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.
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1st show |
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Houston Chronicle |
Cougar |
San Antonio Express |
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Brown Sugar |
Brown Sugar |
Brown Sugar |
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Rocks Off |
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Rocks Off |
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Gimme Shelter |
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Gimme Shelter |
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Happy |
Happy |
Happy |
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Tumbling Dice |
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“a couple of slow blues tunes with Jagger on
harmonica” |
Love In Vain |
Love In Vain |
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YCAGWYW |
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YCAGWYW |
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“Rock On Through” = ADTL? |
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Midnight Rambler |
Midnight Rambler |
Midnight Rambler |
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Bye Bye Johnny |
“Johnny B. Goode” = BBJ |
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JJF |
JJF |
JJF |
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SFM |
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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” |
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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.” |
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2nd show |
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Space City |
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Brown Sugar |
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Rocks Off |
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Gimme Shelter |
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Happy |
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Tumbling Dice |
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YCAGWYW |
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Midnight Rambler |
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“Johnny B. Goode” = BBJ |
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JJF |
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SFM |
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show ended “in a shower of popcorn from the
ceiling during the final throes of Street Fighting Man” Opening: Dorothy Norwood Singers |
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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
Space City1
* 2
