Mick Jagger

Mick Jagger

Sir Michael Phillip "Mick" Jagger (born July 26, 1943) is a Golden Globe-winning and two-time Grammy-winning English rock musician, actor, songwriter, record and film producer and businessman. He is best known as the lead vocalist and frontman of the rock and roll band The Rolling Stones.

Early life

Jagger was born into a middle-class family at the Livingstone Hospital, Dartford, Kent, England. His father, Basil Fanshawe ("Joe") Jagger (6 April, 1913 – 11 November, 2006), and his paternal grandfather, David Ernest Jagger, were both teachers; his mother, Eva Ensley Mary Scutts (13 April 1913 – 18 May 2000), an Australian immigrant to England, was an active member of the Conservative Party. Jagger was the elder of two sons and was raised to follow in his father's career path. According to Jagger in the book According to the Rolling Stones, "I was always a singer. I always sang as a child. I was one of those kids who just liked to sing. Some kids sing in choirs; others like to show off in front of the mirror. I was in the church choir and I also loved listening to singers on the radio - the BBC or Radio Luxemburg - or watching them on TV and in the movies." Academically successful, he attended Dartford Grammar School where he passed 3 A-levels, before entering the London School of Economics on a scholarship. He studied for a degree in accounting and finance, with a minor in physical education, but attended for less than a year and did not graduate, leaving to pursue a musical career.

As a student, Jagger frequented a London club called "the Firehouse". At the age of 19, Jagger began performing as a singer. Like Keith Richards and other members of The Rolling Stones, Jagger had no formal musical training and did not know how to read music.

Richards and Jagger united and found they shared a love for rhythm and blues music. They moved into a flat in Chelsea with guitarist Brian Jones. While Richards and Jones were making plans to start their own rock and roll band Jagger continued his business courses at the London School of Economics.

The band’s first public appearance was an impromptu appearance at a tiny jazz club called the Marquee Club. The band was as of yet unnamed. They impulsively decided to call themselves "Brian Jones and Mick Jagger and the Rollin' Stones" after the title of a favorite Muddy Waters song. The band was not paid for this debut appearance. The trio later added drummer Charlie Watts and bassist Bill Wyman. By 1963, they were finding their stride as well as popularity. By 1964 two different opinion polls named them as England's most popular group outranking even the Beatles.

Ian Stewart was also an early member, but he was dropped from the band for not fitting the image desired by manager Andrew Loog Oldham. He continued to tour with the band as a pianist until his death in 1985. It was Oldham who insisted that Jagger call himself "Mick" rather than "Mike", a name he continued to use among friends; for example, John Lennon calls him Michael in the 1968 film The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus. Jagger was present at the international broadcast of The Beatles recording "All You Need Is Love".

The Rolling Stones

By 1965-, the Rolling Stones decided to move from clubs into larger venues and Jagger left LSE. The band continued to mine the works of American rhythm and blues artists such as Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, but Jagger and Richards soon began to write their own songs. This core songwriting partnership would flourish in time, giving The Rolling Stones a distinctive scruffy sound -- rock fully based in the blues. Their first composition, "As Tears Go By", was a song written for Marianne Faithfull, a young singer being promoted by Loog Oldham at the time. For the Stones, the duo would write "The Last Time", the band's third number one hit in the UK. The Rolling Stones relied heavily on covered material for their early chart success. One of the first fruits of this collaboration was their first international hit, "Satisfaction." It also established The Rolling Stones’ image as defiant troublemakers who were definitely not The Beatles.

"I wasn't trying to be rebellious in those days," Jagger told Stephen Schiff in a 1992 Vanity Fair profile. "I was just being me. I wasn't trying to push the edge of anything. I'm being me and ordinary, the guy from suburbia who sings in this band, but someone older might have thought it was just the most awful racket, the most terrible thing, and where are we going if this is music?... But all those songs we sang were pretty tame, really. People didn't think they were, but I thought they were tame."

The band released several successful albums including December's Children, Aftermath, and Between the Buttons, but their reputations made in song were catching up to them in reality. In 1967 Jagger was arrested on drug charges and was given, what was at the time, an unusually harsh sentence. He was given three months for possession of four over-the-counter pep pills he had purchased in Italy. This sentence was reduced, but their legal battles continued and internal struggles about the direction of the band had begun to surface.

Their Satanic Majesties Request was released in 1967. Critics soundly panned the album, which many of them derided as a poor attempt to copy The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

After the band's acrimonious split with their second manager, Allen B. Klein, Jagger took control of their business affairs and has managed them ever since in collaboration with his friend and colleague, Rupert Löwenstein. Decades after the band's creation, The Rolling Stones continue to perform and to court controversy. The release of their 2005 album A Bigger Bang included the song "Sweet Neo Con" in which Jagger's lyrics openly attack the presidency of George W. Bush.

On September 26, 2007, Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones made $437 million on their A Bigger Bang tour to list them in the latest edition of Guinness World Records. Jagger has refused to say when the band will finally retire, stating in 2007: "I'm sure the Rolling Stones will do more things and more records and more tours. We've got no plans to stop any of that really."

His personal fortune is an estimated £215m.

Acting and film production

Jagger has also had an acting career, most notably in Nicolas Roeg's Performance (1968) and as Australian bushranger Ned Kelly (1970). He composed an improvised soundtrack for Kenneth Anger's film Invocation Of My Demon Brother on the moog synthesizer in 1969. He also appeared in The Rutles spin-off film All You Need Is Cash in 1978. In the early 1980s, Jagger was cast as Wilbur, a main character in Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo. However a delay and the illness of main actor Jason Robards in the film's notoriously difficult production resulted in his being unable to continue due to schedule conflicts with a band tour; some of the footage of his work is shown in the documentary Burden of Dreams. He developed a reputation for playing the heavy later in his acting career in films including Freejack (1992), Bent (1997), and The Man From Elysian Fields (2002).

In 1995, Mick Jagger founded Jagged Films with Victoria Pearman, "to start my own projects instead of just going in other people's and being involved peripherally or doing music". Its first release was the World War II drama Enigma in 2001. That same year, it produced a documentary on Jagger entitled Being Mick. The program, which first aired on television November 22, coincided with the release of Goddess in the Doorway.

In 2008, the company began work on The Women, an adaptation of the George Cukor film of the same name. It is being directed by Diane English. Reviving the 1939 film has met with countless delays, but Jagger's company was credited with obtaining $24 million of much-needed financing to finally begin casting. "'This was much easier in 1939, when all the ladies were under contract," English told Entertainment Weekly, "and they had to take the roles they were told to."

The Rolling Stones have been the subjects of numerous documentaries, including Gimme Shelter, which was made as the band was gaining fame in the United States. Martin Scorsese worked with Jagger on Shine A Light, a documentary film featuring the Rolling Stones with footage from the A Bigger Bang Tour during two nights of performances at New York's Beacon Theatre. It screened in Berlin in February 2008. Variety's Todd McCarthy said the film "takes full advantage of heavy camera coverage and top-notch sound to create an invigorating musical trip down memory lane, as well as to provoke gentle musings on the wages of aging and the passage of time." And, he predicted the film would fare better once released to video than in its limited theatrical runs.

Jagger was a producer of and acted in the short-lived comedy The Knights of Prosperity. The premise was that a group of inept, blue-collar thieves want to get rich quick, so they plot to rob Mick Jagger. In fact, the sitcom's working title was Let's Rob Mick Jagger, which was later renamed. Jagger guest starred in the premiere episode, which aired in 2007 on ABC.

Personal life

Jagger is renowned for his high-profile and multiple relationships. He was involved in a very public and tumultuous relationship with singer Marianne Faithfull from 1965 to 1970. Jagger married on May 12, 1971 Bianca Pérez-Mora Macías. They divorced in 1980, on the grounds of his adultery with Jerry Hall. After a lengthy cohabitation and several children together, Jagger and Hall married November 21, 1990 in a Hindu beach ceremony. Jagger later contested the validity of the ceremony, and the marriage was annulled July 9, 1999. This was subsequent to Jagger's affair with and the pregnancy of Luciana Gimenez. He has also been romantically linked to Chrissie Shrimpton, Pamela Des Barres, Bebe Buell, Janice Dickinson, Carla Bruni, Carly Simon, Sophie Dahl and Uschi Obermaier, among others.

Hall reportedly knew all too well about Jagger's rampant infidelity and continued their relationship despite it. "I'd come home and there'd be things from other girls lying around," she told The Daily Mail. "And then I'd started finding items next to the bed like earrings or a ring. It was obvious." She said that "she was 'codependent' on Mick -- he was addicted to affairs and she was addicted to loving him. Jerry also believes she was emotionally scarred by her childhood where her abusive father was the 'king of the house'."

Jagger is a huge cricket fan.[2] He founded Jagged Internetworks so he could get coverage of the English Cricket. [3] Jagged Internetworks in conjunction with Cricinfo covered the International Cricket. Mick Jagger also introduced Paul Getty to cricket.

Jagger has seven children with four women. His first child is daughter Karis Jagger, by Marsha Hunt, born in London 1970. His second is Jade Jagger, by Bianca Jagger, born in Paris 1971. With Jerry Hall he has four children: Elizabeth Jagger born in 1984 ; James Jagger born in 1985; Georgia Jagger born in 1992; and Gabriel Jagger who was born in 1997. His youngest child is Lucas Morad-Jagger, by Luciana Gimenez (aka Lucia Morad) born in 1999. He also has three grandchildren..

His most recent romantic liaison was with former model L'Wren Scott. Rumors were rampant about whether Jagger intended to marry a third time when the American-born model was seen wearing a large ring on her hand.

His father died on 11 November 2006 at the age of 93.

In 2008, it was revealed that the Hells Angels plotted to murder Jagger in 1969. They were angered by Jagger's refusal to use their services after the deadly Altamont Free Concert. The plot was cancelled after the boat they were to use to access his Long Island home ran into a storm.

Knighthood

On 12 December 2003, Jagger was knighted for Services to Music, as Sir Michael Jagger by Charles, Prince of Wales. Mick Jagger's knighthood received mixed reactions. Some fans were disappointed when he accepted the honour as it seemed to contradict his anti-establishment stance.

As United Press International noted, the honour is odd, for unlike other knighted rock musicians, he has no "known record of charitable work or public services." Jagger also was missing in action at the Queen's Golden Jubilee pop concert at Buckingham Palace that marked her 50 years on the throne.

Charlie Watts, engaging in a bit of hyperbole in According to the Rolling Stones , said, "Anybody else would be lynched: 18 wives and 20 children and he's knighted, fantastic!" The ceremony took place in December 2003. Jagger’s father and daughters Karis and Elizabeth were in attendance.

Jagger's knighthood also caused some friction between him and bandmate Keith Richards, who was irritated when Jagger accepted the "f---ing paltry honour." Richards said that he did not want to take the stage with someone wearing a "coronet and sporting the old ermine. It's not what the Stones is about, is it?" Sir Michael retorted: "I think he would probably like to get the same honour himself. It's like being given an ice cream—one gets one and they all want one. It's nothing new. Keith likes to make a fuss."

Solo discography

• She's the Boss (25 February 1985) UK #6 [11 wks]; US #13 [29 wks]
• Primitive Cool (14 September 1987) UK #26 [5 wks]; US #41 [20 wks]
• Wandering Spirit (8 February 1993) UK #12 [4 wks]; US #11 [16 wks]
• Goddess in the Doorway (19 November 2001) UK #44 [4 wks]; US #39 [8 wks]
• The Very Best of Mick Jagger (1 October 2007) UK #57 [1 wk]; US #77 [2 wks]

Soundtracks

• Performance (1970)
• Ruthless People (1987) US #2
• Bent (1997) (sings "Streets of Berlin" co-written with Philip Glass)
• Alfie (18 October 2004) US #171 [2 wks]

Singles

• "Memo from Turner" (November 1970) #32 UK
• "Don't Look Back" (September 1978) #43 UK; #81 US (with Peter Tosh)
• "State of Shock" (June 1984) #14 UK; #3 US [US Dance #3] (The Jacksons & Mick Jagger)
• "Just Another Night" (February 1985) #32 UK; #12 US [US Mainstream Rock #1; US Dance #11]
• "Lucky in Love" (April 1985) #91 UK; #38 US [US Mainstream Rock #5; US Dance #11]
• "Lonely at the Top" (April 1985) [US Mainstream Rock #9]
• "Dancing in the Street" (with David Bowie) (August 1985) #1 UK; #7 US [US Mainstream Rock #3; US Dance #4]
• "Ruthless People" (July 1986) #51 US [US Mainstream Rock #14; US Dance #29]
• "Let's Work" (September 1987) #31 UK; #39 US [US Mainstream Rock #7; US Dance #32]
• "Throwaway" (November 1987) #67 US [US Mainstream Rock #7]
• "Say You Will" (December 1987) [US Mainstream Rock #39]
• "Sweet Thing" (January 1993) #24 UK [#9 Airplay]; #84 US [US Mainstream Rock #34]
• "Wired All Night" (March 1993) [US Mainstream Rock #3]
• "Don't Tear Me Up" (April 1993) #86 UK [US Mainstream Rock #1]
• "Out of Focus" (July 1993) [#70 UK Airplay]
• "God Gave Me Everything" (October 2001) [US Mainstream Rock #24]
• "Visions of Paradise" (March 2002) #43 UK
• "Old Habits Die Hard" (October 2004) (Mick Jagger & Dave Stewart) #45 UK
• "Charmed Life" (January 2008) [US Dance #18]

Filmography

Jagger has appeared in the following movies:

• Sympathy for the Devil (1968)
• Performance (1968)
• Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969)
• Gimme Shelter (1970)
• Ned Kelly (1970)
• Umano non umano (1972)
• Wings of Ash (1978) – pilot for a dramatisation of the life of Antonin Artaud
• Fitzcarraldo (1981) http://stockpunkt.com/2008/01/28/fotokiste-mick-jagger/
• Running Out of Luck (1987)
• Freejack (1992)
• Bent (1997)
• Mein liebster Feind (aka My Best Fiend) (1999)
• Enigma (2001) – cameo only, plus co-producer
• The Man From Elysian Fields (2001)
• Being Mick (2001)
• Mayor of the Sunset Strip (2003)
• Shine a Light (2008)

He was also on an Episode of The Mighty Boosh Jagger also appears as the character "Prince Mick" in the independent comic book Cerebus the Aardvark, along with Keith Richards ("Prince Keef").

References

External links

• Official site
• Mick Jagger at IMDb
• The Rolling Stones – Mick Jagger
• Mick Jagger Joins a New ABC Sitcom
• 1983 Audio interview with Mick Jagger-discusses "Undercover" album Classic Rock Central
• An interview with Charlie Rose in 2002.
• [4]

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