Greetings again from the darkness. Nick Broomfield has been making documentaries for nearly 50 years. The list of subjects is quite diverse, yet his interest in musicians seems to recur periodically, but even in these, his focus is mainly on the person rather than the notes on the scale or the performances on stage. A perfect example is his 2019 doc, MARIANNE & LEONARD: WORDS OF LOVE. His latest on Brian Jones again fits the description.

Brian Jones formed The Rolling Stones in 1962 as a British Blues Band. Here we are more than 60 years later and in 2023, the band has recently released a new album and single ... yet very few remember or even know the name Brian Jones. Director Broomfield sets out to tell the story of this enigmatic and talented musician who was ultimately kicked out of his dream band, leading to his much-too-young death shortly after. On the surface it's a tragic rock 'n roll story, but deep down, it's the story of Jones' personality and substance abuse.

Former Rolling Stones' bassist Bill Wyman is featured here and provides a great deal of backstory. For more on Wyman, I recommend the 2019 documentary, THE QUIET ONE, which portrays his obsessive attention to collections and history. Alongside Wyman's input, there is archival footage from Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Marianne Faithfull, and Eric Burdon. Even the older interviews and clips help us understand Brian Jones' difficulty as the band evolved from blues to rock. We also learn more about his ability to father kids at the level of an NBA player. But what really strikes is his problems stemming from an abuse of alcohol and drugs (and women).

Andrew Loog Oldham pushed the band towards commercial success with rock 'n roll and away from Brian's beloved blues. So he lost his position as band manager and his preferred style of music, as Mick Jagger's on stage persona took over and Jagger/Richards compositions filled a role that Brian couldn't. He was fired from the band after the "Let it Bleed" album and prior to the band's next U. S. tour. It is mentioned that Brian lost the one thing that mattered to him ... the band. He lost his life a few weeks later, and kudos to Broomfield for not dwelling on the conspiracy theories around his death.

Included here are interviews and clips of early Stones' live performances that you've likely not seen before. I can't help but contrast Brian's story with that of Robert Fripp in the recent documentary I watched on King Crimson. Two original architects of long-standing bands - one lost everything, while the other remained and rebuilt the band a few times. Two musical geniuses with opposite paths.

In theaters November 17, 2023.

I was very interested in this documentary as I knew very little about Brian Jones, his background and his demise.

To be honest, by the end, I think I would rather have been left none the wiser.

Around about the 20 minute mark, Pat Andrews, the mother of one his many offspring, summed him up perfectly. This interview was recorded in 1965, so it was not a matter of hindsight, it was very much relevant and of the time.

Maybe it wasn't possible, but I would like to have seen more about his early childhood with a view to gaining more of an insight into how his character developed and became to utterly selfish and irresponsible.

I can empathise with his feeling of not wanting to be part the monoculture that was so prevalent in the 1950s and early 1960s, I am from that time myself. I feel there must have been more to his relationship with his parents than was presented as he seemed to be effortlessly accepted into oth-er families, only to abuse their hospitality by getting the daughters pregnant. Once is careless, twice is foolish ... five times!! What was he thinking?

His demise was mainly down to being completely lost psychologically and latterly being influenced by the wrong type of women.

The Rolling Stones was the band he put together, it was his band, but he soon found he couldn't write songs as was the new way of things at the time, and Mick Jagger was a more obvious spokesman for the group and he was soon sidelined by manager Andrew Loog Oldham.

You can see in the documentary that he was lost when the Stones were being interviewed.

On the plus side it was good to know how influential he was on the Stones early records.