so it is just a snapshot of part of the band's history. But it does cover the most interesting piece. Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll.

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Aug 10, 2012 Michael D rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It may seem that I am just reiterating received wisdom when I say that this is probably the best book ever written about a rock n' roll subject, but plainly, it is. If it were a Stones song it would be 'Gimme Shelter' - masterpiece.

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Jul 25, 2012 Paul Addis rated it 5 of 5 stars

Southern music writer Booth's one of a kind chronicle of Stones' tour ending in Altamont, mixed with history of band.

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Jul 18, 2012 Mike rated it 5 of 5 stars

If you read any book about the Rolling Stones, make it this one.

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Jul 03, 2012 Geoff rated it 3 of 5 stars

writing was not great, but the history was very interesting.

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Sep 27, 2012 Rob Salvin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Booth professes to have intended every sentence to be worthy of Raymond Chandler, an unusually literary ambition for a book about a blues rock band, albeit one as important as The Stones. The fact that he largely succeeds, and the level of access he was granted, make this a remarkable book.

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Sep 04, 2012 Tina Lender rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: gave-up-on

Wish I could have finished it, because I think there may have been a good payoff, but the book was too excruciatingly boring to continue. I despise when authors or filmmakers spend chunks of time describing how difficult it was to get the funding/approval/whatever to make the bio or documentary. Don't make yourself the story. There was a good turn of phrase or two, here and there, but not enough to get through the long passages of what the author ate, whose car he rode in here or there, etc. etc...more

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May 26, 2010 Patrick Wensink rated it 5 of 5 stars

It's my favorite music bio ever and in the running for favorite nonfiction book. This was my second reading and it held up great. A four-headed beast of a rock book, detailing the Rolling Stones' history, how the band and it's lifestyle led to the demise of founder Brian Jones, the death of the 60s with the band's Altamont concert and the author ruining his marriage and picking up a heroin habit in the process.

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Mar 22, 2007 Lavina rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2002-2005, nonfiction

You don't have to be a huge fan of the Rolling Stones to find this a superbly well-written, incredible piece of music journalism -- and a great book, period.

The period covered (1969-1970, ending with Altamont) is indisputably fascinating -- so good fodder for a story -- but this wouldn't be fantastic if it weren't for Stanley Booth's sane telling of it.

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Sep 27, 2012 Glorianne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: music

i enjoyed this book very much....i enjoyed being brought back to the time that was once 1969.....the reder was a part of the rolling stones fmily....and had a lot of insights of the time and the stones.......

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Apr 11, 2008 Stan rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of the only bio's about a band that I can stomach, Booth went from a tag-a-long to a friend of the band that took in all of their temptations. It's a great companion piece to Gimme Shelter.

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