THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN AGAIN
Some things are worth waiting for. Presumed lost for decades, The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus TV special was filmed in December of 1968 and tragically shelved for decades. Fast forward many years later, the footage was discovered in a barn in England and 28 years on, the landmark rock and roll TV spectacular finally saw release in 1996. It was a fantastical music event, its playful traveling circus big-top atmosphere replete with clowns, midgets, trapeze aerialists and fire eaters, colorful staging and powerful performances captured some of rock’s legendary icons at the peak of their career—The Rolling Stones (marking Brian Jones’ last appearance with the group), The Who unveiling a supercharged rendition of their mini- pop opera “A Quick One, While He’s Away,” The Dirty Mac, a one-off unit fronted by John Lennon, Eric Clapton on guitar, Keith Richards on bass and Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell delivering a raw take of “Yer Blues” by The Beatles, plus guest spots by Jethro Tull with future Black Sabbath founding member Tony Iommi on guitar, Taj Mahal and Marianne Faithfull. Newly restored and returning for a limited theatrical run with expectations for a DVD/Blu-ray release in the near future, we sat down with the show’s director Michael Lindsay-Hogg for the back story behind this spectacular once-in-a-lifetime musical event.
GOLDMINE: What sparked the idea of The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus?
MICHAEL LINDSAY HOGG: I’d worked with The Rolling Stones on this TV show I used to direct in England called Ready Steady Go! We’d worked together several times on that; we did “The Last Time” together, we did “Satisfaction” twice on two separate shows. We did “Paint It Black,” we did “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow.” I’d worked with them about five or six times on Ready Steady Go! and we got on very well from the beginning. This was early on when Andrew Loog Oldham was their manager. Then Ready Steady Go! went off the air at the end of ’66 and they didn’t particularly like being on Top of the Pops, which was another big English music show ‘cause it was very staid and dull to look at. Also, the big groups, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who were looking to take their visual presentation more into their own hands and also to make videos so they didn’t have to go to all the plug shows in Amsterdam and in Paris. It was also done to show them on American television. There was The Ed Sullivan Show and the Smothers Brothers Show that both showed videos. I did “Paperback Writer” and “Rain” with The Beatles so they were early to jump on that line of thinking. Then I did “Happy Jack” with The Who.
GM: It’s crazy, you’re rifling off these titles of videos that stand today as iconic in rock and roll history.
MLH: (laughs) I also realize that and I’m grateful but however my fate in the stars aligned, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969. I was very lucky with the people I got to work with. I did many videos for the Stones. The first one I did for them was “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” that’s the first video they ever did and I also filmed a video for the B-side, “Child of the Moon,” which we shot the next day.
GM: You were on good stead with The Rolling Stones already.
MLH: Yeah, and that’s a very good question because they very much liked those two videos especially “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” because that was the single. They’d never done a video before. We did two versions of it; but the one I’m referring to is the one with the makeup, which we shot second. When you said I was in good stead with them, that’s important because they at that time were quick to judge. “That’s good” or “That’s bad.” They’re very smart; not only is Mick smart but Keith, Bill, Charlie and Brian. They were very, very bright guys otherwise they wouldn’t have lasted almost 60 years. So the first video I did for them was “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Child of the Moon” and subsequently I worked with them on a number of other videos. I did “Angie,” “It’s Only Rock and Roll,” “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg,” Dancing With Mr. D.,” “Miss You,” “Far Away Eyes,” “Start Me Up,” “Waiting on a Friend” and “Neighbors.” Usually we’d do a three or four at the same time. It was usually a pretty full day.
GM: You clearly passed the audition with them. What was the genesis of them wanting to do a TV special?
“The genesis was that The Beatles had done Magical Mystery Tour. But it was not that the Stones wanted to copy what The Beatles did in any way. The Stones were the Stones and The Beatles were The Beatles.”
I think the genesis was that The. But it was not that the Stones wanted to copy what The Beatles did in any way. They didn’t want to copy The Beatles because The Stones were The Stones and The Beatles were The Beatles but The Beatles set an example. They laid down a big footprint of how to go ahead with your career. Although Andrew Loog Oldham was out of the picture by the time it came to do The , he was always trying to get them to do a movie. He wanted to do a Rolling Stones movie and there were various projects being kicked around but for some reason it never happened mainly because Mick at a certain point went off to do a solo acting career with films like and other things whereas The Beatles had a couple of fiction pictures made, and Then there was that good picture that John Boorman directed for The Dave Clark Five, . He went on to have a big career and directed the film, , among other films. So The Stones under Andrew Loog Oldham’s prodding were looking for film projects, which just never happened. But because of they wanted to do a show of their own. So we’d done the videos for “Child of the Moon” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and they felt confident working with me and that I would come up with the goods and make something with them that people would be interested in. So I went over to talk to Mick. Mick was mainly the one you’d talk to. Not that when you were all sitting in a room Keith wouldn’t have his extremely bright ideas but Mick was usually the one who originated the conversations. In other words, that’s who you got the phone call from. So I went to meet up with him and he said, “Let’s try and come up with an idea for a television special. Do you want to do it?” I said, “Oh yeah, okay, I’ll do it.” And so that was my job and I went off to try and do it. Then that set in a period of frustration and anxiety because I didn’t have any ideas. I used to sit in their board room in their offices on Maddox Street in London and think, Jesus Christ, what can this be? Then I thought, are there any other rock and roll specials around? Jack Good had done a good one called , which had I think P.J. Proby, The Vernons Girls. In the show The Beatles were doing Shakespeare and things like that. It was a very good show. It was very well paced but I didn’t want to copy it. It also didn’t quite have a Rolling Stones feel because they not only are a unique band but at that time they were carving out an image for themselves like someone said of Lord Byron—mad, bad and dangerous to know. So they were distinct from The Beatles and you had to figure out a way to make their particular quality not only as a band but a group of five people distinctive. So I’m sitting in their office and I’m doodling because I didn’t have anything else to do. I doodled a circle and looked at it and I kept drawing circles around it. The god of titles was on hand that day because circle turned into circus and then I thought of . I thought, if nothing else, we have a good title. I called Mick up and said, “Try this on for size I’m gonna say seven words to you...The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus and then tell me what you think.” And he said, “Yeah fine, great.” He got it right away because he is very quick and immediately he started to talk about different ideas like it’s an idea we’d been discussing for week as opposed to two minutes. He asked, “What kind of circus do we want?” We were pretty collaborative at that time. If I had an idea, I’d run it by him and he’d say, yes, no or maybe and I could sort of move on from there. I liked collaborating with him because he was very, very smart and he also had a very firm sense of who The Rolling Stones were as an image and as a brand. He’s the one who came up with the tongue image along with Andy Warhol, which is now one of the famous logos of all time. So he very much understands their brand. We decided the kind of circus we wanted was not a very successful one. We wanted something that looked like a traveling circus of a medium standard, not a very fancy one like Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. As for the circus performers we wanted them to fit the vibe of The Rolling Stones version of a circus. The man and woman aerial act were not in what you’d call, their first youth. They were seasoned old school circus performers and they enjoyed it. The fire eater was someone we got in; I don’t know if he was with the circus, I can’t remember. So there were the aerialists and there were the clowns. In an earlier cut of the film we had some stuff going on between the clowns, hitting each other with a plank of wood like clowns always do but it didn’t stay in. It wasn’t really funny but it slightly took the air out of the show and also it wasn’t necessary. The aerialists were good and the guy doing the fire eating was good.
