WITH his boxer's chin and golfer's cardigans, Ian Stewart certainly didn't look like a member of The Rolling Stones, but he was – and now the contribution the Scot made to the band is being recognised in a new tribute album.
Stewart was born in Pittenweem, Fife, and died in 1985. He the Stones after answering an advert in a music magazine in 1962 but was sacked the following year when a new manager decided he did not have the right look.
Instead of walking away, Stewart, who was a talented pianist, became the band’s roadie and driver but still played on their records and on tour. He also remained close to Mick Jagger and the other Stones who always considered him part of the group.
Keith Richards said of him: “To me The Rolling Stones are his band. Without his knowledge and organisation,we’d be nowhere.”
Now, 25 years after Stewart collapsed and died when he was only 47, pianist Ben Waters has produced the Boogie 4 Stu album to honour Stewart.
The album, which features new recordings by all the Stones, including Bill Wyman who hasn’t recorded with his former colleagues since 1992, started out as a small charity project to raise money for the British Heart Foundation but grew and grew.
Watters said: “When I told Charlie Watts I was going to record the album, he asked to be on it. I asked Jools Holland if I could hire his studio. He said I could have it for free and that he would like to play on the album too, as Ian was a mate.
“Letters to other friends and former colleagues of Stu outlining the project elicited the simple response, Where do we need to be and when?”
Waters said everyone involved in the Boogie 4 Stu album knew Stewart really well. “I felt many music fans needed an introduction to the man and his music. To some, he was a roadie that played a bit of piano, to his friends and fans the opposite was true.”
Stewart’s wife, Cynthia Stewart Dillane, said the Stones liked her husband because he was always honest with them. He didn’t, for example, like Sympathy for the Devil and thought their Some Girls sessions in 1977 sounded like Status Quo.
“Stu always told the truth,” said Cynthia. “He was the one person who would call it as he saw it. A rare thing around the Stones, I can tell you.”
Stewart came from an unlikely rock background. A keen golfer, he was born in the East Neuk of Fife but raised in Surrey. He had been discharged from the RAF for health reasons and was working at ICI when he saw an advert in Jazz News looking for musicians to start a new group. Jagger and Richards were recruited later.
About a year later, however, he was ditched by new manager Andrew Loog Oldham but never seemed to resent it. In an interview in 1984, he said “I wouldn’t really complain too much about it. It was the right thing to do at the time.”
A year after that interview, Stewart, who did not live the sex and drugs rock lifestyle, died of a heart attack his doctor’s waiting room.
Waters hopes the album will highlight Stewart’s talent. Among many others, Stewart also played with Led Zeppelin and had his own band Rocket 88. The album is released on Monday.
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