You look like you like rock'n'roll, how 'bout them Rolling Stones?

November 12, 2013 12:01 PM

"Basically, a guy who runs one of the stands called me over because I "looked like I would like rock 'n' roll"—and he was right. I don't know what was lost in translation, however. He obviously didn't know what he had. To tell the truth, I didn't either. I obviously knew it was the Stones, but it took about a week of looking them over to realize that this was really a very unique circumstance. After extensive research, I came to find that these are unpublished, never-before-seen photos of one of the most legendary bands in rock 'n' roll history. Not only that, they are beautifully composed, candid, raw and perfect in every way. They really convey a band innocent to their destiny." Lauren White, on her discovery and showing of 26 candid photos of the Rolling Stones, circa 1965.
posted by filthy light thief (33 comments total)

Indirectly via Everlasting Blort
posted by filthy light thief at 12:02 PM on November 12, 2013 [4 favorites]

Young Mick Jagger, I'd like to kiss you twice.
posted by MoxieProxy at 12:05 PM on November 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

Oh god, that picture of Keef at the end. *heart... skips*
posted by scody at 12:06 PM on November 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

I love the colours in those photos. So saturated and of their time.
posted by arcticseal at 12:15 PM on November 12, 2013

Can anyone tell me who this person is? A guest at the party.
posted by cell divide at 12:47 PM on November 12, 2013

It could well be that Keith took them, as speculated in the "Indirectly" link. It does look like the one of him might be self-shot, and all the others are of the other band members. That could also explain why no other photographer has been discovered or has popped up to claim he or she took them.
posted by Curious Artificer at 12:51 PM on November 12, 2013

So that second link is all about how all the cool kids showed up to look at them and not really about the work at all? GLUFF. BLEG.
posted by Naberius at 12:52 PM on November 12, 2013 [30 favorites]

Looks like they've been practicing their pose-for-the-camera-but-don't-pose poses.

posted by Kabanos at 12:59 PM on November 12, 2013 [3 favorites]

Some say it might be Keith Richards on account of him not being in any of the photographs other than a selfie.

But... if it might be Keith, then the photo of Keith only might be a selfie. It does seem significant that he's not in any other photos, though.
posted by scody at 1:00 PM on November 12, 2013

I'm with Naberius. More images of the found photos and less smarmy almost-famous people mugging for the camera, please.
posted by jillithd at 1:19 PM on November 12, 2013 [4 favorites]

filthy light thief’s “Indirectly” link has the photos, and here they are big & captioned.
posted by editorgrrl at 1:23 PM on November 12, 2013 [8 favorites]

Per Wikipedia, this would be during their first American tour, related to these concert dates:
May 4, 1965 Statesboro, Georgia, Southern College, Hanner Gymnasium
May 6, 1965 Clearwater, Florida, Jack Russell Stadium
(Captioned photos linked by editorgrrl provide Clearwater and Savannah locations for all these pix)
posted by beagle at 1:43 PM on November 12, 2013

I want to see the photos; I don't give a shit whom else is there to see them.
posted by ZaneJ. at 2:18 PM on November 12, 2013 [8 favorites]

filthy light thief’s “Indirectly” link has the photos

(Which I didn't realize, as those image links are blocked at work.) And they're also in the first link of the OP.


So that second link is all about how all the cool kids showed up to look at them and not really about the work at all? GLUFF. BLEG.

Nope, the second link was to say they were shown (as indicated in "showing") in a public gallery, not just as an online thing.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:21 PM on November 12, 2013

The Manger Towne & Country Motor Lodge in Savannah GA was the location of those poolside photos.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:24 PM on November 12, 2013 [3 favorites]

Looking at the big captioned ones, I would almost bet that Keith took them. He is pretty well known for having a near-encyclopedic memory of everything he has ever done (even while taking prodigious amounts of drugs), has anybody just - you know - asked him?

"Oh, yeah, the Clearwater pictures. I wasn't too happy with them, so I gave them to this bloke Ted. Nice fella, Ted, used to fancy these French cigarettes . . ."
posted by Curious Artificer at 2:24 PM on November 12, 2013 [2 favorites]

Someone needs to photoshop in a tut-tutting Don Draper in the backrground of these.
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:26 PM on November 12, 2013

I'm sorry, I wasn't criticizing filthy light thief or his post. I was criticizing the people hamming it up in the second link.
posted by jillithd at 2:30 PM on November 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

Thanks, duly noted.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:44 PM on November 12, 2013

In my head I captioned all of the pics: "God, I hate the Beatles."

filthy light thief post + any subject of photography whatsoever = excellence. Thanks, flt.
posted by Sphinx at 4:09 PM on November 12, 2013

I feel kinda weird looking at pictures of Brian Jones sitting poolside.
posted by Sys Rq at 5:42 PM on November 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

I sent the links to a music history buff friend of mine and I got back this link:

The Lost Rolling Stone Photographs

If you scroll down the page to the second-to-last photo, it is captioned "At the Manger Town & Country Motor Lodge, Georgia, May 1965."

My friend thinks Bob Bonis took the photos, and based on the info in The Lost Rolling Stone Photographs article, I think so too. Amazing stuff - thanks for the post, it's been fun researching this!
posted by faineant at 8:02 PM on November 12, 2013 [4 favorites]

Mick and Ian Stewart is a photograph by Bob Bonis [scroll down] - The Lost Rolling Stones Photographs. I wonder if he took them all if they were all found together?
posted by unliteral at 8:07 PM on November 12, 2013

Jinx faineant!
posted by unliteral at 8:12 PM on November 12, 2013

Heh! Very neat.
posted by faineant at 8:14 PM on November 12, 2013

In my head I captioned all of the pics: "God, I hate the Beatles."

Yeah, why can't the Beatles write real rock songs like, say, "I Wanna Be Your Man"?
posted by yoink at 8:16 PM on November 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

Hmm, in the comments at 22 Words:

J.K. says:
These are the Bob Bonis photos for sure, I worked on the book of Bob’s photos. Bob had at the time (1964/1965)gave a “few” of the many photos he took to various “Teen Mag.” to be published. These are probably photos someone at one of these magazine might have kept and have now found their way to a flea market somewhere in the USA. The rights to the photos still belong to the Bonis eastate and or reps of the estate as they still have the original negatives to most of these photos and got copywritten when the book got published.

Monkey says:
I contacted the gallery in LA exhibiting these pictures and they said they’d been in touch with Bob Bonis’s estate to check the provenance of them and the estate didn’t think they were Bob’s as Bob kept very thorough records of his negatives and prints and there was nothing to match these, even though they come from the same time as some of Bob’s published shots.

Anybody got the book to look through and see if any of them are in there?
posted by unliteral at 8:22 PM on November 12, 2013 [1 favorite]

After more searching - in the comments at npr:

Josiah Webb a year ago
Interesting... I don't think this is a mystery cache of previously unpublished photos of the Stones. See here:

http://www.angelfire.com/rock3...

The picture of Mick holding a Budweiser look familiar? (hint: reference it with number 21 from the slide show above). Pretty sure those are from a story in Tiger Beat from 1966, written by Duke Lewis.

posted by unliteral at 8:34 PM on November 12, 2013

Don't have the book, but check this "Look Inside" link:

http://www.harpercollins.com/browseinside/index.aspx?isbn13=9780061960796

Scroll down to the Keith shot and compare it to the Keith shot in the lost bunch.
posted by faineant at 8:35 PM on November 12, 2013

Whoops, sorry about the lack of a live link - not to put too fine a point on it, but I think the gallery is full of crap. If you scroll down through the book link, there are more photos from the pool.
posted by faineant at 8:41 PM on November 12, 2013

There's another neat set of the Stones backsta=ge before the Statesboro gig on Flickr here.

Also, worth noting that those Clearwater pics were taken either the day before or the day after Keith dreamed up the riff that became Satisfaction.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 12:54 AM on November 13, 2013 [2 favorites]

Mick was actually cute, back in the day. I know enough about him to know, he was my type. :-*
posted by Goofyy at 2:00 AM on November 13, 2013 [1 favorite]

I saw this exhibit. The photos were great, but I wish they hadn't been selling prints of them.
posted by Ideefixe at 2:06 PM on November 13, 2013