Mick Jagger

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Mick Jagger 1995

Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger (born July 26, 1943) is an English rock musician, actor, writer, songwriter, record and film producer and businessman. He is most famous for being the lead singer and co-founder with guitarist Brian Jones and Keith Richards of the British rock and roll band The Rolling Stones. He, along with Richards, is the main songwriter for the band. The pair have composed almost four hundred songs in close to a half century of collaboration. Many compositions have been covered and performed by other artists including "As Tears Go By" (for Marianne Faithfull) and "Out Of Time" (for Chris Farlowe).

Early life

Jagger was born into a middle-class family in the English sense of the term. Thus he was from a relatively wealthy background; his father and paternal grandfather were both teachers and his mother was an active member of the Conservative party. He was the older of two sons, and was raised to follow in his father's career path. Academically successful, he entered the London School of Economics on a scholarship. Yet he attended for less than two years and did not graduate, choosing instead to drop out and pursue his musical career. This decision was scorned by his father, and only reluctantly accepted by his mother. Jagger has stated in interviews he did not blame his parents for their mistrust of his choice; even he doubted a life-long career in music was possible.

Early music career

As a student, Jagger frequented a London club called the Firehouse. At the age of 19, Jagger began performing as a singer. He frequented clubs such as the Cavern Club, and admired the same type of blues musicians that Brian Jones and Keith Richards favored. In fact, Elmore James was one of the band's early favorites, as well as anything from the Chess Records collection in Chicago.

While Jagger knew Keith Richards as a schoolmate, the songwriters reunited when Richards saw Jagger with a blues record under his arm, and asked him where he purchased it. The group, combined with Jones, Bill Wyman, Ian Stewart, and Charlie Watts formed the Rolling Stones, based on the Muddy Waters tune "Rollin' Stone." Stewart was dropped from the band for not fitting the image desired by manager Andrew Loog Oldham, but still toured with the band until his death in 1985 as a pianist. It was Oldham who insisted that Jagger call himself "Mick" rather than "Mike", a name he continued to use among friends; for example, John Lennon calls him Mike in the 1968 film The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus.


Fame and controversy

In 1967 Jagger and Richards were arrested and charged with drug possession after a highly publicised raid on Richards' country house, during which it was alleged that Marianne Faithfull was found naked except for a fur rug wrapped around her. The raid was later revealed to have been prompted by a tip-off to the London Drug Squad by journalists working for the News Of The World, which at the time was running a series of lurid reports about the alleged use of illegal drugs by British pop stars.

In one of these reports, Jagger was alleged to have spent an evening at a London club in the company of a Murdoch journalist, during which he openly discussed his drug-taking and invited others back to his flat "for a smoke". When the report was published, it became obvious that the hapless journalist had mistaken Brian Jones for Jagger -- whereupon the latter promptly sued the tabloid paper News Of The World for defamation.

But this legal action was stymied by his and Richards' subsequent arrest. The trial made front-page news around the world. Despite Jagger claiming that the pills allegedly found in his possession had been prescribed to him, both were found guilty.

The severity of the sentences handed down (imprisonment with hard labour) caused a huge public outcry. It was also the subject of the famous editorial by William Rees-Mogg, editor of The Times, titled Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel? In it, Rees-Mogg asserted that it was Jagger's and Richards' celebrity that made them targets, and that their sentences for first offences were more harsh than what "any purely anonymous young man" would have received. Their convictions were overturned on appeal, and they subsequently were released, though the other person arrested with them, noted London art dealer Robert Fraser, served six months.

Leader of The Rolling Stones

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Mick (bottom left) in the early years of The Rolling Stones

It was during this period that Jagger took over as the effective leader of The Rolling Stones, as founder Brian Jones became more and more incapacitated by his spiralling drug use. Jones left the band in early 1969 and accidentally drowned in his swimming pool only weeks later (though rumours persist that he was murdered or had committed suicide).

Children and marriages

Jagger's first child, Karis Jagger (by singer Marsha Hunt), was born in 1970.

In May 1971 he married Bianca Perez Moreno de Macias, and she gave birth to their daughter, Jade Jagger later that same year. The couple divorced in 1979.

Between 1990-1999, he was married to model Jerry Hall, and they had four more children, Elizabeth Scarlett, Georgia May Ayeesha, Gabriel Luke Beauregard and James Leroy Augustine Jagger.

A brief affair with Brazilian model and TV presenter Luciana Gimenez resulted in the birth of Lucas Jagger (1999).

L'Wren Scott, born Luann Bambrough in 1964, is a former model and now a fashion stylist who lives in Hollywood. She has been Mick's "main person of interest" for the past few years.

Pictures of the various wives and children (as well as Mick Jagger arriving at the Grammy Awards on 16 January, 2005 with L'Wren Scott) can be seen at this link (see [1]).

Spouse

Knighthood

Mick Jagger was knighted on 12 December 2003, for his "services to popular music" [2]. His fellow Rolling Stone Keith Richards was critical as usual. "I thought it was ludicrous to take one of those gongs from the establishment...it's not what the Stones is about, is it? I don't want to step out on stage with someone wearing a fucking coronet and sporting the old ermine. I told Mick, 'It's a fucking paltry honour.'" [3]

Today

After the band's acrimonious split with their second manager, Allen B. Klein, Jagger took control of their business affairs and has managed them ever since, in collaboration with his friend and colleague, Prince Rupert von Löwenstein. Decades after the band's creation, the Rolling Stones continue to perform and to court controversy. The release of their 2005 album "A Bigger Bang" saw them embark on a tour of the USA with a playlist including "Sweet Neo Con" in which Jagger's lyrics openly attack the presidency of George W. Bush. In February 2006 they appeared during the Super Bowl broadcast when he was asked to omit obscenities from two songs which would be heard by a vast family audience. He did not comply with this request, but his microphone was momentarily dipped. The Stones went on to make their first visit to Puerto Rico, playing to a sell-out audience of 20,000 at the new Jose Miguel Agrelot Coliseum. Tickets to the concert were being sold for up to $1,000, more than twice the top published price of $460. On April 8 2006, the Stones performed in Shanghai, their first ever show in mainland China. He has also signed on to appear regularly in a television sitcom based on a small group of inept thieves who want to rob him. Appropriately, the sitcom's working title is "Let's Rob Mick Jagger."

Criticism and Controversy

Jagger has come under fire throughout most his career, but, ironically, the majority has come from music industry insiders and fans, as opposed to puritanical haters of rock and roll.

Jagger's frequent dalliances with young ladies have resulted in a number of tabloid scandals, extra-marital affairs, and out-of-wedlock children.

The most damning contention is related to the Stones concert at Altamont Speedway in California. In an effort to keep them from disrupting the free concert, the Rolling Stones hired the Hells Angels as concert security. However, the plan backfired as the Angels injured several fans, killing one - Meredith Hunter, an eighteen-year-old black man. It was also rumored that the Angels supplied drugs at the concert. The Rolling Stones have completely denied ever hiring the Angels.

It was rumored that the Stones, and Jagger in particular, not only did not try to stop the violence, but encouraged it, by singing "Sympathy for the Devil" while the fan died. Other rumors swirled that Jagger, despite his blues-based band and songs such as "Brown Sugar", was racist and didn't want a black fan at his concert. Neither rumor was true; concert tapes clearly show Jagger trying to calm the audience and end the violence, and Jagger has been a vocal anti-racist. Additionally, the Stones were actually playing "Under My Thumb" during Hunter's murder, but due to media pressure, they dropped "Sympathy for the Devil" from their live set lists for several years after the incident.

Film Work

Jagger has appeared in the following movies:

  1. Mayor of the Sunset Strip, 2003
  2. The Man from Elysian Fields, 2001
  3. Enigma, 2001
  4. Mein liebster Feind (aka My Best Fiend) - with Klaus Kinski 1999
  5. Bent, 1997
  6. Freejack, 1992
  7. D Wings of Ash: Pilot for a dramatisation of the life of Antonin Artaud 1978
  8. Umano non umano 1972
  9. Ned Kelly 1970
  10. Performance - by Nicholas Roeg 1970

In 1995, Mick Jagger founded "Jagged Films" with a mission to develop and produce feature films that encompassed a wide spectrum of topics and genres. Jagged Films was primarily directed towards the broader international markets.

Solo discography

Soundtrack work

Solo singles

  • "Memo from Turner" (1970) #32 UK
  • "Just Another Night" (1985) #32 UK; #12 U.S.
  • "Dancing in the Street" (with David Bowie) (1985) #1 UK; #7 U.S.
  • "Lucky in Love" (1985) #38 U.S.
  • "Let's Work" (1987) #31 UK; #39 U.S.
  • "Sweet Thing" (1993) #24 UK
  • "God Gave Me Everything I Want" (2001) #1 CAN

Trivia

  • Jagger is an avid cricket fan.
  • He is a follower of the Kabbalah faith with other celebrities such as Madonna and Demi Moore. Jagger joined when married to Jerry Hall and has remained with the controversial Jewish off shoot ever since.
  • Confessed before the 2005 Superbowl Half Time Show he had never really wanted to do it. When asked whether he'd wanted to play, Jagger replied "not really".
  • Jagger is reported to be related to Joseph Jagger, the engineer who in 1875 used his knowledge of the quirks of the roulette wheels at a Monte Carlo casino to win the equivalent of over $4 million and fame as "The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo" [4]

External links

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