Rolling Stones' 'Exile' as feature film? Casting Mick and Keith

Last weekend it was reported that a film production company helmed by Richard Branson, the brains behind the Virgin empire, had acquired the rights to "Exile on Main St.: A Season in Hell with the Rolling Stones," author Robert Greenfield's 2008 book on the Rolling Stones circa 1971, when they were exiled in France and making their now-classic double album, "Exile on Main St."

Keith Richards' yarns about that time in France are some of the highlights of his 2011 autobiography, "Life," in which he wrote of being strung out on heroin, running with Gram Parsons, dating Anita Pallenberg and, basically, creating the living definition of the rock star life while working out "Exile."

The story has all the ingredients you'd want out of a rock biopic: sex, drugs, running from the law, a French mansion called Villa Nellcôte, and a band, the Rolling Stones, at the peak of its powers (and ragtag beauty). 

INTERACTIVE: Who should play Mick Jagger and Keith Richards?

Wrote Richards of that time: "We had a record to cut and knew that if we failed, then the English [tax authorities] would have won. And this house, the Bedouin encampment, contained anywhere from twenty to thirty people at a time, which never bothered me, because I have the gift of not being bothered or because I was focusing, with assistance, on the music."

But there's one major concern with such a film: Casting Mick and Keith, two rock figureheads whose portrayals will be key to whether the project is as cool as the band was at that time, or a laugh-out-loud cheesefest. Pick the wrong Mick, and you've got problems; cast a parody Keef, and the whole thing fails.

With this in mind, we have a few early casting suggestions, including a number of wild-card ideas -- Rooney Mara as Richards and Angelina Jolie as Jagger? -- that could, if "A Season in Hell" is ever produced, make it a winner. 

RELATED:

Rolling Stones shine a light on 'Exile on Main St.'

Mick and Keith remember making 'Exile on Main St.'

The other 'Exile': Celebrating Pussy Galore's cover version

-- Randall Roberts

Photo: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards at Villa Nellcôte in the early 1970s. Credit: Dominique Tarlé / Universal Music Group

Rolling Stones not likely to tour in 2012

Despite earlier speculation that the Rolling Stones would launch a major tour in 2012, Keith Richards says it won't happen, because “basically, we’re just not ready,” according to Rolling Stone.com.

That will mean the group won’t be on the road for the 50th anniversary of their formation in 1962, but more likely will hit the concert trail in 2013, the report says.

Although a 2012 tour had been widely rumored, concert industry veterans have been guarded about confirming the talk, and the Rolling Stone reports from Richards and, separately, Mick Jagger would seem to close the door on that prospect.

At last month’s blues concert at the White House, Jagger said it was  no easy task to pull a Stones tour together. “You can’t just walk up there and do it,” he told Rolling Stone. "If you’re playing a football tournament, you’ve got to practice. I feel very confident. I don’t want to sound cocky, but it’s just part of what you do. If you prepare, then you can be cocky.”

The story also says that band members have reconnected recently with bassist Bill Wyman, who left the Stones almost two decades ago, and was replaced by Darryl Jones. Richards said it’s possible that Wyman would be part of a 2013 tour. “I think he’s up for it,” Richards said. “We talked about it.”

Meanwhile, Stones fans can look forward to a career-spanning documentary about the band due in the fall, and the group is planning to enter the studio for what could turn into a new album in time for a tour.

Richards came up with a justification for pushing back the 50th anniversary activities, telling Rolling Stone: “The Stones always considered ’63 to be 50 years, because Charlie [Watts] didn’t actually join until January. We look upon 2012 as sort of the [anniversary] year of conception, but the birth is next year.”

RELATED:

Rock, ageless

Rock of ages still rolling for Stones

Concert promoters expect good things in 2012

--Randy Lewis

Photo:  Mick Jagger during the Dodger Stadium stop on the Rolling Stones' A Bigger Bang tour in 2006. Credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times.

After White House show, Mick Jagger says 'Every gig is a gig'

Playing the White House? Whatevs, according to Mick Jagger.

OK, so that wasn't his exact quote, but that was the gist. In an interview with the Washington Post a couple days after honoring the American blues at the Obama abode, the king of the stage strut replied, when asked if he was nervous beforehand, "I don’t want to sound blasé ... but every gig is a gig, right?"

This is probably a reasonable reply, if huffing and puffing in the East Room is just simply the 1,975,499th performance of your career. But might this be a sign that the Rolling Stones should forgo their next tour in favor of, well, doing something that actually makes one of them feel something again? Even if that just means, you know, holding a newborn baby or something? Just a thought.

Jagger, absent Keith Richards or any of his other band mates, performed alongside B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Jeff Beck and others on Tuesday. In an inspired move, he passed the microphone to President Obama so that he could croon a few lines of “Sweet Home Chicago.” Obama's been showing off his ample tenor lately, as you know. There aren't many A&R agents left in this rough-and-tumble music world, but somebody should discover this guy.

By the way, we're only teasing Jagger about his Kanye shrug toward playing for the president. Later in the interview, he says, like a good British lad, "I’m very honored to have played the White House."

But he didn't have such nice words for "Moves Like Jagger," the ubiquitous Maroon 5 hit that pays homage to his slither. "It’s a very long-lived song, isn’t it?" Jagger said. "That and Adele. Still playing. I get into the car, and there it is, still. And then I go to the club and there it is..."

RELATED:

Musical moments with U.S. presidents

Lady Gaga, at Obama fundraiser, urges end to bullying

Obama covers Al Green -- for one line of 'Let's Stay Together'

— Margaret Wappler

Photo: Jagger's one-time duet partner, President Obama, at Tuesday's White House show. Credit: Win McNamee / Getty Images

Beatles versus the Stones: Who’s better?

Beatles versus the Stones: Who's better? What about MJ versus Prince? These and other pop music debates are settled.

Friday night at the Brixton South Bay in Redondo Beach, a score was settled. It’s a question that historians have wrestled with, that drunken pub-goers have come to blows over, that has broken up thousands of otherwise happy couples over the last four decades: Which is the better band, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones? Although the answer to this musical litmus test is obvious to anyone with half a brain (see below for details), two tribute acts, Abbey Road and Jumpin’ Jack Flash, sought to definitively answer this question in a contest of dueling sets made up of formative era-songs of the mid-1960s through their later work. (Considering the stakes, it was surprising that CNN and BBC satellite trucks weren’t stationed outside.)

During the duel on Friday, the four-piece Abbey Road came out as the dark-suited, mop-topped young Beatles and dropped quality renditions of “She Loves You,” “A Hard Day’s Night,” and “Can’t Buy Me Love,” while Jumpin’ Jack Flash delivered the way raunchier — and darker and smarter, catchier and well, better — “Mother’s Little Helper,” “Paint It Black,” and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” The next night, No Doubt cover band No Duh was on a bill with the Red Not Chili Peppers and 40 Oz. to Freedom, a Sublime tribute act. Below, a few other yin-and-yang couplings that might work well in the future — the preferences of which may or may not serve as a reliable barometer of a person’s musical tastes.

• Biggie or Tupac

Imagine for a moment if the Beatles versus Stones rivalry had turned ugly, and Beatles manager Brian Epstein had been implicated in a hit on Brian Jones that saw Andrew Loog Oldham retaliating by taking out John Lennon: That’s one mythic scenario that’s grown around the beef between Christopher “Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace and Tupac Shakur, both of whom were murdered at their respective artistic peaks. Biggie’s flow or Tupac’s urgency?

• Prince or Michael Jackson

Although it may not seem so since the late Michael Jackson was enshrined as the King of Pop, in the 1980s the more obsessive of Prince fans cast dispersions on MJ as being a mere pop star, albeit one with a lineage to die for, a couple classic jams, and one amazing Moonwalk. Meanwhile, Prince remains the visionary funk auteur with a commanding artistic vision. A preference for one over the other is telling.

Grammy Hall of Fame announces 2012 recordings inductees

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the Rolling Stones’ “Exile on Main St.,” Bill Cosby’s “I Started Out as a Child” comedy album and musicologist Harry Smith’s widely influential “Anthology of American Folk Music” collection are among  25 new recordings selected for the 2012 Grammy Hall of Fame, the Recording Academy announced Monday.

The new entries, which also include Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” album, Cole Porter’s pop standard “Anything Goes,” Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s pioneering rap single “The Message” and Tina Turner’s career-rejuvenating hit single “What’s Love Got to Do With It” bring the total number of recordings chosen for the Hall of Fame to 906.

In addition to these rock, pop, hip-hop, folk, R&B and spoken word recordings, this year’s batch includes bluegrass (Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs’ instrumental “Foggy Mountain Breakdown”), blues (Bukka White’s “Fixin’ to Die,” Big Bill Broonzy’s “Key to the Highway”), gospel (Mahalia Jackson’s “Precious Lord, Take My Hand”), disco (Gloria Gaynor’s anthem “I Will Survive”), Tex-Mex (Freddy Fender’s 1975 hit “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights”), Latin (Los Panchos’ 1945 album “Mexicantos”), classical (Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 1940 recording of Roy Harris’ Symphony No. 3) and Broadway (the 1946 original cast album for “St. Louis Woman”) selections.

The 54th Grammy Awards ceremony will take place Feb. 12 at Staples Center in Los Angeles and will be broadcast live on CBS-TV.

RELATED:

Live from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony

Grammy Awards: Lady Antebellum, Arcade Fire take top honors

Library of Congress adds 25 new recordings to its collection, including classics from Captain Beefheart, Steely Dan and George Crumb

-- Randy Lewis

Photo of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivering his "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, D.C., in 1963. Credit: Los Angeles Times file photo.

 

 

In rotation: 'The Rolling Stones on the Ed Sullivan Show'

A series in Sunday Calendar about what Times writers & contributors are listening to right now...

Those who know of the Rolling Stones' early history on “The Ed Sullivan Show” are most likely familiar with their 1967 performance of “Let's Spend the Night Together,” on which they were required to change the chorus to “Let's spend some time together” to appease the network's censors. But the band appeared on the hugely popular American show six times throughout the '60s, and these performances, along with the entire episodes and the commercials surrounding them, are featured on the new double-disc collection “The Rolling Stones on the Ed Sullivan Show.”

The release captures the band at its sassiest and sexiest, when Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had bowl haircuts — and Richards looked about 12 years old — and the band played a brand of rock 'n' roll that had yet to go through its LSD phase, and the mere shimmy of Jagger's striped slacks would make the ladies go crazy.

Keith Richards on NPR's 'Fresh Air': 'We all bump into death at one time or another'

The Rolling Stones' Keith Richards was the guest Monday night on 'Fresh Air,' the daily NPR interview show hosted by Terry Gross that airs locally on KPCC (89.3 FM). Appearing as part of the media blitz for the indestructible Stones guitarist's new memoir, "Life," the fascinating, wide-ranging interview featured Richards' thoughts on, among many other subjects: the Stones' early stabs at songwriting; the rivalry between the Stones and the Beatles; Richards' relationship over the years with Mick Jagger; the infamous, deadly concert at Altamont at which the Stones used Hell's Angels as security; and the origins of the  famous guitar riff in "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," which Richards has long claimed to have written in his sleep.

Asked Gross: "So do you think you kind of did that while you were sleepwalking?" 

"I wasn't walking, I was lying down," Richards responded. "I did it lying down, darling. I don't know about you, honey, but I do most of this stuff lying down."

If you've got 45 minutes, the exchange is well worth your time, if only for the devil-may-care tone that Richards uses with Gross. At the end of interview, when the host thanks the guitarist, Richards responds: "Hey Terry, thanks very much. Good try, honey."

-- Randall Roberts