1967 is a fulcrum year in the history of rock and pop. It’s also the year that the Rolling Stones almost came undone. We’ll trace how pop became art and how just another showbiz soap opera emerged from the chaos to become The Greatest Rock’n’Roll Band In the World.
The Men They Couldn’t Hang
Drug busts, bent coppers, tabloid hacks, this is a tale of sex and lies and rock’n’roll.
The year is 1967. We pick up the Rolling Stones in January when Jagger’s performance was censored on the Ed Sullivan Show. One week later the band is pilloried for refusing to take part in the finale of Sullivan’s English TV counterpart Sunday Night At The London Palladium. The controversy surrounding those events was front page news… but it was nothing compared to what followed.
In February Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are busted for possession of drugs. Then in May, Brain Jones was busted, too. Was the might of the The Establishment out to crush the Stones once and for all?
From Stepney to Knightsbridge… & Beyond
From Wormwood Scrubs to Marrakesh, our virtual tour will follow Mick, Keith and Brian and their entourage – a stellar who’s-who of the roach-end of Swinging London. Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg, art dealer Robert Fraser among them. Keep an eye out Times editor William Rees-Mogg, Labour’s Home Secretary Roy Jenkins and drug squad cop Norman Pilcher.
Sex and drugs, however, are all well and good… but this would not be a truly great British story without class.
One of our characters will go on to become the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. Another will be created a Knight of the Realm. An old Etonian will end up behind bars.
A further protagonist will be dead within 18 months and another will stand on the precipice of heroin addiction amid the ruins of a promising pop career.
Oh and by-the-way, the Stones released one, and recorded a second LP that year, too. We’ll look at the music, and see how it fits in to the rich musical tapestry of 1967.
This is one of our virtual tours – you can book for this single episode of The Monday Night Music Club and, if you enjoy it, you can subscribe for the year. This single episode costs £8, a year’s subscription to The Monday Night Music History Club is £24. Subscribers get at least 6 virtual tours-a-year, early notification of new tours + free and discounted walking tours throughout the year. Subscribers can also watch the archived editions of the Monday Night Music History Club on demand.
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