August 27, 2012
Drawing on research he conducted for his first Stones book, as well as on numerous interviews with Jagger's friends, former girlfriends, and musicians, music critic Norman's often plodding and exhaustively detailed though admiring biography recounts Jagger's life from his middle-class youth and first encounters with the blues and early rock to his first meetings with a young Keith Richards.From there, we read of Jagger's many tumultuous relationships with women, his lackluster attempts at acting, and his raging desire to control his and the band's image. Sympathetic to Jagger, Norman digs beneath the bad-boy posturing that Stones manager Andrew Oldham stage-managedâand that Jagger embracedâvery early in his career. Along the way, the author reveals an individual shaped by a conservative upbringing and maturing into a loving and beloved father, a history and literature buff, a wine connoisseur, and a stickler for etiquette. Unfortunately, in the end this is a dull set of fan notes, largely composed of much-rehashed Stones lore, especially since there are no new interviews with Jagger himself.