Rating: 
Summary: Good, but...
Review: I thought the book was very good, although I found the prose and the sentence structure somewhat laborious at times, Lawrence Sterne he is not. I was expecting more sordid details but the book primarily focuses on the various relationships, which it accomplishes very well. All in all I received what appears to be an accurate depiction of the Rolling Stones personal orbit. I did have a real problem with the author maintaining that Brian Jones was a better guitarist than Mick Taylor, which simply is not so.
Rating: 
Summary: Simply The Best
Review: In over 20 years of reading books on bands, this is head and tails above the rest. The author if I remember correctly ended up a heroin addict as he followed the Stones around at the end of The Sixties. This book is so well written that it pulls you in and you can imagine being there. On top of that you get the death of Brian Jones and the buid-up and follow-up to Altamont.Realley, this book is unmissable.
Rating:
Summary: Simply The Best
Review: In over 20 years of reading books on bands, this is head and tails above the rest. The author if I remember correctly ended up a heroin addict as he followed the Stones around at the end of The Sixties. This book is so well written that it pulls you in and you can imagine being there. On top of that you get the death of Brian Jones and the buid-up and follow-up to Altamont. Realley, this book is unmissable.
Rating:
Summary: This is the best summarization of rock and the sixties ethic
Review: It's a travesty this book is out of print. Booth's first person narrative of the Stones 1969 tour and the events which led up to that winter day at Altamont Speedway serve as a microcosm of the deterioration of idealism and innocence that was rock and roll in the youth culture of the sixties. Booth's conversational style puts you in the room with the character's he portrays. It ranks as the best text I have read on the subject. I only hope to see it return to print in the near future.
Rating:
Summary: Stanley Booth, American musicologist, one of America's best.
Review: Since writing this book nearly killed Stanley, it will come as no surprise to learn that it is one of the best books ever written on the subject of rock music in the 1960's and attendant hysteria, culminating in the frenzy that was Altamont. Effectively a document of the end of the Summer Of Love, which was maybe long overdue for consideration, Booth touches on loss; the death of his musician friends such as Gram Parsons and Charlie Freeman and he treats his loss as a chance to examine the stock in trade of the blues - the rural displacement and feelings of isolation. A truly great book which I rank ahead of the works of better-known music writers such as Peter Guralnick and Greil Marcus.
Rating:
Summary: The World's Greatest Rock and Roll Book
Review: Talk about a masterpiece; this is one! Stanley Booth was a struggling rock journalist who managed, through persistent effort and good timing, to land a regular slot on the 1969 "Let It Bleed" tour of the Rolling Stones across these United States. What was supposed to be a simple, intelligent chronicle of a rock band's work became a chilling time capsule of the end of an era, and possibly, of a dream as well, when the band's disastrous appearance at the Altamont concert rang down the curtain on the Sixties hippie dream of world peace and brotherhood. This is not just a book detailing the Stones' many misadventures with the law, with drugs, with reckless groupies and sycophants and promoters, as you might expect; nor it is simply a grisly blow-by-blow of the tragic events of that December night in the northern California wilderness, when a vicious pack of Hells' Angels stabbed a young concertgoer to death, literally a few feet from where Mick Jagger sang "Gimme Shelter" and "Sympathy for the Devil" as Keith Richards and the other Stones churned out those classic songs behind him. You will find those contents in here, but they are only a fraction of the treasures this book contains. (Booth freely admits that his womanizing during this tour cost him his marriage, and he is as unsparing in his critiques of the Stones, whom he truly loves, as he is towards his own failings.) You can almost see, hear, feel the chaos, the majesty, the confusion, and the power of the events he's describing; each character comes wonderfully to life, through his use of interwoven, somewhat kaleidoscopic scene changes, flashbacks and flash-forwards, stream of consciousness and grimly bare-boned narrative. Brilliant, hilarious, loathsome, mesmerizing, harrowing, glorious...many such adjectives could apply to the events and personalities depicted in this epic book of rock excess and human misadventure. I'd like to write another review, just so I could give it five more reviews - it's that good!
Rating:
Summary: The World's Greatest Rock and Roll Book
Review: Talk about a masterpiece; this is one! Stanley Booth was a struggling rock journalist who managed, through persistent effort and good timing, to land a regular slot on the 1969 "Let It Bleed" tour of the Rolling Stones across these United States. What was supposed to be a simple, intelligent chronicle of a rock band's work became a chilling time capsule of the end of an era, and possibly, of a dream as well, when the band's disastrous appearance at the Altamont concert rang down the curtain on the Sixties hippie dream of world peace and brotherhood. This is not just a book detailing the Stones' many misadventures with the law, with drugs, with reckless groupies and sycophants and promoters, as you might expect; nor it is simply a grisly blow-by-blow of the tragic events of that December night in the northern California wilderness, when a vicious pack of Hells' Angels stabbed a young concertgoer to death, literally a few feet from where Mick Jagger sang "Gimme Shelter" and "Sympathy for the Devil" as Keith Richards and the other Stones churned out those classic songs behind him. You will find those contents in here, but they are only a fraction of the treasures this book contains. (Booth freely admits that his womanizing during this tour cost him his marriage, and he is as unsparing in his critiques of the Stones, whom he truly loves, as he is towards his own failings.) You can almost see, hear, feel the chaos, the majesty, the confusion, and the power of the events he's describing; each character comes wonderfully to life, through his use of interwoven, somewhat kaleidoscopic scene changes, flashbacks and flash-forwards, stream of consciousness and grimly bare-boned narrative. Brilliant, hilarious, loathsome, mesmerizing, harrowing, glorious...many such adjectives could apply to the events and personalities depicted in this epic book of rock excess and human misadventure. I'd like to write another review, just so I could give it five more reviews - it's that good!
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: The Stanley Booth book, "The true adventures of The Rolling Stones" is infact the ultimate rock`n`roll book ever! It takes you places you`ll never been and lets you get close to people you`ll never will meet. But most of all it describes the end of an era and the people who ended it. Of all the books about The stones i`ve got, this is the one i always will return to.To those without a copy i can only say: Get it, this is the one!!!
Rating:
Summary: great book
Review: This is a great book for both the avid and casual stones fan. It is not a straight biography and therein lies its strength. It assumes the reader is intelligent and can appreciaite a more serious and artistic approach. It goes back and forth between the stones early days and the infamous '69 tour (of which Booth was a true inside participant). This is handled brilliantly with Brian Jones - or at least his spirit in the latter - looming over both eras. The most telling passage of the stones psyche is a short conversation late in the book between Keith and an advertising executive on a plane. For that conversation alone, you should buy this book.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Ride with the Stones
Review: This is by far the best book on the Stones of the many that I've read. Covers only the 1969 tour, but it paints a vivid picture of what life was like with the Stones in this period. Very well written by Booth, who was able to get as far inside the Stones circle as any writer.
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