Mick Jagger by Philip Norman Page A

Incorporated had an early-evening spot fronted, as Haslam’s memoirs recall, “by a hired-in singer … a skinny kid named Mick something.” Haslam’s companion, the future magazine editor Min Hogg, later reported the skinny kid had been sure enough of himself to make overtures and even “paw” at her strapless pink satin evening gown. From the ABC bakery to the upper crust: he had found the milieu where from now on he would be happiest.
    THE EALING CLUB had started with just one hundred members; now, only two months later, it boasted more than eight hundred. When it was crowded to capacity, and beyond, the heat rivaled that of a similar subterranean space called the Cavern in far-off Liverpool. So much condensation dripped from the walls and ceiling that Korner had to hang a tarpaulin sheet over the stage canopy to stop the already precarious electrical connections from shorting out.
    Korner’s real triumph was a phone call from Harold Pendleton, manager of Soho’s Marquee Club, who had so loftily banned the blues from his stage at the beginning of the year. Worried by the numbers who were defecting from the Marquee to Ealing Broadway—and by an upsurge of younger blues musicians in rival Soho clubs—Pendleton had undergone a rapid change of heart. It happened that in his weekly program, the Thursday-night spot had fallen vacant. This he offered to Blues Incorporated, starting on May 19.
    There was, of course, no question of the band appearing without a regular vocalist as it had mostly done in Ealing. Korner wanted Mick but—atypically nice man that he was—hesitated to split up the band Mick still had with Keith. However, Keith was happy for his friend to jump at this big chance. “I’ll always remember how nice he was about it,” Bobbie Korner recalls. “He said, ‘Mick really deserves this and I’m not going to stand in his way.’ ”
    Disc magazine made the announcement, a first droplet of newsprint oceans to come: “Nineteen-year-old Dartford rhythm and blues singer Mick Jagger has joined the Alexis Korner group Blues Incorporated and will sing with them regularly on their Saturday dates in Ealing and at their Thursday sessions at the Marquee.”
    Brian Jones was also heading for the West End. His stage partner Paul Pond, the vocalist he needed to set off his slide guitar riffs, had decided to resume studying at Oxford (and would do so until being recruited into Manfred Mann as Paul Jones). Korner’s move back to Soho, taking Mick along, spurred Brian into forming a blues band of his own whose center of gravity would be there rather than provincial Ealing. The fact that he was unknown in Soho did not deter him. He placed an ad in Jazz News, the most serious of all London’s music trades, inviting prospective sidemen to audition in the upstairs function room of a pub called the White Bear, just off Leicester Square. When its management caught him pilfering from the bar, he was forced to relocate to another pub, the Bricklayers Arms on Broadwick Street.
    His original plan had been to poach the two most talented members of a well-regarded band called Blues by Six, lead guitarist Geoff Bradford and vocalist Brian Knight. Soon after the move to the Bricklayers Arms, however, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards turned up, accompanied by the other most serious musician from the Blue Boys, Dick Taylor. There was nothing to stop Mick singing with Brian’s band as well as Blues Incorporated if he chose, but that spot already seemed to have been taken by Brian Knight. Fortunately for him, the instrumental mix as it stood simply did not work. Geoff Bradford wished only to play the authentic blues of Muddy Waters and his ilk and was offended by Keith’s Chuck Berry licks—as well as nervous of Brian’s kleptomania. After a couple of practice sessions, Bradford bowed out, loyally accompanied by his friend Knight, so leaving the way open for Mick and Keith.
    The only other worthwhile recruit was a burly,