The Rolling Stones on Ed Sullivan in 1964; Photo: Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images
It was a busy, and controversial, begin to 1967 for The Rolling Stones. On January 13, 1967, Decca launched “Let’s Spend The Night Together,” backed by “Ruby Tuesday” and the next day it was launched by London Records in America. The day after that, on January 15, The Rolling Stones appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, and had been compelled to vary the lyrics to the a-side of their single, in order to not offend the fragile sensibilities of American TV viewers.
In the weeks that adopted, The Rolling Stones had the phrase “night” bleeped out of their document and a few stations went so far as banning it altogether, which meant “Ruby Tuesday” bought much more airplay. “Ruby Tuesday” ended up topping the charts, whereas “Let’s Spend The Night Together” may solely make a lowly No.55.
In Britain, issues had been a little bit totally different, however because it proved, no much less controversial. The Rolling Stones had been greeted after the Ed Sullivan state of affairs by the discharge of their new album, Between The Buttons. And, a couple of days later, on Sunday, January 22 they had been at one in every of London’s most well-known theaters to rehearse for an look on TV’s, Sunday Night on the London Palladium.
Having ceaselessly been requested to seem, and by no means doing so, they’d relented but nobody from The Rolling Stones can fairly bear in mind why they did so. According to Charlie on the time, “Personally I didn’t want to do it, and I’m not sure why we did. I suppose it was a challenge. It’s always done more harm than good to anybody I’ve ever seen on it.”
One cause for his or her look was that alternatives to seem on TV had been much less as Ready Steady Go!, one of the best of the Sixties pop applications had been taken off the air; it was additionally true that Sunday Night At The London Palladium had an enormous viewers, near 10 million.
According to the present’s producer, “They arrived with all their music on a tape. Their manager Andrew Oldham sat alongside me checking the sound level. I was so disappointed in my dealings with them. Not only were they late for rehearsal, but I feel I was confronted with ill-mannered, studied rudeness.” But then once more, in response to Keith, “The show’s so bad we couldn’t rely on them to get the sound we wanted. It’s not as if we can’t play live,” is what he instructed Disc per week or so later.
On the TV present, The Stones mimed, whereas Mick sang reside to “Ruby Tuesday,” “Let’s Spend The Night Together,” and “Connection,” the latter being a observe from Between The Buttons. It was not the miming that was controversial, although. It was The Stones’ refusal to seem on the closing sequence of the TV present. They refused to face on the revolving stage, when all of the performers and the present’s host, Dave Allen, had been anticipated to smile and wave to the viewers. Andrew Loog Oldham had a row with Mick about it, and, within the following days, offended viewers took to writing letters to the press.
One girl from Oxford instructed that The Stones “should take a lesson from the real stars like Gracie Fields, Margot Fonteyn, Frankie Vaughan, etc., none of whom would dream of being so rude to either their fellow artists or the public.” While one other disgruntled Home Counties viewer stated, “It is too late to prevent this record going on the market, but for goodness sake let us ban any sequels before the entire business has a harmful effect on our nation as a whole.”
The row appeared to go on for weeks after. Those of a sure age couldn’t comprehend why The Stones had been invited to seem, youthful folks couldn’t care much less, and a few others most likely puzzled why The Stones had bothered in any respect. As Mick instructed the NME, “The only reason we did the show was because it was a good national plug. Anyone who thought we were changing our image to suit a family audience was mistaken.”
On the next week’s Sunday Night on the London Palladium, comedians, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore had been the celebrities of the present. Pete and Dud had turn into pleasant with the Stones and, to point out their solidarity with the band, they went on the roundabout with life-size cardboard cutouts of all 5 Stones, created by Gerald Scarfe.
Oh. And how did The Rolling Stones do on the charts amidst all of the Ed Sullivan controversy? “Let’s Spend The Night Together”/“Ruby Tuesday” made No.3 on the UK charts.