For today’s blog post, I am going to run a little unedited excerpt. Think of this is as a DVD Bonus Feature. This is one of my favorite pieces in the book, a first person selection written by my Dad. The chapter is called “The Last Time.”
The Stones roll down Fifth Avenue, as shot by the great Bob Gruen who was running alongside the truck!
All I knew when I went to work on Thursday. May 1st, 1975, was that sometime during the lunch hour of my 10am to 2pm radio show, I would be handing the baton to Scott Muni for remote coverage of a press conference announcing the upcoming Tour of the Americas by The Rolling Stones. As always, rumors and anticipation of a forthcoming Stones sighting was generating a lot of buzz (was that term in use in 1975?) and rabid fan interest. A press event to address the facts about all of this was scheduled for noontime at The Fifth Avenue Hotel. At the appointed hour, I turned on the mike after playing It’s Only Rock and Roll, and informed the audience that we would be switching over to our live, remote coverage of the event.
To my surprise, and I’m sure to the surprise of my listeners and most of the people in attendance at the actual press conference, noted comedian Professor Irwin Corey (who billed himself as “The World’s Foremost Authority”) strolled to the podium and proceeded to deliver one of his patented, incomprehensible monologues. (By the way, at this writing, he is 97 years old and still doing his brand of guerrilla comedy on the streets of New York!). His shtick was familiar enough to generate some laughs, but it did leave the roomful of hardnosed journalists scratching their heads, wondering what the hell was going on. Until -that is – a voice from the back of the room announced that everyone there should spill out onto Fifth Avenue for a “surprise.”
Scott Muni took to the air outside the hotel and sputtered (from an actual air check of the event): “…..Eh, Dave Herman is here….and here comes the truck now into view….and they’re going to be….Yep, they are! There’s Mick Jagger…and The Stones….They’re all here! Now YOU hear the sound! Let’s pick it up!”
The music had already started in the background, but now it was coming through loud and clear. The Rolling Stones were playing live on a flatbed truck rolling slowly south on Fifth Avenue in New York City! They performed an elongated version of Brown Sugar with Billy Preston on electric piano AND a new face (no pun intended) playing guitar. As the song ended, Muni returned to the air:
Scott Muni: “Alright, the truck is pulling away. And we’re being crushed! Literally crushed! Mick Jagger has just thrown out the announcement of the tour…”
Dave Herman: “The New York dates will be on….5 days in New York….”
Scott Muni: “We’re out on the street now, and it is raining, and has been….”
Dave Herman (incredulously): “The Rolling Stones playing on Fifth Avenue….on Fifth Avenue!”
Scott Muni: “The Rolling Stones playing on Fifth Avenue….and did you notice who the new member was? I think that’s most significant. Ron Wood was on guitar….Now let’s go back to Pete in the studio.”
I was flabbergasted!
I’m sure people actually there couldn’t believe their eyes, and I know people listening to the radio couldn’t believe their ears – because I was one of them! This was radio as theater of the mind at its best. I could “see” and hear Mick Jagger and The Stones in my imagination, and it was all quite special and wonderful.
But here’s another perspective from the eye of the hurricane – Bill Wyman:
Bill Wyman: “The truck, yeah. (laughs) I don’t know whose idea it was. Probably Mick’s – he always comes up with these bad ideas that work. But it was quite fun to do. The sad thing was, when it came on TV they said we obviously weren’t playing live – we were miming to a record. Now that was very annoying because we were playing live! It was raining and we were taking the risk of being electrocuted to death!”
After all was said and done, Mick gave full credit for the stunt to Charlie Watts.
Mick Jagger: “I think it was actually Charlie’s idea. Jazz in the old days in Harlem….they used to do promotions for their gigs on flatbed trucks.”
Photo taken in April 2012, at Bob Gruen’s studio of Dad, Bob Gruen, me, and Jeremy Rainer
50 Licks 
I was there that day, with – oddly enough – my grandmother and another older cousin, Debra. I was only 8 years old, and too short to get a really good view of the band (some would say that much hasn’t changed!), but it was pretty exciting all the same. My recollection is that they passed by rather quickly – though the historical evidence and common sense would suggest the truck had to be moving at a reasonable rate of speed that day. A lot of the buzz seemed to be around Ronnie Wood as “the new guy”, and I thought it was cool that he’d played in a band with Rod Stewart (who was also pretty popular at the time). Heck, they even had the same haircut, more or less! Needless to say, I never got to go to the actual CONCERTS that year – Boo!