There is much more than cigars in Mount Street if you haven’t read Keith Richards Autobiography ‘Life’ you have missed a beautifully written story of one of the great rock characters of the last 50 years. While reading it I was struck by some great local information which brings new light to life in Mount Street. In 1967 Keith Richards had ‘hooked up’ with Anita Pallenberg the then girl friend of fellow Rolling Stone Brian Jones who had just been eased out of the group due to his drug fuelled inability to play.
Anita was German, artistic and very well connected in the London ‘Pop Art’ scene of swinging London in the sixties. While hanging out with London’s ‘in crowd’ she had met Robert Fraser the Old Etonian, ex Kings African Rifles Captain who had become the centre of the London art set. Robert owned the Fraser Gallery which launched many new artists into an unsuspecting London art scene.
Robert was with Keith, Mick Jagger and Mick’s then girl friend Marianne Faithful on the notorious February morning when the police raided Keith’s Sussex farm house Redlands. The picture of Robert and Jagger in hand cuffs outside the courtroom is an iconic image of the sixties. After the court case Keith and Brian Jones headed to Morocco for some peace driving down through France in Keith’s blue Bentley S3 Continental Flying Spur, which he called ‘Blue Lena’. It was on this trip that Keith and Anita left Brian in Toulouse and drove on through Spain where they ‘got together’. Read the book for full details.
Robert was from a wealthy banking family and owned a flat at 23 Mount Street. Keith and Anita stayed at the flat regularly when in London and they rented the flat for a time while Anita was filming Performance.While Anita was out on set with co-star Mick Jagger, Keith sat in the flat at 23 Mount street worrying about what his girl friend and band mate were getting up to and during one very stormy afternoon he wrote Gimme Shelter, without doubt one of the Rolling Stones finest songs.
It’s great to know that rock history was made just a few doors from Sautter in Mount Street Mayfair.