Houston

Sunday, June 25 (2 shows)

 

    With the stunning riffs of Fort Worth’s Sweet Black Angel audio serving as fresh inspiration, I embarked on this research exercise with high hopes of finding press-based evidence of comparably rare song performances at the next Texas venue.  After all, the Ladies and Gentlemen cameras rolled in Houston, too, and so presumably the Stones still had that big, “for the record” incentive to unleash a few more tour debuts.  Moreover, the Sunday crowds did not get the expected Stevie Wonder performance.  Maybe, just maybe, Mick and Keith tried to compensate for the shorter overall show with something special from their suite of freshly-practiced “Dallas rehearsals” rarities.  Imagine, if you will, Let It Loose on a Sunday afternoon.

 

    Of course, such speculations would be unnecessary if we had complete Houston tapes or films at our disposal, but we do not yet enjoy such recorded fruits of the STP endeavor.  Instead, what the anxious sleuth can find are further riddles and enticements from two leading Stones authors.  Oddly, Karnbach himself weighs in with contradictory statements about the Sunday repertoires, first announcing that Dead Flowers “turned up again at the early show in Houston on June 25” (yes!), but then reporting just two pages later that Sunday’s sets reverted back to the “normal” fifteen-song format without any special songs (huh?).  Perhaps the second edition of It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll will correct these conflicting lines, but in the meantime there is an even more explosive Houston tale in print courtesy of Jagger biographer Christopher Sandford.  Consider this arousing passage in his 1993 book:

 

    In Houston Bianca appeared. She arrived theatrically at the hotel in a khaki

  suit, hat and walking stick while on stage Jagger bumped, shook, frugged and

  shimmied in 110 degree heat. After a merely melodramatic Brown Sugar he went

  caterwauling downstage in Bitch, hands flapping, lips pursed, jumpsuit ajar, his

  heels skidding on the watery stage. All Down The Line followed, then Richard

  singing Happy. Jagger was back and frugging again in Tumbling Dice, strutting

  like James Brown, arms pumping, shaking, akimbo, legs braided rather than crossed,

  before dropping Brown-like to his knees for Midnight Rambler. Some of the songs

  from Exile were not so much seized upon as accepted: Sweet Black Angel, Sweet

  Virginia, Jagger’s elaborate introduction cut short by the eruption of Honky Tonk

  Women. The song ended with the singer leaning forward and, doglike, extending his

  leg. Richard’s and Taylor’s guitars merged into Street Fighting Man, the drums

  crashed, the lights flared, Jagger threw roses. The cheering began and increased

  in volume. The noise seemed literally to detonate, wave after wave, breaking in a

  single drumroll like the sound of cracking bones, Jagger grinning, sweating,

  stooping to wink at the eye of the camera recording him (Ladies and Gentlemen, the

  Rolling Stones), running downstairs, backslapped, a shrug, another show to prepare

  for – and who could do what it was he did?

 

Between them, Karnbach and Sandford give us references to three unconfirmed rarities in Houston: Dead Flowers, Sweet Black Angel, Honky Tonk Women.  Does the local press from 1972 offer any independent verification of these or other non-core songs?

 

    Sadly, the targeted, much-anticipated Houston clippings end up disclosing very little in the way of new song details.  Sure, we get more Dorothy Norwood testaments, a written account of the rare “popcorn” shower seen at the close of Ladies and Gentlemen, and the usual “no encores” laments, but the direct song citations themselves are quite standard and fail to confirm any of the tantalizing clues from Karnbach and Sandford.  (So much for all of my high hopes for the Houston press.)  Nevertheless, to my mind, the four articles in hand do not completely foreclose the possibility of a Fort Worth-style rarity emerging from the next newspaper review or, even better, our first complete 6/25/72 tape.  Maybe it will turn out that Houston really did get only the standard tour set and nothing else, but for now I am keeping the playlist door open, hoping for better evidence to emerge.

 

    Finally, note that Sandford published his reference to the live Sweet Black Angel rendition in 1993, some four years before the discovery of the lone Fort Worth audience tape with that very song.  So, even if his concert description quoted above actually refers to Fort Worth rather than Houston, he apparently had privileged access to performance documentation beyond the usual Ladies and Gentlemen scenes.  Did he view a complete Texas show on film and collect his song references and Jagger visuals from the screening?  Or did one of his informants relate this detailed concert portrait?  Whatever Sandford’s source, his Mick Jagger: Primitive Cool appears to deserve credit for scooping everyone with the very first public tip to Sweet Black Angel being performed on the 1972 tour.

 

 

1st show

 

Houston Chronicle

 

Cougar

 

San Antonio Express

Brown Sugar

Brown Sugar

Brown Sugar

 

 

 

Rocks Off

 

Rocks Off

Gimme Shelter

 

Gimme Shelter

Happy

Happy

Happy

Tumbling Dice

 

 

“a couple of slow blues tunes with Jagger on harmonica”

Love In Vain

Love In Vain

 

 

YCAGWYW

 

YCAGWYW

“Rock On Through” = ADTL?

 

 

Midnight Rambler

Midnight Rambler

Midnight Rambler

Bye Bye Johnny

“Johnny B. Goode” = BBJ

 

 

 

 

JJF

JJF

JJF

 

 

SFM

 

Jagger: “Sporting a Spanky McFarland cap and blue chambray workshirt over a bestudded velveteen jumpsuit, the lead Rolling Stone was soon sweating and peeling, doffing his cap to don a battered Stetson or a red-white-and-blue top hat.”

 

“no encores”

 

Opening: “a soul gospel group, led by Dorothy Norwood”

 

 

Jagger: “dressed in shiny purple pants, a green shirt, a white tassle belt and a silver cap”

 

 

 

 

 

“the Stones did not return” for an encore

 

Opening: “gospel-soul group”

 

Jagger: “purple silk silver studded jumpsuit with a long mauve scarf wrapped around his waist”

 

 

Space City: “The concerts were also dampened considerably by the unexpected absence of Stevie Wonder, said to be caused by the nervous breakdown of his drummer. Bidy was backstage before the first show and offered to obtain the capable services of Frank Beard, ZZ Top’s drummer, but this offer was rebuffed.”

 

Cougar: “As Jagger became more exhilarated, the green shirt disappeared to reveal a tight-fitting purple jumpsuit.”

 

San Antonio Express: “If anything is changed, it is their production crew which is more organized and professional. Besides several assistants in headphones controlling sound mixing, there were at least four 35mm movie cameras at various locations filming for a future feature-length film.”

 

STP: “During the first show, the tempo on stage got a little tangled with Charlie hanging back a beat or two and Keith began shouting ‘Faster, Charlie, faster. Fuck you. COME ON,’ stamping in time to show him what he meant.”

 

Elman, Uptight With The Stones: “The Houston concert that afternoon was a stand-up explosion of joy and rage from beginning to end and, afterwards, the Stones went off to the Ramada Inn to the suite of Ahmed Ertigan, President of Atlantic Records, for a party.”

 

 

 

2nd show

 

Space City

Brown Sugar

 

Rocks Off

Gimme Shelter

Happy

Tumbling Dice

 

 

YCAGWYW

 

Midnight Rambler

“Johnny B. Goode” = BBJ

 

JJF

SFM

 

show ended “in a shower of popcorn from the ceiling during the final throes of Street Fighting Man

 

Opening: Dorothy Norwood Singers

 

 

Space City: “The performance was very good, quite professional, but too brief. The not-so-young machos laid about 16 songs on us at the 9 p.m. show, were on stage around 1½ hours and left the crowd begging for more. But there were no encores from this band and the crowd filed out of the hall at 11:35 p.m. feeling partially fulfilled, but wishing for more.”

 

Houston Post: “Those lucky enough to have one of the 20,000 odd tickets which sold out within hours of first being put on sale, got 15 minutes of howling from an unknown Gospel group, a cancellation from Stevie Wonder and an hour and a half of the Rolling Stones. Jagger and the other four Britons labored to ignite the crowd, but managed to do so only in the last 20 minutes of each of the two shows. If nothing else, it was a night of hats for the mercurial hipped Mick Jagger, who came on stage in a silk jockey’s riding cap, switched to a ten gallon and donned an Uncle Sam top hat for the finale number Street Fighting Man.”

 

Space City: Nothing much developed during the afternoon show, but by nightfall a hastily instituted no camera/no tape recorder edict was introduced, giving the cops an excuse to hassle people, look in purses and engage in general harassments which resulted in beefed-up arrest figures.”

 

 

 

Selected Press Clippings

 

Cougar1 * 2

 

Houston Chronicle

 

Houston Post

 

San Antonio Express2

 

Space City1 * 2