The Stones & Brian Jones

I grew up loving the British Invasion. The Beatles, Stones, The Kinks, and the Who were the soundtrack of my early teen life. When I saw The Stones and Brian Jones was playing at our local "Art" house movie theater, I had to see it. Brian was my favorite when the Stones first hit the big time. Loved his hair and his Vox Teardrop guitar which is featured prominently in the movie.

Quite simply, the writing and the content of the movie is excellent. It covered Brian's life from a child to his unfortunate death in 1969. It would have been nice if some of the remaining Stones would have been available to give the viewer their spin on Brian 50 years on, but that wasn't the case with only retired bass guitarist Bill Wyman talking on camera from a point of hindsight. And when he first appears, my wife and I had no idea who he was! He looked nothing like the Bill Wyman I remember, but we all age.

But the biggest issue with the doc is the producers and directors could not either afford to pay for the rights to any Stones songs written by members of the band or could not get the approval from the Stones to use their songs. For the exception of a few snippets of Satisfaction and another tune or two, only the early covers of Blues standards which was the Stones bread and butter in the early days are featured. I reminded me of the Hendrix movie that came out about 25 years ago that only had Hendrix songs written by others such as Dylan, and other Blues legends. It's about getting rights to the songs that would have made this movie pop.

Some scenes used what I would call, elevator music, as background which was cringeworthy at the least.

Most of the footage was new to me and that was the best part of the movie. The music, meh...

I'm shocked this doc has a good-not-great rating. I thought it was borderline phenomenal. The amount of footage from the early '60s is amazing and the editing with said footage is incredibly good. It's a documentary that nails the two requirements for any doc: it's a great story combined with great technique.

I have been a Stones fan for about 25 years but never delved very far into their history. For someone like me this was eye-opening, and I have to believe a lot of the footage and even some audio was brand new to even the most die-hard fans.

To me this succeeds on every level. My only small beef was that sole of the audio interviews were hard to hear. Nothing crazy in the negative department. Almost nothing in fact. It's just a great doc that's nostalgic, fascinating and tragic.

Brain Jones founded the Rolling Stones. He was shy, sexually attractive (and careless with it), and increasingly unhappy for not being Mick Jagger. Kicked out of the band for a level of drug abuse that made him unreliable, he died young a short while later. Nick Broomfield's film is a sympathetic account of his life that doesn't hide from the fact he wasn't always a nice person to be around, and a sad lesson of the perils of getting what you might have thought you wanted. The film relies quite a lot on Bill Wyman, but Wyman actually provides some perspective that those who stayed in the band for longer perhaps would not provide. It's an elegaic portrait of an ultimately tragic life.

This is an unblemished look at Brian Jones and the band he helped to create.

It shows Brian as a very troubled individual who abused women, was a substance abuser - and essentially lost control of himself.

It was like he couldn't compete and adjust to the fast-paced changes that were part of the Stones during the 1960s.

This is a very personal documentary with many interviews - of the band members, of Brian's wife and girlfriends, plus of his parents. With his parents, he could never find acceptance, and this is very sad indeed.

The documentary also high-lights the musical contributions he made to the band.

I got to see The Stones & Brian Jones documentary on the big screen the other night. It was for a film festival and the place was packed. Director Nick Broomfield, Stones bassist Bill Wyman and biographer Paul Trynka definitely made sure Brian's musical contributions were front and center. He really deserved more credit for his contributions to the Stones' hits. The women in Brian's life were also a very strong presence throughout the documentary, which is awesome. And most of all, the lesson I took away is, when you see someone having a hard time in life, be a friend. Say something. Just be kind.