Beggars Banquet History

For much of the seventeen years I published Beggars Banquet, I constantly heard two questions from Stones fans: "How did you get to know the Stones?" And, "How did Beggars Banquet become the Stones' official newsletter?"

There are no easy answers. Certainly, I would not have been motivated to befriend the Stones if I were not a Stones fan. But there were a lot of other factors that played in. I wanted to be a writer since I was a little kid. I studied journalism in high school and college, and came to idolize rock 'n' roll reporters like Chet Flippo and Kurt Loder. I remember thinking: "These guys get paid to hang out with the Stones! That's for me!"

The other important factor was my persistence. I have a compulsive personality that never lets me quit. I ran around in the rain and snow at all hours of the night to make sure Beggars Banquet was the best it could be. Although luck sometimes played a role, the point is, I made it my job to be in the right place at the right time.

Third-ever issue of Beggars Banquet, founded by a 16-year-old. In 1978, websites or Photoshop programs were hardly a glimmer.

In the late '70s and early '80s, when I started Beggars Banquet, the Stones (or at least Mick, Keith, and Ronnie) were living in New York. (As you can tell from the songs on "Some Girls," "Emotional Rescue," and "Tattoo You," the Big Apple played a large role in their lives.) Well, lucky for me, New York was my home, too.

Before I launched Beggars Banquet, I was like any teenage fan. I had a bunch of pen pals around the U.S. and Europe. But because I was right on top of the Stones "events" in New York (most of which went uncovered by the media), I became pretty popular on the pen pal circuit. I mean, every night, one of the Stones would turn up at some nightclub, like Trax or the Ritz, and very often they'd get up onstage to jam. New York was where Stones news was happening.

Additionally, I befriended some New Yorkers who actually knew the Stones. These people became my sources and, through them, I'd find out every detail about the Stones' activities. I also got to hear advance tapes of Stones albums months before they were released.

Eventually, word spread that there was this kid in New York who knew everything about the Stones before anyone else. My group of pen pals grew so large, I had no choice but to write just one letter and make copies of it for everyone. That's how Beggars Banquet was launched. I was 16 years old.

It was September 1978 when I sneaked into the mimeo room of my high school in Brooklyn to print the first issue. (It was poorly written and poorly laid out, but, man, did it smell great!) It mostly reported on Keith's narcotics trial in Canada and the Stones' upcoming appearance on "Saturday Night Live." When I printed it, I had no plans to do a second issue. (My paid circulation was no more than three or four people.) But I enjoyed it so much, I continued to sneak into the mimeo room once a month to keep it going. (Eventually, I graduated and had to find a real printer.)

In those early issues, I covered events like the New Barbarians tour and the Stones' recording sessions in Barbados and Paris for the "Emotional Rescue" album. Through my "sources," Beggars Banquet was scooping major magazines like Rolling Stone when it came to Stones news.

After publishing fifteen issues, I felt proud enough to show my creation to the Stones. I knew they were having a release party for "Emotional Rescue" at a club called Danceteria, so I brought it over there. I wasn't on the guest list, but I gave an issue to Keith and Ronnie as they were walking out of the club. "Emotional Rescue" was not yet in stores, but this issue contained advanced photos of the cover and a full preview of the record. As they got into their limousine, Keith and Ronnie looked at the issue and then looked at me. They could obviously tell I was a teenager (17) and must've wondered, "How the hell does he know all this?!"

After that, I started bringing my issues to the Stones' office at Rockefeller Center. The people there were very kind, but when they told me they were passing along my issues to the Stones, I assumed they were humoring me.

I soon discovered, however, they were telling me the truth. A paparazzo acquaintance of mine said he saw Mick walk into his house clutching an issue. Then I bumped into Bobby Keys at the Ritz nightclub one night, and he told me he saw issues of Beggars Banquet on Keith's coffee table.

Eventually, I started getting feedback directly from the Stones. You see, I made it my business to seek them out at some of the nightclubs around town. It wasn't hard to figure out where they might turn up. If Chuck Berry or Jimmy Cliff was playing the Ritz, or if Matt "Guitar" Murphy was playing at Trax, I knew there'd be a Stones sighting.


Sharing an issue with Keith and Patti. They like it!

When I'd see the Stones at these clubs, I would never think about approaching them for an autograph or anything bothersome. My main objective was to hand them the latest issue of Beggars Banquet. And that's all I would do. Give 'em the issue and walk away. But after the first few times, they wouldn't let me leave. They'd literally grab me and tell me how much they loved what I was doing. "I've already seen this one," Woody might say. "I'm waitin' for the next one." Or Keith: "Yeah, I just read this one on the can."

The Stones knew exactly who I was, and they were telling me, a teenager, how much they were enjoying my work.

Things just snowballed from there. Through the contacts I made at the Stones office, I had some good access for parts of the '81 tour. I got backstage for Keith's birthday party in Hampton, Virginia, following the big pay-per-view concert that night. I knew that across the country there were plenty of fans who had ordered the pay-per-view, had invited a dozen-or-so friends over, and were having their own birthday party for Keith. It's the kind of thing some fans do. But here I was, I told myself, at the real birthday party, singing "Happy Birthday" to the real Keith Richards.

While these sporadic and brief hook-ups with the Stones were great, I finally forged a tighter relationship with Keith in 1982, when I discovered he was living at the Plaza Hotel under the name "Richard Hurrah." All I wanted to do was drop off the latest issue at the front desk for him. But on a lark, I decided to call Mr. Hurrah's room from the lobby, just to let him know the issue was down there. The hotel operator screened the call, asked my name, and put me on hold. To my surprise, the next voice I heard was Keith's.

He said he was happy that I called because he'd been wanting to get together with me. (I took a step back. "Maybe he thinks the operator said Bill Wyman, not German," I thought to myself. This was too good to be true.) He told me again how much he loved Beggars Banquet and said I should come interview him. He told me things were getting busy for him, but that I should keep checking in. "Call me here over the next few days," he said.

We wound up speaking almost every day for three weeks, as he tried to fit me into his schedule. Each day it was: "I'll know more tomorrow about what I gotta do. Try me then." He sincerely wanted to hook this thing up and told me not to stop calling until we did. (Of course, I was too naive to realize that celebrity interviews are arranged by publicists and agents, not by the celebrities themselves.)


	Ronnie thanked me profusely and our friendship was forged.

In the meantime, Ronnie was going to conduct a lecture at Town Hall in New York. Yes, a lecture. It was affiliated with that adult education place, the Learning Annex. Ronnie had no idea what he was going to do for this lecture, but I knew what I was going to do: I was determined to publish the show's official program. I correctly assumed that no one had thought about doing one.

But here's the catch: I didn't check with anyone about this in advance. Not the Learning Annex, not Town Hall, and not anyone associated with Ron Wood. I guess I didn't want to give anyone the opportunity to say no. I just knew it was something I really wanted to do.


	*Keith offered to staple these*.

Town Hall's capacity was 1,500, so that's how many programs I printed up, at my own expense. I titled it "The Banquet." It was 16 pages, containing photos of Ronnie and a detailed bio I'd written about him. (I'm told it's now a collector's item.)

Two hours before showtime, I arrived at Town Hall with a box full of my programs and walked right into the place without being stopped. "I'm delivering the programs," I told a security guard.

As luck would have it, Ronnie was onstage doing a soundcheck. I walked right up to him and gave him one. He was stunned and thrilled. He had been so nervous about this show that he was truly flattered that anyone would take the time to do something like this.

"I didn't know they were doing a program," he said.

"They weren't," I told him. "I did it on my own."

He thanked me profusely and our friendship was forged. Upon seeing Ronnie's reaction, someone from the Learning Annex assumed I was supposed to be there. He instantly handed me a backstage pass for the show.

The fun didn't stop there: Town Hall's head usher did not question that this was the official program. Mind you, I was prepared to give these things out on my own, on the street if I had to. But now the head usher was going: "Listen up, everyone. The programs are in this box. Take a handful and give them out as you bring people to their seats."

When the theatre opened, I sat quietly and watched a dozen-or-so uniformed ushers handing out the programs. As a writer, I still consider it one of the most exciting nights of my life. I was surrounded by 1,500 people reading my work at the same time. (As for the lecture itself, well, that's another story for another day.)

But wait, there's a funnier part to this saga. The night before Ronnie's lecture, I was on the phone with Keith. Like I said earlier, he kept telling me to call him at the Plaza Hotel in hopes of setting up an interview. It was 11:30 at night, and I figured he'd just say, "Call me tomorrow." Instead, he said, "Let's do it tonight. Right now."

Obviously, because Keith is such a hard guy to pin down, I knew I had to grab the opportunity when it presented itself. But I was in the middle of putting together the Town Hall programs. (To save money, I collated and stapled them myself.) So, believe it or not, I actually said, "Um, Keith, can't we do it another day? Because I'm sitting here stapling these books for Ronnie's show tomorrow night."

Keith's response, and I swear this is verbatim, was: "Bring 'em over here. I'll help you staple."

Despite Keith's suggestion, I didn't bring the programs. But I do think he meant it. He's that kind of guy. Anyway, I begged some of my friends to stay up all night and staple the programs, while I rushed over to the Plaza Hotel. Unfortunately, because I was still living in Brooklyn (with my parents), it took me about an hour-and-a-half until I got there. I turned up at 1 AM , by which time Keith had fallen asleep.

The next time I spoke to Keith, he was very apologetic about the whole thing and invited me to a party the Stones were hosting for the "Let's Spend The Night Together" film premiere.

I eventually interviewed Keith eight months later and it was well worth the wait. He gave me three hours of his time, at the Stones' office in Rockefeller Center. And as if that weren't enough, I interviewed Mick on the same day. That one also lasted three hours and was conducted at Mick's house (only a few blocks from where I live today). It was the day after my 21st birthday, and I can't think of a better gift.


With a bottle of J.D. close at hand, Keith and I discuss BB's first official issue (Volume 2, Number 1).

Parts of those interviews began appearing in the first official issue of Beggars Banquet, in January 1984. As for how Beggars Banquet became official, I'll try to make a very long story very short. The Stones (or actually their business managers) decided to have a fan club that year. Their goal, primarily, was to sell Stones merchandise. But Mick and Keith insisted that the club have a newsletter to keep the fans in touch with everything. And since Mick and Keith were very familiar with me and my work, they both insisted that I be the one hired to write it.


	Visiting Bill Wyman's London apartment.

Beggars Banquet was then advertised in the "Undercover" album, and Bill Wyman (the fan club's president) sent a letter to the fan club members explaining it all.

And so, after publishing Beggars Banquet on my own for five years, the Stones had practically become my business partners, an adventure that kept rolling for the next twelve years.