This is Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast. More of what
you here Weekday Afternoon is on the Drive. Robert Greenfield is a former associate
editor of the London Bureau of Rolling Stone Magazine. Gary Stromberg represented music industry
superstars including The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Barbara Streissan, Elton John,
The Doors, Earth Wind and Fire, and many more. They've teamed up
for a podcast that can be heard on the iHeartRadio app and everywhere you get
podcast Stones Touring Party, A long hot Summer with the Rolling Stones greeting greetings,
gentlemen. Hey Lee, good to be with you, to me with
you, Yeah, Robert, I want to start with you. When did
you decide to sit down with Gary and just to put together this podcast?
Well, it was never a decisionally, I got Gary and I were very
close on the tour with your main friends for all these years. And then
astonishingly, like maybe two and a half years ago, he called one day
had said, hey, it's the fiftieth anniversary of the Rolling Stone Store stp
Journey through America with the Rolling Stones, the book I wrote about that tour,
And I said, right, so who cares? And marry who you
know that I followed as a lead forever said no, Bob, it's a
podcast. So anyway, it took a while, and anybody could have put
it out for the fiftieth anniversary. We got it out for the fifty first
anniversary, and it just kept mushrooming and getting bigger. And we discovered sixty
hours of interviews that I had done right after the tour that I had never
heard. I had, I mean, I had heard them, but I
had never transcribed them, had never maked. Anyway, they were on cassettes
and they were digitized, and so we have Mick Jagger and Keith everybody talking
about what it was like to tour America in what was really a long,
hot summer when there was all kinds of political stuff going on, social,
cultural and the stone. Gary will tell you, because he handled all this
and arranged it any place we went that summer, we were front page news.
And Gary, did did you get a lot of audio from Keith Richards
and Mick Jagger talking about what it was like to be at the birth of
Christ? Thank you for getting that. Thank you for getting that. I
forgot to ask that course, but I interrupted you. Gary, you were
going to say something else, go ahead. They were the wise man.
Ye yes, Chart was the drummer boy anyway. But Gary, this what
was so special about this particular tour, this particular summer, Well, if
you had to sum it up in one word, it was danger. It
was danger kind of sat over our shoulder the entire length of this tour.
And there were just several incidents where we were acutely aware of threats that were
constantly around us on this tour. From the big very beginning in Vancouver to
a bomb threat in Montreal to getting arrested in Rhode Island. There was just
there was always something going on that lets you know that this wasn't a normal
rock and roll tour. Let me just throw this in the mix, and
you know, Gary remembers it all, so do I. Kind of getting
arrested in Rhode Island while the concert was in Boston, which was one in
flames, there had been a race ride and the ghetto was burning and the
Stones were not there and there were a lot of really angry people assemble to
see them. And Chip Monk, who was the stage manager and everything and
kept playing the music, and the Mayor of Boston came to address the crowd
to beg them to be good so he could deploy police and fire to keep
the city from burn. I mean, you can't make this up. Robert
Greenfield is with us along with Gary Stromberg. They host the podcast Stones Touring
Party Long a long, hot summer with the Rolling Stones. Why did because
so many of the bands of that era really burned out because of that hard
living lifestyle, what was it about the guys that kept them kept that from
happening. It's a really good question. I mean, I think I once
asked Marshall Chess, who was the head of their record label and the son
of the famed Leonard Chess, and his uncle was Phil Chess, who founded
Chess Records. I said, Marshall, this is later in their career.
Yeah, so why did they keep doing this? What? Why are they
still working? I mean, what is it? And he said to me,
Bob, the only time they feel alive is when they're on stage.
And again it's more history, unlike the Beatles, who you know, a
sensation. The Stones began as a touring band in England. They worked every
night, night after night, with their piano player and eventual roadie Ian Stewart,
driving them in a Volkswagen bus of some kind, and they you know,
once you've become a Gary knows this. Gary has spent so much more
time on the road than I have. Once you've become addicted to the road,
that's your life. From my wrong garret, they as they both Keith
and Nick book said that we're not really alive unless we're on stage. There.
So the recording and all of that stuff is fine, but they really
come to life on stage. And it's very apparent in the podcast here that
that's what their their ambition is. Is just the thing I onways think about.
This may seem insipid, but I also wrote with Bill Graham, or
the great Bill Graham, you know, I wrote I wrote his book with
him. Uh, and so I once set to him, it's like,
do what the same question and simply and this is the greatest rock promoter vault
time answering kind of a dumb question, said Bob. If they weren't any
good live, nobody would want to come see them. Yeah, that's the
bottom line, isn't it to any band really, especially of that era.
Gary Stromberg along with Robert Greenfield and the podcast is Stones Touring Party, a
long hot summer with the Rolling Stones. You can hear never before heard interviews
and conversations with the band from the guys who were there, watching it happen
as it happened, documenting it as it happened on the podcast, on the
iHeartRadio, appen everywhere you get podcasts. Gary, you were with them more
than Robert at one point. Was there ever a point where you were like,
Okay, things are getting a little too crazy for me. I'm going
to go back to the hotel. Well, Robert was there during the entire
tour, so I and I only enjoyed it after the first concert. But
yes, for many instances where I had to look myself in the mirror and
ask me, you know, what was I doing here? But like I
said early in this podcast that this was more fun than I've ever had in
my life. And I couldn't imagine that this is where my life had taken
me, that I was actually touring with the Rolling Stones at the height of
their career. It was just an amazing experience, and I think I conveyed
beautifully by Bob and I on this podcast. You know, I also somehow
feel like will we're edging towards here and I'll stay away from it are the
X rated stories when the of course Gary and I were in the hotel out
by the airport that we were in the Stone State and the playmore mentioned in
Chicago, Heffner numerous playmates, you know, many of whom I had seen
before, but only in a magazine, you know. Yeah, under the
bed being the Mattresses. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you know,
I don't know any other bands who were hung out there when they were in
Chicago. We know there was special I'll say that. So Robert, you
mentioned too, a lot of the materials taken off of cassette and was digitized,
So you all, you both have seen a lot of changes in the
music industry technology wise. When Gary came to you with a podcast, did
you have to ask what's a podcast? I did not, but I said,
Gary, I've never listened. I've never done a podcast, and I've
also never listened to a podcast, you know. So actually we went to
the sessions in la in a horse drawn wagon. Does that say anything?
It sounds there was very little video that existed in nineteen seventy two. This
is the perfect format for retelling the story of the nineteen seventy two Stone stour.
It's not like you had a home movies everywhere. Yes, a jacket
shot film, but I mean the point is just to keep, you know,
building the level of drama here. I mean, don't ask me why
Truman Capponi was on this tour along with we're along with Jackie Kennedy's sister,
Princess Lee Radzewell, if you will, a very famous photographer named Peter Beard,
and so the levels of social interaction and well, I mean, Gary,
if we have time, you could tell him the key story you know
about Truman. You got a minute, Yeah, go ahead, I'm given
a signal that we got to wrap up. Okay, okayacking Truman Caponi tuned
into the podcast. You'll hear all about it. That's an excellent teasier and
an excellent place to leave it. Guys, Stone's touring Party, A long
hot summer with the Rolling Stones. If you love this behind the scenes stuff
like I do, you'll love this podcast from Robert Greenfield and Gary Stromberg and
I thank you for bringing us the podcast and joining us. Thank you,
thank you, thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthew News
Podcast. And remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to
seven and iHeartMedia presentation