Page 82 - FOYER_Cannes 2001

PAGE80 BERLIN • LOSANGELES • MILAN • FOYER • CANNES • TOKYO • LONDON DIARY
EVENWHENITWASBAD... ITWASGOOD
Maybe, after haggling about the salary, I wanted to assure them they were getting their money’s worth. “By the way, this isn’t my first experience with music; I used to be married to a folk singer and guitar player. We traveled all over Europe together and I was the one who dealt with the bookings and all the rest.”
“Really?” said Mick, sounding more than a little interested. “Who were you married to?”
I hesitated.
“Who was it?” Keith asked.
“Oh, you wouldn’t know him.” “Tell us,” Mick insisted.
“Well, his name was Jack Elliott.
They call him Ramblin’ Jack Elliott.” They both looked at me with open mouths as if I had just said
the name “God”.
“He’s great,” Keith said, laughing
and disappearing into the house. “You were married to
Ramblin’ Jack Elliott?” Mick said, shaking his head incredulously.
“You know him?”
“Do we know him?” laughed Mick, choking on his words. “The Rolling Stones are the number one fans of Ramblin’ Jack. We’ve loved him for years, since we were kids. We have every record he ever made.” Jo was also laughing, and then the speakers crackled into life behind me and Ramblin’ Jack’s voice blasted out across the bay. Keith had found a recordin no time and put it on.
“There’s your old man,” Keith shouted over the music as he came back out, playing along with Jack on his guitar. I was astonished. I had no idea that Jack was so well known among rock musicians.
I later discovered, that because the Stones had been ripped off so much in the past by their managers and other people, they were very suspicious of everyone who worked
for them. It took a long time to
earn their trust. They liked
working with Americans
because of our energy and the way we worked.
They liked working with women. But it would probably still have taken me sever-
al months to earn their full trust and to prove that I was “one
of them.” Because I was Jack’s ex-old lady, I had instant acceptance. From then on, whenever
I called Keith (which was most days), he would put on a Ramblin’ Jack record before he would come back to the phone to talk, making sure I could hear it. When they went on tour in America later on, Mick rang me at three a.m. to tell me that Jack had just been in his dressing room.
Though the ad had said “25-35 years of age”, the subject never came up. I was just a few days shy of 36. I found out later that Bill Wyman, the oldest of the Stones, was only four months younger than I was. And I also discovered much later that by putting an age in the ad they were discouraging “groupies” and “hags”.
As we walked to the car in front of the house on that day that would change my life, I thought about Jack. I had not had a kind thought about him in almost ten years. But I looked up at the bright blue Mediterranean sky and said:
“Ramblin’ Jack, wherever you are... I owe you one!” ■
Top: with Jack in Sweden and below left - Ms. Shelley, a natural born Weakest Link presenter if ever there was one. You can email author June Shelley on juneymoon@msn.com - especially if you enjoyed her Rolling Stones’ reminisces.