WHEN BRIAN JONES took out an ad in Jazz News in May of 1962 looking for like-minded musicians, the first respondent was Ian Stewart. Stewart was working for a chemical company at the time.
IAN STEWART: [My] desk at ICI was the headquarters of the Stones organization. My number was advertised in Jazz News and I handled the Stones’ bookings at work.
KEITH RICHARDS: He used to play boogie-woogie piano in jazz clubs, apart from his regular job. He blew my head off too, when he started to play. I never heard a white piano player play like that before.
Ian was a full-fledged member of the band for the first year or so, before Andrew Loog Oldham decided he should take more of a backseat role, saying that six members was one too many for a rock group and that Stewart, who was a burly guy, didn’t fit the image he was trying to create for the Rolling Stones.
IAN STEWART: Nobody ever said, “You’re out.” But all of a sudden I was out. It happened one night when I went down to play a gig and there were five guys in band uniforms and none for me.
MICK JAGGER: It was obvious that Ian Stewart didn’t fit the picture. He was still playing piano when we wanted him to; he didn’t play on everything, anyway, because we were playing electrical instruments and he was playing an unamplified upright piano in a noisy club. You couldn’t hear it. I’m not dissing him as though he wasn’t part of the whole thing, but there were a lot of numbers which he didn’t play on. It was plain that Ian didn’t want to be a pop singer.
Stewart stuck around in his vital role as the “sixth Stone,” becoming the band’s road manager and continuing to play keyboards.
KEITH RICHARDS: [Stu] might have realized that in the way it was going to have to be marketed, he would be out of sync, but that he could still be a vital part. I’d probably have said, “Well, fuck you,” but he said, “OK, I’ll just drive you around.” That takes a big heart, but Stu had one of the largest hearts around.
CHUCK LEAVELL: In the early days when they were playing Milwaukee or something, they’d be staying twenty miles away from the city in some hotel. “Why in the world are we out here?” Of course it was because there was a golf course Stu wanted to play nearby.
KEITH RICHARDS: We’d be playing in some town where there’s all these chicks, and they want to get laid and we want to lay them. But Stu would have booked us into some hotel about ten miles out of town. You’d wake up in the morning and there’s the links. We’re bored to death looking for some action and Stu’s playing Gleneagles.
But it was also clear that he was like family. Keyboardist Chuck Leavell was Stewart’s protégé.
CHUCK LEAVELL: Everyone would get dressed up in their rock ’n’ roll regalia before the show—me included—but Stu would come out in his golf polo shirt and jeans. He’d bring his camera and half a sandwich. He’d put the camera and the sandwich on the piano. Sometimes he would just stop playing and take pictures.
Stu was a universally beloved figure.
CHUCK LEAVELL: Stu and I really got on famously; I felt like his little brother. Stu was very particular. He didn’t like playing on slow songs—ballads. He didn’t like playing on things that had minor chord changes to them. He only liked playing the boogie-woogie and the rock ’n’ roll stuff. So if it was a rock ’n’ roll tune that he wanted to play piano on, that’s what he did, and I played organ. If it was a ballad like “Angie” or if was something like “Miss You” that had minor changes in it or modal changes, then I took over the keyboard part . . .
BILL GERMAN: Ian saw what the Stones went through in terms of fame—they couldn’t just go to the park—so he loved being anonymous. It’s just the way it played out. In Stu’s opinion, not being an official member of the band worked out for the best. He got to lead a normal life, while still being creative and still touring the world and still playing piano the best he could. He led a very happy life and he was a very humble guy. He was so glad not to be a rock star—fall into all the trappings of the drugs, and the booze, and the groupies, all that sort of stuff. He seemed to love it that way . . . He told me that the people he hung out with were not famous rock stars, for the most part . . . He knew every rock star, but basically the guys he hung out with on a day-to-day basis were pig farmers and local guys from his town.
Bill got the opportunity to meet Stewart in the early ’80s when he was writing the Stones’ fanzine Beggars Banquet.
BILL GERMAN: He famously used to call the Stones “His showers of shit.” And they would take it from him because they had such a respect for him. That’s what intimidated me: If he calls the Stones “showers of shit,” what is he going to think of me? . . . It turns out that he completely puts me at ease. He was the nicest guy in the world. He was teaching me a little bit about boogie-woogie jazz.
Ian Stewart died in 1985 of a heart attack, but he remains inextricably connected to the band.
CHUCK LEAVELL: I think about Stu all the time. I know we all do. I miss that guy. He was so funny and such a great human being—a good person and enjoyable to be with.
MICK JAGGER: Stu was the one guy we tried to please. We wanted his approval when we were writing or rehearsing a song.
KEITH RICHARDS: Ian Stewart was the first to get us into the studio to make some demos. As far as I’m concerned, the Rolling Stones are his band.
Appropriately, the reception after the funeral was held at a golf course.
CHUCK LEAVELL: I can remember Keith saying, “I can hear Stu now saying that this is the only way that they’d let me in this club.”2