The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones

Georgia writer Stanley Booth's intimate relationship with the Rolling Stones yields both rare insights and some rattling good yarns in his memorable book THE TRUE ADVENTURES OF THE ROLLING STONES, an eyewitness chronicle of the band around the time of their disastrous Altamont concert appearance and their epoch-making STICKY FINGERS album. The book benefits from the author's recounting of not only the daily grind of being a musician--even a star musician--but also the equally fraught task of writing about them, including obtaining legal releases and ingratiating oneself with one's subjects. Booth hangs out with drummer Charlie Watts's family in a scene of strange domesticity in the midst of tour madness; on the other end of the domestic scale there's a particularly evocative scene where Booth witnesses the recording of the Stones classic "Wild Horses" at four in the morning, aided by copious quantities of Jack Daniel's, pot, and cocaine. Less salacious than Robert Greenfield's equally impressive STP but somehow more believable, Booth's account of the long hours of boredom, frequent chaos, and occasional transcendent triumph of a touring band brings these rock & roll gods down to a human scale.