September 13, 2023 • 46 mins
Chris O'Dell has been called the Zelig of rock 'n' roll. After getting her start working at the Beatles' London offices in 1968, she became a trusted confidant of practically every major artist of the '70s. George Harrison, her one time boss, immortalized her in the song "Miss O’Dell.” Leon Russell wooed her by writing “Pisces Apple Lady” in her honor. She's the "woman down the hall" in Joni Mitchell's "Coyote" and was pictured on the back cover of the Stones' Exile on Main Street. More than a muse, she was one of just a handful of professional women in rock, managing gargantuan, globe-trotting tours for the likes of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; Bob Dylan; Linda Ronstadt; Santana; Phil Collins, Earth, Wind and Fire; Fleetwood Mac; Queen and many more. But before all that, she earned her stripes on the STP tour with the Stones. Listen as she reunites with her friends and fellow STP vets Robert Greenfield and Gary Stromberg for the first time since the tour wrapped in 1972. Together they recall drug runs for Keith Richards, long nights at the Playboy Mansion, and longer days in the Rolling Stones' inner sanctum.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Stone's Touring Party is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Stone's Touring Party. I'm
your host Jordan run tug Well. We've hit the midpoint
of our series this week and we truly hope you've
been enjoying it so far. To mark the occasion, we're
going to take a little pit stop from the road
and catch up with one of the key members of
the STP tour squad. So far on the show, we've
heard from legendary rock journalist Robert Greenfield, who was covering
(00:37):
the trek for Rolling Stone magazine, and also Gary Stromberg,
the Stones pr chief. Now we're going to hear from
the third member of the Little Tour Triumvirate, Chris O'Dell
Tanny Rock Scholars listening. She needs no introduction, but we're
going to give her one anyway, because darn it, she
deserves it. Back in nineteen sixty eight, she uprooted herself
from the West Coast to settle in London, where she
(00:59):
went to work for the Beatles at Apple Records. There,
her duties ranged from singing on the chorus to Hey Jude,
to living with George and Patty Harrison as their trusted
friend in Pa. With the Fab four in her resume,
her life would never be ordinary again. Since then, she's
been a confidant and indispensable associate to some of the
greatest artists in history. The New York Times described her
(01:23):
as Nick Carraway to rock's egotistical Gatsby. In other words,
a conscientious observer, an occasional participant in the wild decadence
only found in the seventies music world. George Harrison, her
one time boss, immortalized her in the song miss O'Dell.
Leon Russell wooed her by writing Pisse's Apple Lady in
(01:44):
her honor. She's the woman down the Hall in Joni
Mitchell's Coyote, and was pictured on the back cover of
The Rolling Stones Exile on Main Street. More than a muse,
she held a groundbreaking role as one of just a
handful of professional women in rock, managing Gargante Win globe
trotting tours for the likes of Crosby, Stills, Nash and
Young Bob Dylan, Lynda Ronstadt, Santana, Phil Collins, Earthwin in
(02:09):
fire Fleetwood mac Queen and the Electric Light Orchestra, just
to name a few. But she first earned her stripes
on the SDP tour with the Stones. After retiring from
the road in the eighties, she began a new career
as a therapist, helping counsel an untold number of people
through their addictions. Chris detailed their extraordinary experiences in her
(02:30):
twenty ten memoir Miss O'Dell. Hard Days and Long Nights
with the Beatles, The Stones, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton.
I can't recommend it highly enough. When David Crosby learned
that Chris O'Dell was writing a book, his response was instantaneous,
Oh shit, because she saw it all. To quote the
opening lines in her book, I wasn't famous, I wasn't
(02:52):
even almost famous, but I was there. A documentary on
her life is currently in the works and due to
premiere later this year, but consider this chat a small sample.
Though she remained in touch with Robert Greenfield and Gary Stromberg,
this was the first time the three of them have
talked since the STP tour wrapped in the summer of
seventy two, after more than half a century and a
(03:13):
few camera problems. At the start of the zoom Call,
the memories came flooding back. Chris was having some repair
work done in her home, so she called in from
the office of a congressman. We had so much to
talk about that I didn't even get to ask her
about this connection, But somehow it seems fitting the talented
and insightful Chris O'Dell as many friends in high places.
(03:34):
I hope you enjoy our conversation. Is this the first
time the three of you have all spoken since nineteen
seventy two?
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Yeah, together in one group. We've talked separately.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Yes, I am.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
I am honored.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
Chris bikes to keep Gary and I apart and how
it works.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
I think it's so rotten that you wouldn't show USh
your face today.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I don't believe for a minute you can't figure it out.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
He just doesn't want to show me how old he's got.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Richard, I'm not going to ever look better than you do.
So what's the point?
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Okay, oh god, you're going to get out of that?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
I guess the start. We opened the show with a
question to Bob and Gary, and it was actually the
first question I asked on the day of interviews, and
I showed up with sixteen pages of questions because I'm
a lunatic and The first question wasn't actually one that
I wrote down, and I love their response so much
that it's the first sound you hear on the show,
and I wanted to put the question to you the
(04:44):
STP tour. Was it fun?
Speaker 4 (04:48):
Well, that would be one word I would use.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
I'm not sure that.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
It wouldn't be followed by other things. And I did
actually listen to your first segment last night. I was
listening to it, and I think they had many more
adjectives than I have. It was fun, It was unprecedented.
I felt so lucky to be on that tour because
I wasn't supposed to be And it was also hard.
(05:15):
It was really hard to be on that tour. It
was hard because there were a lot of drugs and
there was a lot of no sleeping, and we were
moving all the time, and it was chaotic at times.
It was like, what was it? Organized chaos? I think
it would be the way to describe it. It was
(05:36):
organized chaos. So but for me, it was definitely. I
think the drugs I came off with that, I walked
away with that one. But that had on I mean, I.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Guess, just to take it back a little ways that
you obviously you got your start in the rock world
at Dot Records and then went to work for the Beatles.
Can you talk a little bit about making that jump
to the Stones camp? What was that like?
Speaker 5 (06:00):
Well?
Speaker 4 (06:00):
I had met Mick in London when I was still
working at Apple, and not that we were friends or anything,
but when they were moving to LA to finish Exile
on Main Street, Marshall Chess, who was the head of
their rolling Stone Records at that time, needed an assistant
and I had come back to LA to work for
Peter Asher. So I was told about that position and
(06:25):
I thought, yeah, I'd rather be working for a band
and sitting in a management office. So I got the job.
But it turned out I really didn't see Marshall very often.
He was doing his own things. So basically I was
mostly assisting Mick and Keith during the times that they
lived in LA. So I started off by finding them
(06:46):
places to live. For three of them Mick Taylor also
stayed in LA. The other two they would just come
over when they were needed. So I worked every day
at mix House basically, and I helped them all. Prior
to the tour, I was still assisting them, but I
wasn't included in the tour because I didn't really have
a job. Now that I've done a lot more tours,
(07:09):
I can totally understand that, but at the time I
felt still left out. So Mick said, don't worry, I'll
get you there. So I missed the first what was
at Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco. I missed those shows, But
when they got down to the southern part of California,
(07:29):
then I got on them and Nick said, look, don't worry,
I'll figure out a way, and he did. I think
after they were in Chicago. Right before they were in Chicago,
he called and said, would you go to the airport
and pick up some things that have been sent from
Ozzie Clark in London, so meet the costumes And I said, okay,
what do you want me to do with them me?
He said, bring them to Chicago. So that's how I
(07:51):
ended up in the madness. Other that I was doing
quite sanely in La b.
Speaker 5 (07:59):
I forgot this. Chris, you were in the Playboy mansion
with us? Yes, you didn't stay there, did you?
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Well? I think that we all pretty much stayed there
the whole night. No, I was I had a hotel
room all right right, Yeah, I came to Bill an Astro.
I came and was staying with them and visiting with
them at the mansion. But it was a long I mean,
(08:27):
I don't even remember going back to the hotel.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
I can't even imagine what the Playboy Mansion was like
in nineteen seventy two, what Hugh Hefner was like in
seventy two. What was your feeling on that scene?
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Like, you know, I thought it was pretty weird for
a kickoff to be. Hugh Hefner was wearing a bathrobe.
Stevie Wonder did a set. He came in and he
and his band set up and they did a set
for Hugh in the main room. It was the funniest
thing is it was like Astro told me right off
(09:01):
the bat, if you need anything to eat, don't worry.
You can get it anytime you want. Just tell them
what you want and it can be anything. That was
pretty bizarre, but we you know, it was just fun.
I mean, people were laughing. There was a game room,
there was a pool, it was a play it was
it was Disneyland on speed.
Speaker 5 (09:24):
So just to clarify, Chris is talking about Bill Wyman
and his companion at the time Astrad.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
Lindstrom and Lundstrom.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
It was one of the few other women on tour,
right Chris.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Oh yeah, they didn't bring their wives out. No one
brought their wives out at that period of time. But
that was part of Bill's deal with the Stones is
I won't come if I can't bring her. So she
was actually about the only woman.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Wow, I mean, thinking about the whole Playboy Aura in
nineteen seventy two, it feels like such a I mean,
I know this is from the vantage point of fifty
years later, but seems like such a culture shock to
you know, the burgeoning women's liberation movement, and you know,
you were a professional woman in rock and roll, Like
was that? How did those two worlds coexist?
Speaker 4 (10:12):
I don't, honestly. I was thinking about it this morning
and I thought, well, first of all, you know I
always say when your resume starts with the Beatles, you
pretty much can it's kind of easier to get a
job after that. So then the Rolling Stones were unnatural,
you know, here I go to them. But it didn't
(10:33):
ever occur to me. I did realize I was the
only woman mostly on the tour except when girlfriends came
and everything, But I was busy. I had a job
to do, so I just felt in a lot of
ways like I was one of the guys just doing
my job. And I was thinking about it today and
I thought, you know, it is kind of interesting that
I did all that and I never thought about making money.
(10:59):
I was, I mean, two good at a time, so
I didn't think about, jeez, I should probably figure out
how to make some money out of this.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
Chris, hadn't you come off an extended tour with Santana
right before the.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
Crosby Stills, Nash and Young was the tour? No? I
did that afterwards. The Stones was the first tour I did. Wow,
that was my initiation tour.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
That's just the heck of an initiation. I mean, I
I guess the thing that's always interesting to me is
at what point did the star struck feeling wear off?
And I know, I'm sure you were acclimated to this
with the Beatles too, But at what point did the
Stones just become you know, the guys or did that
ever happen?
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Well? It did because I saw them every day, and
you know it started with you know, probably earlier when
I went to work with the Beatles. Because it was
my first time being around that level of celebrity fame.
But I think after a while you just get used
to it and you become They become friends, you get
(12:07):
to know who they are. You know, you like them,
you don't like them, you like things about them, you
don't like things about them. So they lose that that glow,
that luster fairly quickly and just become people. And that's
what they are. They're just people who play music really well.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
The really good music.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
Yeah, even with the Beatles, wasn't it different being in
England with them than what it was like being with
the Stones in America?
Speaker 4 (12:36):
Well, it was different, And yes, for one thing. When
I lived in England and worked for the Beatles, which
was way back in sixty eight sixty nine, the culture
was so different. It's like one of the things that
I continue to repeat is I went there with this
American attitude and said I want things right now. In
(12:56):
America that meant tomorrow. In England met next week. So
it was a lot easier to get things done in
the States. But I mean, I know you guys have
talked about this. It is amazing when you think about it.
We had no cell phones, no computers. We had to
go look for phones a lot of the time, so
(13:19):
it's amazing that we even got through that whole period
without modern technology.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I mean, I was in the midst of writing an
introduction for you for this episode, and I was struggling
to find the proper term for what you were on
the tour and for the Stones, because you just seemed
to do everything. An assistant didn't seem to do justice
to what you did. And to think of all that
you did without the aid of the Internet or cell phones,
it's absolutely mind boggling. I mean, just can you talk
(13:45):
a little more about just the variety of the thing
that I mean, every day must have been anything could
happened today in terms of what was on your agenda.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Well, during the Stones, when I was working for them
in La, of course, every day was different. It would
be helping to get lyrics typed up. It would type
up lyrics, give them back to make I had to
sit and listen to the recordings they would bring in
or the acetates and get the words they didn't write
them down, and then Mick would come back and correct
(14:13):
them or Keith would And then on the other hand,
I could be looking for someone to come and clean
their house, or a babysit, a nanny over here, or
go to the bank and get money for them. You know,
it just varied. It was everyday occurrence, but on the
tour my job was a lot more limited because everybody
(14:35):
else was doing so much, so I work directly for them.
Mick would say, would you fly to New York and
get my camera fixed? Take it to Kodak and get
the camera fixed. Or Keith would say, would you fly
to LA and pick up some stuff and bring it back,
Or you know, can you get my cleaning in. Can
(14:57):
you make sure these clothes get cleaned overnight. It was
it's just so many things. You never knew what was
coming next.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
I wanted to ask you. I know, when your book
came out, every journalist seemed to ask you about going
on a drug run for Keith Richards. That was always
the craze that they would use, and it always cracked
me up reading your interviews, and even in your book
you'd say you didn't really see it that way. It
was just a job to do that day.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
It was part of the job. It's like, you know,
he says, go to LA and so I get they
get me a ticket, I'd fly to LA Remember, no security,
no airport security. There was nothing to cause any interruption.
To this time, I didn't see it as a drug run.
The only time it was a little weird was when
I had to go and meet this guy at his
(15:45):
house to pick up this stuff. And I was a
little nervous about that. But at that point, in those days,
I didn't think about that. We didn't think about those
kind of things.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
It's a great line in your book. I had no
idea how much money I handed over, figuring that if
I didn't look, I didn't know, and if I didn't know,
I'd be Okay, that's beautiful. And then he I think,
I forget if it was Mick or Keith. I think
it was probably Keith handed you his his mobile pharmacy
bag in Rhode Island when the arrest was going down.
(16:17):
I mean, in a sense that must have made you
feel honored.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Or just nearby. It was his medical bag. He carried
the doctor's medical bag with all his stuff in it.
And all I remember is I was I was close.
I was standing close to him, and we were all
just kind of who Gary, were you guys there? Gary?
You were there?
Speaker 6 (16:42):
Right.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
Remember, it was just like, what the heck, what is
going on here? And Keith just knew he was next,
so he just handed me the bag and said, Keith,
this for me. And it never occurred to me it
could have gotten me in trouble. None, Listen, I think
I also carried drugs across the border at one time
(17:04):
for CS and Y. You just it wasn't that scary
back then.
Speaker 5 (17:09):
Right, No coincidence that the only woman on the tour
would be left holding the bag exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
The tour just insulars the word that Bob Gary used
so many times when we interviewed them. I mean, that
must have been such a rude intrusion to this very
tour bubble when all of a sudden the cops are
taken away, making Keith and Marshall and Robert Frank and yeah,
what was that like?
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Well, you know, I think that we had an attitude of, well,
how dare you that is shown to do? How can
you interrupt this great organization we've got going with this
petty little stuff. You shouldn't have been here anyway, And
so there was a feeling of entitlement. It's kind of
(17:57):
like we are the royal family you know, just piss off,
am I right? Guys.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
One of the things I loved about Chris is she
just said it a minute ago. It never occurred to me.
Speaker 7 (18:13):
Most of the things that we experienced never occurred to
Chris because she lived in the moment and it was
all okay with her, and she handled whatever it was
it had to be done, she handled it. And the
consequences that all that just never occurred to her as
to many of us.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
That's true. We just went with it, didn't We went
with it.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
Well.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
The installation of all of that is that we it's
this way on every tour is that when you're on
the tour, all you know is what's going on in
the tour, and anything outside in the world just isn't
a part of your life. It has nothing to do
with it. You're like a little village that just travels around.
Keep it moving, keep it moving. Even people who would
(18:56):
come to see a show, you guys know this. You
get tickets for a friend or something, it's like, I
really can't talk to you because you're not in mind.
You just aren't there. You're not on my wavelength. So
it was it was pretty strange that one particularly.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
So the thing about that tour was that even within
that small, tight community, there are subgroups. And I will
just for the record happily that Gary and I and
Chris were like the three Musketeers. We hung out together
before after enduring wonderful any Leebwood's photograph that I wish
(19:34):
I had sent Chris where we're back with Madison Square
Garden and we're both wiped out, and I Chris is
wearing these incredible spangled rock and roll pants and she
has extended her legs across my lap and I'm basically
half asleep, and so is she. You know what I mean.
But we were such good friends on the tour, and
(19:57):
the thing about Chris and you hear it is that
there is this amazing innocence no matter what kind of
insanity she's involved in.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Yeah, I think that's very sweetly said. I appreciate that.
Thank you. Naive A little naive I can remember, and
I'm pretty sure I got this memory right, but I
remember standing on the roof of the hotel in New
Orleans or something like that, and all of us going,
(20:29):
what are we doing? What are we doing here?
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Describe all of these moments in your incredible book, I
mean just the Beatles, James Taylor for with Mac, I mean,
it just goes. The names go on and on and on.
For the STP tour, is there a magical moment for
you that really stands out? I know Bob and Gary
have been using the phrase peak experience a lot when
describing various moments. Was there a peak experience on the
(21:15):
STP tour for you?
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Well, there were more than a few, but I think
one of them was the night they decided that they
were going to have a meeting in Detroit and get
rid of people because the tour had become so there
were so many people on it, and you know, Peter
Rudge and Joe Bergman, they all, you know, they got
(21:41):
together and somehow the word came out and so they
had a meeting the Stones and the execs on the tour.
And that was a pretty hairy night because I figured
I was pretty much on the list to go because
I was working for the Stones. I wasn't working for
the tour, and I remember Bill and came out and said,
(22:01):
you're You're fine, You're okay, you get to stay. But
that was Harry. I mean, though later I did actually
leave the tour because I just felt it was too much.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
Did you leave the tour.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
After Nashville? We played Nashville.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
And then yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Went to Memphis with Bill and Astrid and Duck Dunne,
and it was at that point that I just thought,
I can't bear it. I can't deal with this anymore.
Everybody's so angry. So I flew back to LA and
decided I wasn't going back on the tour. It was
during a break, it was an official break time.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
And then why did you go back?
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Because Keith called me? I figured I called me after
the first show, I think, and said why aren't you here?
And I said because I I don't have anything to do?
And he said, yes, you do, you better get back here.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
That must have made you feel amazing. How did that feel?
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Well, it made me feel like they appreciated me. I
felt appreciated because I certainly didn't feel like that. It
was easy to get lost in all of that chaos
and not feel like you really had a job to do.
And I didn't want to be a.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
Liguor always hard to say no to Keith.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
Right, Yeah, there's no saying no to Keith.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
One of the things that we touch on on the
show is just sort of the politics of being around
the Stones and the stress of keeping your spot in
the inner circle, and the mind games that it entails,
and how crushing it can be if you don't make
it into the limo with one of the principal players.
And I think that Bob is a great line in
the stp book about how people avoid eye contact with
(23:52):
the untouchable for fear of contagion, I think is the phrase.
I was just wondering about that, because I know you
write about that in your book also about just being
around the Stones. It's got to be addictive in a
way too, that kind of attention, and it's adrenaline.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
It's an addiction to adrenaline. And you know, it was
the same with the Beatles. I mean, you know, but
the Stones, especially on tour. Yeah, it's like in a
drenaline rush. That's what I found out was that you
could really work, you could live on very little sleep.
At that time. I didn't know that until after I'd
(24:27):
done it for a few days.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
I mean from my vantage point, I mean, going on
tour with the Rolling Stones or any one of the
lists of many artists that you a tour manager for
I mean, it just seems so romantic and so incredible
and fun. But you know, we see in books and
documentaries and I'm hearing it from you now. I mean,
it can get grueling. I think I remember reading I
think Gary lost thirty pounds on the SDP tour or something.
(24:51):
I mean, it's curious about the day to day, like
actually going through it is always interesting to hear about,
like kind of the stuff that I don't think about
the stuff that isn't all, you know, being backstage while
they do brown Sugar and all the highlights of it,
Like how would you pass the time? Like what first
drew the three of you together?
Speaker 4 (25:12):
The three of us? Yeah, two guys and me. Well, Garry,
did I tell you? I don't remember if I knew
you before the tour. Gary.
Speaker 8 (25:23):
You were the one who got me the job, Chris, Oh,
I was, yes, old the one who got me a
meeting with.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Nick that he needed a PR. They needed PR and
you called me.
Speaker 6 (25:39):
I don't remember exactly why you you know, picked me,
but you did.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
And you set up the meeting for me at Marion
Davies's house.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Oh up at the Yeah, at the house. Oh, that's interesting. Well, oh, okay,
you're welcome.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
So at the point, my point here would be Chris
as a list of accomplishments that even she is not aware.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Thank you. Oh well, I must have known of you
before that then, definitely, because you were definitely on my radar.
So working with Peter Asher.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
I was going to say, it must have been Peter Asher.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
Yeah, definitely, yeah, because we were friends.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
We were friends, yes, yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
Yeah, and Bob I didn't even know who he was
until he showed up, but I was so impressed that
Rolling Stone sent him that it didn't matter.
Speaker 5 (26:34):
Well, I'd like to say that after that tour, Chris
was constantly on the road. Am I wrong?
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Yeah, it took a year off just to kind of well,
first of all, I had to finish up with the Stones,
and then I took a year off because it was
my first attempt to really get off of drugs and
alcohol and everything. But then in nineteen seventy four I
started touring with csnyon and then it didn't stop throughout
(27:01):
the next probably ten years or more.
Speaker 5 (27:04):
Wow was this?
Speaker 2 (27:05):
I mean, I know this was your first time out
on tour, but I know you were aware of rock
and roll tours. Was there something about the Stones tour
in seventy two, even in the lead up to it,
that felt like this is different, The scope of this
is different, scale, this is different. Was that a parent
even in the lead up and when you were on it.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
That's a hard one because I don't have a real
good perspective on that. But I had gone to the
sixty nine tour. I went to their concert in LA
with Leon Russell as it happens, and then I was
hanging out with Ethan Russell while they were in LA
during that period of time, so I saw them, and
(27:45):
I think by the time Exile came out, I was
so involved in it it didn't really occur to me
that it was going to be what it turned out
to be. And you know, it just seemed like, Okay,
they're going on tour, a new double album out, So
I don't really think I thought about the fact that
we'd be talking about it today.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Well, speaking of the double album, you were on the
double album, I wanted to ask you about that. How
did you come to uh to grace the cover.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
Robert Frank I guess because he took my picture in
the garden of Marshall Chess House rental house and then
it was on the cover. I had no idea it
was going to be on the cover until I saw
the mock up of it.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Mortalize. Let's let's do a quick count. You've been more
lies by George Harrison, Rolling Stones, Joni Mitchell and.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
Coyote, Jordan's Apple Lady, Leon.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Roussey and Russell of course, yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 5 (28:40):
The track is miss O'Dell and.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
That Arizona congressman who is she's sitting his office.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Now. Call it too much history, too much unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Yeah, I'm lucky.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
One of the things that we really hope to do
with this STP show not only had it be a
history of the Stones at this moment in rock and roll,
but history of this really pivotal moment in America in
nineteen seventy two. I mean, I think that the Watergate
breaking occurred, I think a week into the tour, and
Governor Wallace in Alabama when he was running for president,
(29:17):
was shot I think a week or two before the
tour began, and just it's such a fraught time in America.
I mean, a big through line, at least in the
show that we're putting together is the Hell's Angels the
fear of repercussions from them for the disaster at Altamont.
Was there a sense of danger prevalent that you noticed
on the road or is that not really something that
was on your radar.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Well, first of all, I just want to say, and
I'll come back to that, that one of the Hell's
Angels who was involved in the Ultimont think Sweet William
was one of the two that came to app. I
was gonna ask wee William pretty well? I knew him
pretty well. In fact, he died a couple of years
ago and his girlfriend told me about it, told me
he passed on. But well, that was one thing, is
(30:01):
that I knew someone who had actually been a part
of it. But you know, we had bodyguards, and I
think just the idea of having bodyguards at that point
took away any fear of anything happening. And of course
we hadn't had the awful knowledge that people could shoot
a gun while you were on stage. We didn't think
(30:23):
about that. In fact, actually it's interesting that back at
that time, when Nick had the house in bell Air,
there's no wall around it. There was no security at
that house. Today that wouldn't you couldn't even do that, so,
you know, and Keith same thing. There was no protection
in LA during that period of time because nobody thought
(30:44):
about it. So my memory is I felt okay that
there were bodyguards.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
I remember. I think in your book you said something
about how Leon Russell said something like, you know, someday
we're all going to be living in houses with gates,
and you think, thinking, oh what, you know, that's a
real bummer thought.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
But yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
That's surprising, that's surprising relatively soon after the Manson murders
that things were still as open as they were, And
I guess that's beautiful in a way that people still were.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
It was. Listen, when I lived at George Harrison's house
at Friar Park, a guy climbed in the top window
one night and eventually someone climbed in or came in
through his kitchen window, and we all know what happened
with that. But you know, no one really took it
seriously back then that anything could possibly happen until John
(31:36):
Lennon was shot, and I think that changed things dramatically,
would you agree, Bobby, Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
The Hell's Angels arriving at Apple in what was it
Christmas sixty eight. I would love to know more about that.
I mean, you you must be one of the only
people on the SDP tour that had first hand relations
with the Hell's Angels. That's incredible.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
What was that like?
Speaker 4 (31:58):
Oh, it was just another crazy thing. It was like,
everything's just another little movie. I mean, you know, I
mean I figured I'd rather be friends with them than enemies,
so you know, I made an effort to get along
with them, and we became friends during the time they
were there. I didn't keep in touch with them afterwards,
but they were just, you know, people who had this
(32:21):
crazy way about them. I had to ride on a
motor cycle with them, so I did. Sweet William took
me out on his motorcycle after we had dropped acid
him too, and it was snowing, and we got around
Herod's and he started to turn around and the bike
just kind of slid. Now maybe he thought he was
(32:42):
in control, but I didn't, and I thought, oh my god,
I'm dying with the helsing.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
Ladies and gentlemen. Chris O'Dell.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
It was a great I can't remember for his Neil
Aspinall or who it was, He tells the story about
how the Apple Christmas Party then bringing out this huge
the biggest turkey or duck or something that anyone had
ever seen, and then just the Hell's Angels just descending
on it like a cartoon and then backing away and
there's nothing but like a bone picked clean, and that
(33:14):
was that was all it was left.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Oh and the other side of it. While they were
doing that, knocking people out, John was Father Christmas and
was what's your name, Mama Christmas? Or so they were
wandering around in their little red and white suits and
their beards and the Hell's Angels knocking people out. You
(33:40):
got to say, how did anybody not have a good
time with all of this kind of drama going on?
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Right?
Speaker 4 (33:46):
It's not boring?
Speaker 2 (34:08):
I'm reminded. Now there's a moment in your book I
think you're I believe you're speaking too. I want to say,
you're hypnotherapist. And you said, do you think I would
make a good therapist? I'm thinking of doing that? And
he said, well why not? You've seen it all? And
which I mean, speaking to you now, that that really
that that holds true. I mean, I'm I'm curious now
(34:30):
since you've you know, gone on to helping an untold
number of people through your your new career as a
counselor and hypnotherapists. I believe specializing in addiction has that
changed how you view some of the behavior or your
experiences on the STP tour at all.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
No, I don't think so. I think they're very they're
very separate. But what it has taught me is, I mean,
the one thing that I've thought about is just my
own role in all of that. And you know, would
I have done and some of the things I did
if I hadn't been using, Probably not. But at the
same time, would I've been able to keep it? I mean,
(35:11):
you know, I got to admit that drugs helped. Keith
told me once you can keep up with the guys. Now,
is that a compliment or what kept me in drugs
for a long time? Keith? Thank you? So, you know,
I think what's real is that back then that was
(35:32):
just part of what the culture was doing. We were
all in our twenties or early thirties and we were
doing drugs. That was part of what we did. And
some of us didn't make it, as you guys said,
you know, they dropped by the wayside, and some of
us did, and thank god we did.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
You've all in your respective books and in speaking to
me all kind of mentioned that it's not something that
you can really understand if you didn't live through it.
What the relationship to drugs was. I think it was
Gary said that that was just kind of the currency,
especially in the rock and roll world of the time.
And you know, drugs weren't drugs weren't bad, drugs were fun.
(36:13):
I believe it was a quote from Gary.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
It just that was we certainly weren't aware of the
consequence as well.
Speaker 5 (36:18):
We were.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
Not at all. If anyone died from what we just said,
they overdid it. But actually there was some insight that
I'd like to share with you, which is that after
working with a lot of drug addicts and being in
my own sobriety and everything, it did make sense that
there was a lot of drugs in that culture and
(36:42):
that music culture, because I really believed that the people
who used drugs it's a way to escape the harshness
of reality and have fun. But it also kind of
helps you not look at all the crap that's going
on around you, and that typically the alcoholics and drug addicts.
I've worked with her sensitive people, and the people in
(37:04):
the music business and the music world are typically not
one hundred percent you know, pretty sensitive people with feelings
that have feelings. So if there's anything that I've sort
of thought about since then, it would be that.
Speaker 6 (37:20):
I have the view that these artists that we worked
with were, like Chris describes, very sensitive people, and no
one really has the appreciation of what it's like working
out there without a net. People take our big risk takers,
and it's extraordinary that they're capable of doing it. Drugs
(37:41):
provided that safety net and the appearance of the safety net.
It allows you to go out there on that stage
and risk it because you felt, you know, so powerful.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
But what we all came to believe later was that
that was a false god.
Speaker 5 (37:57):
You know that.
Speaker 6 (37:59):
Exactly, strength that we have, the talent that we had,
was inside of us.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
It wasn't the chemicals that provided it for us.
Speaker 5 (38:07):
Listen, the the intersection of drugs and art goes all
the way back to the Quincy and Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
and it's a different kind of Did you ever see
him on stage? Coleridge could really rock, man, you know,
so Wordsworth not nearly as good I saw him, and
(38:29):
you know he's just he was acoustic. You know, who
cares too pastoral? But the point is that what listen,
My point here is and I celebrate both Gary and Chris.
I have some sense of what they lived through and
how they overcame what they lived through, and more to
(38:49):
the point, they have helped more people than two people
I know, Okay, And so that's why we're all talking
together to and you know, I really respect and I
honored them for having done what they did. Thank you all.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
I took the words right out of my mouth. I
was about to say that both of you are rock
stars in the field of helping people through addiction. And
it's just astonishing what you've done. And you've spoken so
movingly and poignantly, not only about you know, there's beautiful
descriptions of Keith in your book, Chris, about being I
think the word you use was softy, I mean, but
(39:26):
the very sweet portrait of him. And also you speak
of the people and Bob does this too in the
stp book about the people who weren't the superstars, and
he said words to the effect of these are the
people who would have the toughest time adjusting back into
normal life after being swept up in the stp hurricane.
(39:50):
The adjustment after the show was over, Like, what is
that like for somebody who's never been through the tour.
I can only imagine what it was like to suddenly not.
Speaker 5 (39:57):
Have that Well.
Speaker 4 (39:59):
I think he've talked about it even in his book,
that it's so hard to I can't remember his exact words,
but something about how difficult it was to get out
of that and go back into normal life, his normal life,
which was real different than my normal life. It happened
on that tour. It happened on every tour I did. That.
(40:21):
When it's over, it's like the end of a relationship.
It's very sad, it's lonely. Suddenly you're back in your
own little world and they're not all there. The one
thing I noticed is I would go around doing different
things in town and I would think I saw people
from the tour, because people would remind me of them,
(40:44):
and I'd have gone, oh no, So it takes a while.
It's kind of like withdrawing. It's like withdrawal in a way,
you kind of withdraw.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Yeah, I know you've said the several times on here.
I mean you manage tours for CSO and why Bob
Dylan Fleetwood Mac, I mean, did you cross pass with
the Stones again when you were out on the road
in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Yeah, I did know at the Fleetwood Mac tour in Europe,
I did came in was staying in the same hotel
we were, and uh, and I know that they's one
of the Lindsay what was his name, Lindsay from Fleetwood Mac.
I remember he looked at me and thought, who are you? Yeah,
(41:27):
well I could read him, he just didn't kind of
connect with me. And then he saw Mick and it
was like I just knew. He was going like, well,
who are you that you are?
Speaker 5 (41:37):
Not that you know him?
Speaker 4 (41:38):
He came over to talk to you. But yeah, I
ran into them. You know, over the years a number
of times, even after I had married into the aristocratic
English world, he would show up be at some of
the parties that we would go to with the aristocracy.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
It's just one of them are married into the aristocracy.
Currently speaking to us from a former congressman's office, the
the rarefied error in which you which you breathe the
circles in which you travel. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
Meanwhile, I don't have a bathroom or a sink at
my house.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
So there, wait on the dose. What's it? You know?
Speaker 3 (42:20):
So I never stopped you.
Speaker 4 (42:23):
I'm sure Gary, I have to ask this. It's a
burning question. Have you talked about the prophylactic?
Speaker 5 (42:30):
Oh my god, I brought it up.
Speaker 4 (42:32):
Yeah, okay, it is.
Speaker 5 (42:36):
To hear you discuss it. Tell us your memory of
the prophylactic.
Speaker 4 (42:41):
That is one of the huge most the hugest is
that the right English. The hugest memory of was I
remember getting on the plane somewhere and coming up because
you guys would you'd sit with Astard in the area.
Asterd and Bill would sit in and the Rockers we're
back in the bag going crazy and I come up
(43:03):
front and I look down and there's this big rubber
hanging there, white stuff, and I'm like, what is that?
I thought that was ingenious, thank you.
Speaker 5 (43:18):
I remember getting dangling it from between his fingers, not
to just like like casual like hanging out. I'm hoping
these are my worried beads, That's what exactly.
Speaker 4 (43:30):
And it was so sad when they got smaller and smaller.
Speaker 5 (43:36):
Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
Okay, sorry, you know, I.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Had I had a whole, you know, meaningful question I
wanted to end on. But you know what, that might
just do it.
Speaker 5 (43:50):
That might be the perfect listen to the sadness of
the prophilectic getting smaller. That's a Crystan O'Dell concept. You
can't who else will think about that? You're like, oh,
it's not as big as it was.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
It's sort of it's a beautiful it's like the flip side.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
Of the drugs either anymore.
Speaker 4 (44:12):
Well, I abided in that prophylactic, so I was paying attention.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
It's the flip side of the I think it was
the chipmunks story about how he passed one hundred dollars
bill around with the plate of cocaine and then he
got it back at the end when it made it
through the circle and one hundred dollar bill and replaced
with a one dollar bill. So that was that to
fined the curdling of the sort of the openness.
Speaker 5 (44:37):
Yeah, sure, it was the end of the sixties.
Speaker 4 (44:41):
Can we do this every week?
Speaker 5 (44:46):
I'd be honored.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Oh I just I am. I am so honored to
speak with you. I'm honored to be a part of
an honorary part of your your your triumvirate right now.
I'm this thank you. This has been such a joy
and I'm just it so makes me so happy to
see you all speaking for the first time since the
Ahtfeet tour. That's just that's just really, I feel like
(45:11):
it makes the whole project worthwhile. Just bringing the three
of you together again, it makes me happy.
Speaker 4 (45:15):
I love those guys, both of them.
Speaker 5 (45:18):
Love you, Chris, Howris, thank you.
Speaker 4 (45:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Stones Touring Party,
reuniting these three stp vets. We'll be back on the
road next week because the Stones arrive and a Los
Angeles still reeling from the Manson murders. Though Charlie himself
was in prison, members of the family still roamed the
streets and hills of Hollywood and left one member of
the tour fearing for his life. So join us back
(45:49):
here again next week. We'll see you then.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
Stone's Touring Party is written and hosted by Jordan Runtalk
co executive produced by Noel Brown and Jordan Runtalk, Edited
in sound designed by Noel Brown and Michael Alder June.
Original music composed and performed by Michael Alder June and
Noel Brown, with additional instruments performed by Chris Suarez, Nick
Johns Cooper and Josh Thain. Vintage Rolling Stones audio courtesy
(46:20):
of the Robert Greenfield Archive at the Charles Deering McCormick
Library of Special Collections in Northwestern University Libraries. Stone's Touring
Party is a production of iHeartRadio
Stone's Touring Party is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hello everyone, and welcome back to Stone's Touring Party. I'm
your host Jordan run tug Well. We've hit the midpoint
of our series this week and we truly hope you've
been enjoying it so far. To mark the occasion, we're
going to take a little pit stop from the road
and catch up with one of the key members of
the STP tour squad. So far on the show, we've
heard from legendary rock journalist Robert Greenfield, who was covering
(00:37):
the trek for Rolling Stone magazine, and also Gary Stromberg,
the Stones pr chief. Now we're going to hear from
the third member of the Little Tour Triumvirate, Chris O'Dell
Tanny Rock Scholars listening. She needs no introduction, but we're
going to give her one anyway, because darn it, she
deserves it. Back in nineteen sixty eight, she uprooted herself
from the West Coast to settle in London, where she
(00:59):
went to work for the Beatles at Apple Records. There,
her duties ranged from singing on the chorus to Hey Jude,
to living with George and Patty Harrison as their trusted
friend in Pa. With the Fab four in her resume,
her life would never be ordinary again. Since then, she's
been a confidant and indispensable associate to some of the
greatest artists in history. The New York Times described her
(01:23):
as Nick Carraway to rock's egotistical Gatsby. In other words,
a conscientious observer, an occasional participant in the wild decadence
only found in the seventies music world. George Harrison, her
one time boss, immortalized her in the song miss O'Dell.
Leon Russell wooed her by writing Pisse's Apple Lady in
(01:44):
her honor. She's the woman down the Hall in Joni
Mitchell's Coyote, and was pictured on the back cover of
The Rolling Stones Exile on Main Street. More than a muse,
she held a groundbreaking role as one of just a
handful of professional women in rock, managing Gargante Win globe
trotting tours for the likes of Crosby, Stills, Nash and
Young Bob Dylan, Lynda Ronstadt, Santana, Phil Collins, Earthwin in
(02:09):
fire Fleetwood mac Queen and the Electric Light Orchestra, just
to name a few. But she first earned her stripes
on the SDP tour with the Stones. After retiring from
the road in the eighties, she began a new career
as a therapist, helping counsel an untold number of people
through their addictions. Chris detailed their extraordinary experiences in her
(02:30):
twenty ten memoir Miss O'Dell. Hard Days and Long Nights
with the Beatles, The Stones, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton.
I can't recommend it highly enough. When David Crosby learned
that Chris O'Dell was writing a book, his response was instantaneous,
Oh shit, because she saw it all. To quote the
opening lines in her book, I wasn't famous, I wasn't
(02:52):
even almost famous, but I was there. A documentary on
her life is currently in the works and due to
premiere later this year, but consider this chat a small sample.
Though she remained in touch with Robert Greenfield and Gary Stromberg,
this was the first time the three of them have
talked since the STP tour wrapped in the summer of
seventy two, after more than half a century and a
(03:13):
few camera problems. At the start of the zoom Call,
the memories came flooding back. Chris was having some repair
work done in her home, so she called in from
the office of a congressman. We had so much to
talk about that I didn't even get to ask her
about this connection, But somehow it seems fitting the talented
and insightful Chris O'Dell as many friends in high places.
(03:34):
I hope you enjoy our conversation. Is this the first
time the three of you have all spoken since nineteen
seventy two?
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Yeah, together in one group. We've talked separately.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Yes, I am.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
I am honored.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
Chris bikes to keep Gary and I apart and how
it works.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
I think it's so rotten that you wouldn't show USh
your face today.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
I don't believe for a minute you can't figure it out.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
He just doesn't want to show me how old he's got.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Richard, I'm not going to ever look better than you do.
So what's the point?
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Okay, oh god, you're going to get out of that?
Speaker 2 (04:21):
I guess the start. We opened the show with a
question to Bob and Gary, and it was actually the
first question I asked on the day of interviews, and
I showed up with sixteen pages of questions because I'm
a lunatic and The first question wasn't actually one that
I wrote down, and I love their response so much
that it's the first sound you hear on the show,
and I wanted to put the question to you the
(04:44):
STP tour. Was it fun?
Speaker 4 (04:48):
Well, that would be one word I would use.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
I'm not sure that.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
It wouldn't be followed by other things. And I did
actually listen to your first segment last night. I was
listening to it, and I think they had many more
adjectives than I have. It was fun, It was unprecedented.
I felt so lucky to be on that tour because
I wasn't supposed to be And it was also hard.
(05:15):
It was really hard to be on that tour. It
was hard because there were a lot of drugs and
there was a lot of no sleeping, and we were
moving all the time, and it was chaotic at times.
It was like, what was it? Organized chaos? I think
it would be the way to describe it. It was
(05:36):
organized chaos. So but for me, it was definitely. I
think the drugs I came off with that, I walked
away with that one. But that had on I mean, I.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Guess, just to take it back a little ways that
you obviously you got your start in the rock world
at Dot Records and then went to work for the Beatles.
Can you talk a little bit about making that jump
to the Stones camp? What was that like?
Speaker 5 (06:00):
Well?
Speaker 4 (06:00):
I had met Mick in London when I was still
working at Apple, and not that we were friends or anything,
but when they were moving to LA to finish Exile
on Main Street, Marshall Chess, who was the head of
their rolling Stone Records at that time, needed an assistant
and I had come back to LA to work for
Peter Asher. So I was told about that position and
(06:25):
I thought, yeah, I'd rather be working for a band
and sitting in a management office. So I got the job.
But it turned out I really didn't see Marshall very often.
He was doing his own things. So basically I was
mostly assisting Mick and Keith during the times that they
lived in LA. So I started off by finding them
(06:46):
places to live. For three of them Mick Taylor also
stayed in LA. The other two they would just come
over when they were needed. So I worked every day
at mix House basically, and I helped them all. Prior
to the tour, I was still assisting them, but I
wasn't included in the tour because I didn't really have
a job. Now that I've done a lot more tours,
(07:09):
I can totally understand that, but at the time I
felt still left out. So Mick said, don't worry, I'll
get you there. So I missed the first what was
at Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco. I missed those shows, But
when they got down to the southern part of California,
(07:29):
then I got on them and Nick said, look, don't worry,
I'll figure out a way, and he did. I think
after they were in Chicago. Right before they were in Chicago,
he called and said, would you go to the airport
and pick up some things that have been sent from
Ozzie Clark in London, so meet the costumes And I said, okay,
what do you want me to do with them me?
He said, bring them to Chicago. So that's how I
(07:51):
ended up in the madness. Other that I was doing
quite sanely in La b.
Speaker 5 (07:59):
I forgot this. Chris, you were in the Playboy mansion
with us? Yes, you didn't stay there, did you?
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Well? I think that we all pretty much stayed there
the whole night. No, I was I had a hotel
room all right right, Yeah, I came to Bill an Astro.
I came and was staying with them and visiting with
them at the mansion. But it was a long I mean,
(08:27):
I don't even remember going back to the hotel.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
I can't even imagine what the Playboy Mansion was like
in nineteen seventy two, what Hugh Hefner was like in
seventy two. What was your feeling on that scene?
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Like, you know, I thought it was pretty weird for
a kickoff to be. Hugh Hefner was wearing a bathrobe.
Stevie Wonder did a set. He came in and he
and his band set up and they did a set
for Hugh in the main room. It was the funniest
thing is it was like Astro told me right off
(09:01):
the bat, if you need anything to eat, don't worry.
You can get it anytime you want. Just tell them
what you want and it can be anything. That was
pretty bizarre, but we you know, it was just fun.
I mean, people were laughing. There was a game room,
there was a pool, it was a play it was
it was Disneyland on speed.
Speaker 5 (09:24):
So just to clarify, Chris is talking about Bill Wyman
and his companion at the time Astrad.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
Lindstrom and Lundstrom.
Speaker 5 (09:32):
It was one of the few other women on tour,
right Chris.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Oh yeah, they didn't bring their wives out. No one
brought their wives out at that period of time. But
that was part of Bill's deal with the Stones is
I won't come if I can't bring her. So she
was actually about the only woman.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Wow, I mean, thinking about the whole Playboy Aura in
nineteen seventy two, it feels like such a I mean,
I know this is from the vantage point of fifty
years later, but seems like such a culture shock to
you know, the burgeoning women's liberation movement, and you know,
you were a professional woman in rock and roll, Like
was that? How did those two worlds coexist?
Speaker 4 (10:12):
I don't, honestly. I was thinking about it this morning
and I thought, well, first of all, you know I
always say when your resume starts with the Beatles, you
pretty much can it's kind of easier to get a
job after that. So then the Rolling Stones were unnatural,
you know, here I go to them. But it didn't
(10:33):
ever occur to me. I did realize I was the
only woman mostly on the tour except when girlfriends came
and everything, But I was busy. I had a job
to do, so I just felt in a lot of
ways like I was one of the guys just doing
my job. And I was thinking about it today and
I thought, you know, it is kind of interesting that
I did all that and I never thought about making money.
(10:59):
I was, I mean, two good at a time, so
I didn't think about, jeez, I should probably figure out
how to make some money out of this.
Speaker 5 (11:07):
Chris, hadn't you come off an extended tour with Santana
right before the.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
Crosby Stills, Nash and Young was the tour? No? I
did that afterwards. The Stones was the first tour I did. Wow,
that was my initiation tour.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
That's just the heck of an initiation. I mean, I
I guess the thing that's always interesting to me is
at what point did the star struck feeling wear off?
And I know, I'm sure you were acclimated to this
with the Beatles too, But at what point did the
Stones just become you know, the guys or did that
ever happen?
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Well? It did because I saw them every day, and
you know it started with you know, probably earlier when
I went to work with the Beatles. Because it was
my first time being around that level of celebrity fame.
But I think after a while you just get used
to it and you become They become friends, you get
(12:07):
to know who they are. You know, you like them,
you don't like them, you like things about them, you
don't like things about them. So they lose that that glow,
that luster fairly quickly and just become people. And that's
what they are. They're just people who play music really well.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
The really good music.
Speaker 5 (12:29):
Yeah, even with the Beatles, wasn't it different being in
England with them than what it was like being with
the Stones in America?
Speaker 4 (12:36):
Well, it was different, And yes, for one thing. When
I lived in England and worked for the Beatles, which
was way back in sixty eight sixty nine, the culture
was so different. It's like one of the things that
I continue to repeat is I went there with this
American attitude and said I want things right now. In
(12:56):
America that meant tomorrow. In England met next week. So
it was a lot easier to get things done in
the States. But I mean, I know you guys have
talked about this. It is amazing when you think about it.
We had no cell phones, no computers. We had to
go look for phones a lot of the time, so
(13:19):
it's amazing that we even got through that whole period
without modern technology.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I mean, I was in the midst of writing an
introduction for you for this episode, and I was struggling
to find the proper term for what you were on
the tour and for the Stones, because you just seemed
to do everything. An assistant didn't seem to do justice
to what you did. And to think of all that
you did without the aid of the Internet or cell phones,
it's absolutely mind boggling. I mean, just can you talk
(13:45):
a little more about just the variety of the thing
that I mean, every day must have been anything could
happened today in terms of what was on your agenda.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Well, during the Stones, when I was working for them
in La, of course, every day was different. It would
be helping to get lyrics typed up. It would type
up lyrics, give them back to make I had to
sit and listen to the recordings they would bring in
or the acetates and get the words they didn't write
them down, and then Mick would come back and correct
(14:13):
them or Keith would And then on the other hand,
I could be looking for someone to come and clean
their house, or a babysit, a nanny over here, or
go to the bank and get money for them. You know,
it just varied. It was everyday occurrence, but on the
tour my job was a lot more limited because everybody
(14:35):
else was doing so much, so I work directly for them.
Mick would say, would you fly to New York and
get my camera fixed? Take it to Kodak and get
the camera fixed. Or Keith would say, would you fly
to LA and pick up some stuff and bring it back,
Or you know, can you get my cleaning in. Can
(14:57):
you make sure these clothes get cleaned overnight. It was
it's just so many things. You never knew what was
coming next.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
I wanted to ask you. I know, when your book
came out, every journalist seemed to ask you about going
on a drug run for Keith Richards. That was always
the craze that they would use, and it always cracked
me up reading your interviews, and even in your book
you'd say you didn't really see it that way. It
was just a job to do that day.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
It was part of the job. It's like, you know,
he says, go to LA and so I get they
get me a ticket, I'd fly to LA Remember, no security,
no airport security. There was nothing to cause any interruption.
To this time, I didn't see it as a drug run.
The only time it was a little weird was when
I had to go and meet this guy at his
(15:45):
house to pick up this stuff. And I was a
little nervous about that. But at that point, in those days,
I didn't think about that. We didn't think about those
kind of things.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
It's a great line in your book. I had no
idea how much money I handed over, figuring that if
I didn't look, I didn't know, and if I didn't know,
I'd be Okay, that's beautiful. And then he I think,
I forget if it was Mick or Keith. I think
it was probably Keith handed you his his mobile pharmacy
bag in Rhode Island when the arrest was going down.
(16:17):
I mean, in a sense that must have made you
feel honored.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Or just nearby. It was his medical bag. He carried
the doctor's medical bag with all his stuff in it.
And all I remember is I was I was close.
I was standing close to him, and we were all
just kind of who Gary, were you guys there? Gary?
You were there?
Speaker 6 (16:42):
Right.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
Remember, it was just like, what the heck, what is
going on here? And Keith just knew he was next,
so he just handed me the bag and said, Keith,
this for me. And it never occurred to me it
could have gotten me in trouble. None, Listen, I think
I also carried drugs across the border at one time
(17:04):
for CS and Y. You just it wasn't that scary
back then.
Speaker 5 (17:09):
Right, No coincidence that the only woman on the tour
would be left holding the bag exactly.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
The tour just insulars the word that Bob Gary used
so many times when we interviewed them. I mean, that
must have been such a rude intrusion to this very
tour bubble when all of a sudden the cops are
taken away, making Keith and Marshall and Robert Frank and yeah,
what was that like?
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Well, you know, I think that we had an attitude of, well,
how dare you that is shown to do? How can
you interrupt this great organization we've got going with this
petty little stuff. You shouldn't have been here anyway, And
so there was a feeling of entitlement. It's kind of
(17:57):
like we are the royal family you know, just piss off,
am I right? Guys.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
One of the things I loved about Chris is she
just said it a minute ago. It never occurred to me.
Speaker 7 (18:13):
Most of the things that we experienced never occurred to
Chris because she lived in the moment and it was
all okay with her, and she handled whatever it was
it had to be done, she handled it. And the
consequences that all that just never occurred to her as
to many of us.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
That's true. We just went with it, didn't We went
with it.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yes.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
Well.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
The installation of all of that is that we it's
this way on every tour is that when you're on
the tour, all you know is what's going on in
the tour, and anything outside in the world just isn't
a part of your life. It has nothing to do
with it. You're like a little village that just travels around.
Keep it moving, keep it moving. Even people who would
(18:56):
come to see a show, you guys know this. You
get tickets for a friend or something, it's like, I
really can't talk to you because you're not in mind.
You just aren't there. You're not on my wavelength. So
it was it was pretty strange that one particularly.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
So the thing about that tour was that even within
that small, tight community, there are subgroups. And I will
just for the record happily that Gary and I and
Chris were like the three Musketeers. We hung out together
before after enduring wonderful any Leebwood's photograph that I wish
(19:34):
I had sent Chris where we're back with Madison Square
Garden and we're both wiped out, and I Chris is
wearing these incredible spangled rock and roll pants and she
has extended her legs across my lap and I'm basically
half asleep, and so is she. You know what I mean.
But we were such good friends on the tour, and
(19:57):
the thing about Chris and you hear it is that
there is this amazing innocence no matter what kind of
insanity she's involved in.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Yeah, I think that's very sweetly said. I appreciate that.
Thank you. Naive A little naive I can remember, and
I'm pretty sure I got this memory right, but I
remember standing on the roof of the hotel in New
Orleans or something like that, and all of us going,
(20:29):
what are we doing? What are we doing here?
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Describe all of these moments in your incredible book, I
mean just the Beatles, James Taylor for with Mac, I mean,
it just goes. The names go on and on and on.
For the STP tour, is there a magical moment for
you that really stands out? I know Bob and Gary
have been using the phrase peak experience a lot when
describing various moments. Was there a peak experience on the
(21:15):
STP tour for you?
Speaker 4 (21:17):
Well, there were more than a few, but I think
one of them was the night they decided that they
were going to have a meeting in Detroit and get
rid of people because the tour had become so there
were so many people on it, and you know, Peter
Rudge and Joe Bergman, they all, you know, they got
(21:41):
together and somehow the word came out and so they
had a meeting the Stones and the execs on the tour.
And that was a pretty hairy night because I figured
I was pretty much on the list to go because
I was working for the Stones. I wasn't working for
the tour, and I remember Bill and came out and said,
(22:01):
you're You're fine, You're okay, you get to stay. But
that was Harry. I mean, though later I did actually
leave the tour because I just felt it was too much.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
Did you leave the tour.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
After Nashville? We played Nashville.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
And then yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Went to Memphis with Bill and Astrid and Duck Dunne,
and it was at that point that I just thought,
I can't bear it. I can't deal with this anymore.
Everybody's so angry. So I flew back to LA and
decided I wasn't going back on the tour. It was
during a break, it was an official break time.
Speaker 5 (22:42):
And then why did you go back?
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Because Keith called me? I figured I called me after
the first show, I think, and said why aren't you here?
And I said because I I don't have anything to do?
And he said, yes, you do, you better get back here.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
That must have made you feel amazing. How did that feel?
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Well, it made me feel like they appreciated me. I
felt appreciated because I certainly didn't feel like that. It
was easy to get lost in all of that chaos
and not feel like you really had a job to do.
And I didn't want to be a.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
Liguor always hard to say no to Keith.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
Right, Yeah, there's no saying no to Keith.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
One of the things that we touch on on the
show is just sort of the politics of being around
the Stones and the stress of keeping your spot in
the inner circle, and the mind games that it entails,
and how crushing it can be if you don't make
it into the limo with one of the principal players.
And I think that Bob is a great line in
the stp book about how people avoid eye contact with
(23:52):
the untouchable for fear of contagion, I think is the phrase.
I was just wondering about that, because I know you
write about that in your book also about just being
around the Stones. It's got to be addictive in a
way too, that kind of attention, and it's adrenaline.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
It's an addiction to adrenaline. And you know, it was
the same with the Beatles. I mean, you know, but
the Stones, especially on tour. Yeah, it's like in a
drenaline rush. That's what I found out was that you
could really work, you could live on very little sleep.
At that time. I didn't know that until after I'd
(24:27):
done it for a few days.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
I mean from my vantage point, I mean, going on
tour with the Rolling Stones or any one of the
lists of many artists that you a tour manager for
I mean, it just seems so romantic and so incredible
and fun. But you know, we see in books and
documentaries and I'm hearing it from you now. I mean,
it can get grueling. I think I remember reading I
think Gary lost thirty pounds on the SDP tour or something.
(24:51):
I mean, it's curious about the day to day, like
actually going through it is always interesting to hear about,
like kind of the stuff that I don't think about
the stuff that isn't all, you know, being backstage while
they do brown Sugar and all the highlights of it,
Like how would you pass the time? Like what first
drew the three of you together?
Speaker 4 (25:12):
The three of us? Yeah, two guys and me. Well, Garry,
did I tell you? I don't remember if I knew
you before the tour. Gary.
Speaker 8 (25:23):
You were the one who got me the job, Chris, Oh,
I was, yes, old the one who got me a
meeting with.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Nick that he needed a PR. They needed PR and
you called me.
Speaker 6 (25:39):
I don't remember exactly why you you know, picked me,
but you did.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
And you set up the meeting for me at Marion
Davies's house.
Speaker 5 (25:47):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (25:48):
Oh up at the Yeah, at the house. Oh, that's interesting. Well, oh, okay,
you're welcome.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
So at the point, my point here would be Chris
as a list of accomplishments that even she is not aware.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Thank you. Oh well, I must have known of you
before that then, definitely, because you were definitely on my radar.
So working with Peter Asher.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
I was going to say, it must have been Peter Asher.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
Yeah, definitely, yeah, because we were friends.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
We were friends, yes, yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
Yeah, and Bob I didn't even know who he was
until he showed up, but I was so impressed that
Rolling Stone sent him that it didn't matter.
Speaker 5 (26:34):
Well, I'd like to say that after that tour, Chris
was constantly on the road. Am I wrong?
Speaker 4 (26:40):
Yeah, it took a year off just to kind of well,
first of all, I had to finish up with the Stones,
and then I took a year off because it was
my first attempt to really get off of drugs and
alcohol and everything. But then in nineteen seventy four I
started touring with csnyon and then it didn't stop throughout
(27:01):
the next probably ten years or more.
Speaker 5 (27:04):
Wow was this?
Speaker 2 (27:05):
I mean, I know this was your first time out
on tour, but I know you were aware of rock
and roll tours. Was there something about the Stones tour
in seventy two, even in the lead up to it,
that felt like this is different, The scope of this
is different, scale, this is different. Was that a parent
even in the lead up and when you were on it.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
That's a hard one because I don't have a real
good perspective on that. But I had gone to the
sixty nine tour. I went to their concert in LA
with Leon Russell as it happens, and then I was
hanging out with Ethan Russell while they were in LA
during that period of time, so I saw them, and
(27:45):
I think by the time Exile came out, I was
so involved in it it didn't really occur to me
that it was going to be what it turned out
to be. And you know, it just seemed like, Okay,
they're going on tour, a new double album out, So
I don't really think I thought about the fact that
we'd be talking about it today.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Well, speaking of the double album, you were on the
double album, I wanted to ask you about that. How
did you come to uh to grace the cover.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
Robert Frank I guess because he took my picture in
the garden of Marshall Chess House rental house and then
it was on the cover. I had no idea it
was going to be on the cover until I saw
the mock up of it.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Mortalize. Let's let's do a quick count. You've been more
lies by George Harrison, Rolling Stones, Joni Mitchell and.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
Coyote, Jordan's Apple Lady, Leon.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Roussey and Russell of course, yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 5 (28:40):
The track is miss O'Dell and.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
That Arizona congressman who is she's sitting his office.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Now. Call it too much history, too much unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Yeah, I'm lucky.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
One of the things that we really hope to do
with this STP show not only had it be a
history of the Stones at this moment in rock and roll,
but history of this really pivotal moment in America in
nineteen seventy two. I mean, I think that the Watergate
breaking occurred, I think a week into the tour, and
Governor Wallace in Alabama when he was running for president,
(29:17):
was shot I think a week or two before the
tour began, and just it's such a fraught time in America.
I mean, a big through line, at least in the
show that we're putting together is the Hell's Angels the
fear of repercussions from them for the disaster at Altamont.
Was there a sense of danger prevalent that you noticed
on the road or is that not really something that
was on your radar.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
Well, first of all, I just want to say, and
I'll come back to that, that one of the Hell's
Angels who was involved in the Ultimont think Sweet William
was one of the two that came to app. I
was gonna ask wee William pretty well? I knew him
pretty well. In fact, he died a couple of years
ago and his girlfriend told me about it, told me
he passed on. But well, that was one thing, is
(30:01):
that I knew someone who had actually been a part
of it. But you know, we had bodyguards, and I
think just the idea of having bodyguards at that point
took away any fear of anything happening. And of course
we hadn't had the awful knowledge that people could shoot
a gun while you were on stage. We didn't think
(30:23):
about that. In fact, actually it's interesting that back at
that time, when Nick had the house in bell Air,
there's no wall around it. There was no security at
that house. Today that wouldn't you couldn't even do that, so,
you know, and Keith same thing. There was no protection
in LA during that period of time because nobody thought
(30:44):
about it. So my memory is I felt okay that
there were bodyguards.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
I remember. I think in your book you said something
about how Leon Russell said something like, you know, someday
we're all going to be living in houses with gates,
and you think, thinking, oh what, you know, that's a
real bummer thought.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
But yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
That's surprising, that's surprising relatively soon after the Manson murders
that things were still as open as they were, And
I guess that's beautiful in a way that people still were.
Speaker 4 (31:15):
It was. Listen, when I lived at George Harrison's house
at Friar Park, a guy climbed in the top window
one night and eventually someone climbed in or came in
through his kitchen window, and we all know what happened
with that. But you know, no one really took it
seriously back then that anything could possibly happen until John
(31:36):
Lennon was shot, and I think that changed things dramatically,
would you agree, Bobby, Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
The Hell's Angels arriving at Apple in what was it
Christmas sixty eight. I would love to know more about that.
I mean, you you must be one of the only
people on the SDP tour that had first hand relations
with the Hell's Angels. That's incredible.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
What was that like?
Speaker 4 (31:58):
Oh, it was just another crazy thing. It was like,
everything's just another little movie. I mean, you know, I
mean I figured I'd rather be friends with them than enemies,
so you know, I made an effort to get along
with them, and we became friends during the time they
were there. I didn't keep in touch with them afterwards,
but they were just, you know, people who had this
(32:21):
crazy way about them. I had to ride on a
motor cycle with them, so I did. Sweet William took
me out on his motorcycle after we had dropped acid
him too, and it was snowing, and we got around
Herod's and he started to turn around and the bike
just kind of slid. Now maybe he thought he was
(32:42):
in control, but I didn't, and I thought, oh my god,
I'm dying with the helsing.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
Ladies and gentlemen. Chris O'Dell.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
It was a great I can't remember for his Neil
Aspinall or who it was, He tells the story about
how the Apple Christmas Party then bringing out this huge
the biggest turkey or duck or something that anyone had
ever seen, and then just the Hell's Angels just descending
on it like a cartoon and then backing away and
there's nothing but like a bone picked clean, and that
(33:14):
was that was all it was left.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Oh and the other side of it. While they were
doing that, knocking people out, John was Father Christmas and
was what's your name, Mama Christmas? Or so they were
wandering around in their little red and white suits and
their beards and the Hell's Angels knocking people out. You
(33:40):
got to say, how did anybody not have a good
time with all of this kind of drama going on?
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Right?
Speaker 4 (33:46):
It's not boring?
Speaker 2 (34:08):
I'm reminded. Now there's a moment in your book I
think you're I believe you're speaking too. I want to say,
you're hypnotherapist. And you said, do you think I would
make a good therapist? I'm thinking of doing that? And
he said, well why not? You've seen it all? And
which I mean, speaking to you now, that that really
that that holds true. I mean, I'm I'm curious now
(34:30):
since you've you know, gone on to helping an untold
number of people through your your new career as a
counselor and hypnotherapists. I believe specializing in addiction has that
changed how you view some of the behavior or your
experiences on the STP tour at all.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
No, I don't think so. I think they're very they're
very separate. But what it has taught me is, I mean,
the one thing that I've thought about is just my
own role in all of that. And you know, would
I have done and some of the things I did
if I hadn't been using, Probably not. But at the
same time, would I've been able to keep it? I mean,
(35:11):
you know, I got to admit that drugs helped. Keith
told me once you can keep up with the guys. Now,
is that a compliment or what kept me in drugs
for a long time? Keith? Thank you? So, you know,
I think what's real is that back then that was
(35:32):
just part of what the culture was doing. We were
all in our twenties or early thirties and we were
doing drugs. That was part of what we did. And
some of us didn't make it, as you guys said,
you know, they dropped by the wayside, and some of
us did, and thank god we did.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
You've all in your respective books and in speaking to
me all kind of mentioned that it's not something that
you can really understand if you didn't live through it.
What the relationship to drugs was. I think it was
Gary said that that was just kind of the currency,
especially in the rock and roll world of the time.
And you know, drugs weren't drugs weren't bad, drugs were fun.
(36:13):
I believe it was a quote from Gary.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
It just that was we certainly weren't aware of the
consequence as well.
Speaker 5 (36:18):
We were.
Speaker 4 (36:21):
Not at all. If anyone died from what we just said,
they overdid it. But actually there was some insight that
I'd like to share with you, which is that after
working with a lot of drug addicts and being in
my own sobriety and everything, it did make sense that
there was a lot of drugs in that culture and
(36:42):
that music culture, because I really believed that the people
who used drugs it's a way to escape the harshness
of reality and have fun. But it also kind of
helps you not look at all the crap that's going
on around you, and that typically the alcoholics and drug addicts.
I've worked with her sensitive people, and the people in
(37:04):
the music business and the music world are typically not
one hundred percent you know, pretty sensitive people with feelings
that have feelings. So if there's anything that I've sort
of thought about since then, it would be that.
Speaker 6 (37:20):
I have the view that these artists that we worked
with were, like Chris describes, very sensitive people, and no
one really has the appreciation of what it's like working
out there without a net. People take our big risk takers,
and it's extraordinary that they're capable of doing it. Drugs
(37:41):
provided that safety net and the appearance of the safety net.
It allows you to go out there on that stage
and risk it because you felt, you know, so powerful.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
But what we all came to believe later was that
that was a false god.
Speaker 5 (37:57):
You know that.
Speaker 6 (37:59):
Exactly, strength that we have, the talent that we had,
was inside of us.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
It wasn't the chemicals that provided it for us.
Speaker 5 (38:07):
Listen, the the intersection of drugs and art goes all
the way back to the Quincy and Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
and it's a different kind of Did you ever see
him on stage? Coleridge could really rock, man, you know,
so Wordsworth not nearly as good I saw him, and
(38:29):
you know he's just he was acoustic. You know, who
cares too pastoral? But the point is that what listen,
My point here is and I celebrate both Gary and Chris.
I have some sense of what they lived through and
how they overcame what they lived through, and more to
(38:49):
the point, they have helped more people than two people
I know, Okay, And so that's why we're all talking
together to and you know, I really respect and I
honored them for having done what they did. Thank you all.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
I took the words right out of my mouth. I
was about to say that both of you are rock
stars in the field of helping people through addiction. And
it's just astonishing what you've done. And you've spoken so
movingly and poignantly, not only about you know, there's beautiful
descriptions of Keith in your book, Chris, about being I
think the word you use was softy, I mean, but
(39:26):
the very sweet portrait of him. And also you speak
of the people and Bob does this too in the
stp book about the people who weren't the superstars, and
he said words to the effect of these are the
people who would have the toughest time adjusting back into
normal life after being swept up in the stp hurricane.
(39:50):
The adjustment after the show was over, Like, what is
that like for somebody who's never been through the tour.
I can only imagine what it was like to suddenly not.
Speaker 5 (39:57):
Have that Well.
Speaker 4 (39:59):
I think he've talked about it even in his book,
that it's so hard to I can't remember his exact words,
but something about how difficult it was to get out
of that and go back into normal life, his normal life,
which was real different than my normal life. It happened
on that tour. It happened on every tour I did. That.
(40:21):
When it's over, it's like the end of a relationship.
It's very sad, it's lonely. Suddenly you're back in your
own little world and they're not all there. The one
thing I noticed is I would go around doing different
things in town and I would think I saw people
from the tour, because people would remind me of them,
(40:44):
and I'd have gone, oh no, So it takes a while.
It's kind of like withdrawing. It's like withdrawal in a way,
you kind of withdraw.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Yeah, I know you've said the several times on here.
I mean you manage tours for CSO and why Bob
Dylan Fleetwood Mac, I mean, did you cross pass with
the Stones again when you were out on the road
in the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 4 (41:06):
Yeah, I did know at the Fleetwood Mac tour in Europe,
I did came in was staying in the same hotel
we were, and uh, and I know that they's one
of the Lindsay what was his name, Lindsay from Fleetwood Mac.
I remember he looked at me and thought, who are you? Yeah,
(41:27):
well I could read him, he just didn't kind of
connect with me. And then he saw Mick and it
was like I just knew. He was going like, well,
who are you that you are?
Speaker 5 (41:37):
Not that you know him?
Speaker 4 (41:38):
He came over to talk to you. But yeah, I
ran into them. You know, over the years a number
of times, even after I had married into the aristocratic
English world, he would show up be at some of
the parties that we would go to with the aristocracy.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
It's just one of them are married into the aristocracy.
Currently speaking to us from a former congressman's office, the
the rarefied error in which you which you breathe the
circles in which you travel. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
Meanwhile, I don't have a bathroom or a sink at
my house.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
So there, wait on the dose. What's it? You know?
Speaker 3 (42:20):
So I never stopped you.
Speaker 4 (42:23):
I'm sure Gary, I have to ask this. It's a
burning question. Have you talked about the prophylactic?
Speaker 5 (42:30):
Oh my god, I brought it up.
Speaker 4 (42:32):
Yeah, okay, it is.
Speaker 5 (42:36):
To hear you discuss it. Tell us your memory of
the prophylactic.
Speaker 4 (42:41):
That is one of the huge most the hugest is
that the right English. The hugest memory of was I
remember getting on the plane somewhere and coming up because
you guys would you'd sit with Astard in the area.
Asterd and Bill would sit in and the Rockers we're
back in the bag going crazy and I come up
(43:03):
front and I look down and there's this big rubber
hanging there, white stuff, and I'm like, what is that?
I thought that was ingenious, thank you.
Speaker 5 (43:18):
I remember getting dangling it from between his fingers, not
to just like like casual like hanging out. I'm hoping
these are my worried beads, That's what exactly.
Speaker 4 (43:30):
And it was so sad when they got smaller and smaller.
Speaker 5 (43:36):
Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
Okay, sorry, you know, I.
Speaker 2 (43:43):
Had I had a whole, you know, meaningful question I
wanted to end on. But you know what, that might
just do it.
Speaker 5 (43:50):
That might be the perfect listen to the sadness of
the prophilectic getting smaller. That's a Crystan O'Dell concept. You
can't who else will think about that? You're like, oh,
it's not as big as it was.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
It's sort of it's a beautiful it's like the flip side.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
Of the drugs either anymore.
Speaker 4 (44:12):
Well, I abided in that prophylactic, so I was paying attention.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
It's the flip side of the I think it was
the chipmunks story about how he passed one hundred dollars
bill around with the plate of cocaine and then he
got it back at the end when it made it
through the circle and one hundred dollar bill and replaced
with a one dollar bill. So that was that to
fined the curdling of the sort of the openness.
Speaker 5 (44:37):
Yeah, sure, it was the end of the sixties.
Speaker 4 (44:41):
Can we do this every week?
Speaker 5 (44:46):
I'd be honored.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Oh I just I am. I am so honored to
speak with you. I'm honored to be a part of
an honorary part of your your your triumvirate right now.
I'm this thank you. This has been such a joy
and I'm just it so makes me so happy to
see you all speaking for the first time since the
Ahtfeet tour. That's just that's just really, I feel like
(45:11):
it makes the whole project worthwhile. Just bringing the three
of you together again, it makes me happy.
Speaker 4 (45:15):
I love those guys, both of them.
Speaker 5 (45:18):
Love you, Chris, Howris, thank you.
Speaker 4 (45:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Stones Touring Party,
reuniting these three stp vets. We'll be back on the
road next week because the Stones arrive and a Los
Angeles still reeling from the Manson murders. Though Charlie himself
was in prison, members of the family still roamed the
streets and hills of Hollywood and left one member of
the tour fearing for his life. So join us back
(45:49):
here again next week. We'll see you then.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
Stone's Touring Party is written and hosted by Jordan Runtalk
co executive produced by Noel Brown and Jordan Runtalk, Edited
in sound designed by Noel Brown and Michael Alder June.
Original music composed and performed by Michael Alder June and
Noel Brown, with additional instruments performed by Chris Suarez, Nick
Johns Cooper and Josh Thain. Vintage Rolling Stones audio courtesy
(46:20):
of the Robert Greenfield Archive at the Charles Deering McCormick
Library of Special Collections in Northwestern University Libraries. Stone's Touring
Party is a production of iHeartRadio
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