Text "Stu" (Michael Kuhn)

You have all heard the shocking news: Ian is dead. It is a sad fact that his death probably gained him more publicity (and darn - it was fucking little!) than he had in his whole lifetime - notice that not even his exact birthdate seems to be known! He was the typical musician's musician: always he stood back behind his friends while working for them. But when he appeared in press - if you call two lines an appearance in press - then always as someone peculiar: huh, Ian "Stu" Stewart, "the 6th Rolling Stone", "house pianist" of the Stones (!), loyal roadie since their early days and all that crap. To be particular about it, all those articles - even the smallest ones - never covered Stu but only the people around him, especially the other Stones, of course. Yes, the "other" Stones because he wasn't just a friend of the Stones - he was the founder of the the Rolling Stones, together with Brian Jones, even if this didnt seem so clear anymore some years later when both these guys were kicked out of their band in the most rude way. Of course the press rarely took a notice on this and maybe even the other Stones themselves didn't. But it were really Stu and Brian who had opened that band (so the expression "Sixth Rolling Stone" is absurd) and it was also him who helped them to hold out in the early days when they didn't even have enough food and when nobody would have supposed the Stones to become a legend in their own time, the longest-living and simply "Greatest Rock'n'Roll band of the world".

The Stones have given him bad reward for his engagement. Well, it maybe was Andrew's idea to shelve him - accordingly because in his eyes Stu's appearance was too straight, it didn't fit the image for the band he had in mind. But Andrew was the businessman, the only things he really wanted were money and fame - it's hard but I can accept that. It may even be true that ian looked too normal... whatever that means, "normal". But the real shame will always stick on the other Stones who were thought to be Stu's friends and who have let him down so disgracefully. If they'd have stuck together (as they did, for example, when they superseded Eric Easton or Allen Klein) Andrew surely couldn't have fired him. But as it seems their own interests were more important to them than Stu's friendship. OK, I don't want to damn the others for this, I don't know what was really going on at the time - but it remains a shame in any case. And despite of all their affirmations the other Stones (at least those who led the band) showed it very clear that they didn't see Stu as their equal. Why else didn't he get the same payment as the others? Why else did they use session pianists like Jack NItzsche, Nicky Hopkins, Ian McLagan and Chuck Leavell? Well, you could say they were just better - and in their ways they surely were - but why then haven't they replaced Bill Wyman more often? Or why else did Stu never appear on an official press photograph, on an album sleeve or during a concert as a Stone? You may say all these things are not that important - to me they are. Always they called him roadie, friend (were they really friends?), road manager - nothing would have been easier than to re-establish him as an official Stone after the break with Andrew... And then all that shit the journalists wrote - "Stu wouldn't have been happy to stand in the center of interest anyway." How would they know? Such a bullshit, I don't believe it. They never have asked Charlie if he liked it. At last it wasn't Stu's decision to leave the group. But well, enough of that. What I believe is that for most of the real Stonesfans he was a Stone and he'll always be, dead or not. Surely he has already opened a new band with that other cat in the Stonesheaven... and hopefully he has learned something...

Now let's change the topic and go to a more pleasing subject: Stu's music. For that matter there isn't really much to say. The most time he spent with carrying around guitars for the other Stones and with playing piano for them, especially in the first half of the sixties. Great tunes like "Around and around", "Let's talk it over", "Down the road apiece", "Tell me", "Everybody needs somebody to love", "You can make it if you try" or "Time is on my side" all featured Stu on either piano or on the organ. It was the time when primitive R&B-based stuff was in demand. And Stu was master in playing such rough, unruly tunes that got the funk out of the groove. But as soon as the Stones left that style for a less spontaneous, more slurred one, Stu was replaced by more professional keyboarders like Nitzsche, McLagan and Leavell. Each of them can play uptempo rockers as well as dead-slow ballads - some of them were real virtuosi (Hopkins! and once he was even called the "6th Rolling Stone", too) - but none of them did really play right off the bone like Stu. The Glimmer Twins knew that very well and have put at least one "real" Stones song on every one of their albums. "Honky tonk women", "Brown sugar", "Stop breaking down" and "It's only rock'n'roll" stem from those times - and they're surely not the worst tracks, aren't they? But since the mid-seventies Stu has appeared less and less on Stones albums - the only song worth mentioning is "She was hot", I think the only "real" Stones song on the LP Undercover.

Apart of his work with the Rolling Stones Ian was very engaged in playing with blues and R&B musicians like Alexis Korner, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, The Stray Cats, Led Zeppelin (who have even dedicated a song to him, "Boogie with Stu"), George Thorogood or The Blues Band. With some of them he did even record some songs. But he has also recorded with some more or less peculiar artists - like The Andrew Oldham Orchestra (oops!), The Railroaders (an ad hoc band featuring Keith Richards, Bill Wyman and Tony Meehan) or with Mick Jagger's brother Chris. Like Charlie who is known to be most interested in jazz, Stu was also more into the music that had originated in the pre-rock'n'roll era, all that stuff by Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson, Wynonie Harris, Amos Milburn and Maceo Merriweather. In the mid-seventies when the Stones weren't very busy doing records, Ian began to play with the great boogie woogie-tandem of Bob Hall & George Green. Between 1977 and 1983 he has played many gigs with them and also produced three LPs for them - and on all of them Charlie Watts sat behind the drums. The first was a live recording from the Swindon Arts Centre and was called Jammin' the boogie. It included one song written by Hall, Green and Stewart ("Great Western boogie") and he did also play the piano on it. The second one, Rocket 88, recorded in 1979 in Hannover, featured Ian on "Swindon Swing" and was released under the name of Rocket 88, the song that is sometimes referred to as the first rock'n'roll song ever. The Rocket 88 band was a loose combination of jazz interested musicians, the "band with the best horn players in Europe, a very powerful rhythm section, and the only boogie woogie piano team in the world." With an always changing line-up the group at some points included people like Bob Hall, George Green, Charlie Watts, Danny Adler, Alexis Korner, John Picard, Colin Smith, JIm Roche, Dick Morrissey, Charlie Hart, Jimmy Page, Willie Garnett, Micky Waller, Jack Bruce, Colin Hodgkinson, Pete York, Chris Farlowe and many others. The band has played lots of club dates in England, Germany and Holland, and has also appeared on some festivals, among them the Jazz Festival Montreux 1984 and the Blues & Boogie Festival Köln 1985. In January 1983 eventually Stu produced the third LP for Hall / Green, Urban deluxe, which featured Stu on "The stumble". One year later he was again in the studio, this time with the Guido Toffoletti Blues Society for their LP No compromise.

Ian died as one of the last real boogie woogie pianists and he will always be remembered by those who are aware of the roots of rock'n'roll.

On Stu's funeral in Leatherhead (Surrey) Reverend Alastair Dybes said: "He was a musician's musician and he would have not wanted his friends to sink in despair." At the service Stu's favorite record, "Boogie Woogie Dreams", was played. He was buried at the Randall Park Creamtorium and all the Stones plus Eric Clapton were there.

Publication

1986 unreleased

Charlie is good tonight nr. 5

This article was reworked in 1997. Some passages of this article were later surprisingly cited in a book about the Rolling Stones written by a German guy.