The Rolling Stones Were Chased Down Broadway Before Going Live — Then Brian Jones Pulled Out a Sitar
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The Rolling Stones Were Chased Down Broadway Before Going Live — Then Brian Jones Pulled Out a Sitar
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On September 11, 1966, The Rolling Stones returned to The Ed Sullivan Show for the fourth time.
By then, they were no longer just another British band trying to break America.
They were one of the biggest and most controversial rock groups in the world.
And even before the cameras started rolling, the day had already turned chaotic.
After dress rehearsal, the band had been warned not to leave CBS Studio 50 before the live broadcast.
They ignored the warning.
When they returned, a crowd of fans spotted them on Broadway and began chasing them back toward the studio.
The scene became so wild that fans reportedly broke a glass door trying to follow the group inside.
Then, only hours later, The Rolling Stones had to walk onto national television as if nothing had happened.
The show was opening its new fall season with a major lineup that included Louis Armstrong and Joan Rivers.
But when Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts appeared, the audience erupted.
They opened with “Paint It, Black.”
The song had already reached No. 1 in the United States earlier that summer, but the television performance gave viewers something unusual to watch.
Brian Jones sat cross-legged and played the song’s signature sitar part.
The instrument gave the record its dark, hypnotic sound and showed how far The Rolling Stones had moved beyond the straightforward blues-rock of their early years.
Then came “Lady Jane.”
Once again, Jones became the visual focus.
This time he played dulcimer while wearing a cast on his injured hand.
The delicate sound was a dramatic contrast to the aggressive image many Americans associated with the band.
The Stones ended their appearance with their newest single, “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?”
The song was louder, denser and more chaotic.
It sounded like a band pushing its music toward something stranger.
Three performances.
Three very different sounds.
A sitar.
A dulcimer.
And the raw energy of one of Britain’s most famous rock bands.
That contrast is what makes the September 11 appearance so important.
The Rolling Stones were already famous for rebellion, screaming fans and Mick Jagger’s stage presence.
But on this night, American television audiences also saw how musically adventurous the group had become.
Brian Jones was especially important to that evolution.
He could move from guitar to sitar to dulcimer, bringing unfamiliar instruments into songs that were still reaching millions of mainstream listeners.
The screaming outside the studio showed how famous The Rolling Stones had become.
What happened inside showed why they were more than a passing teenage sensation.
They had arrived on Broadway surrounded by chaos.
Then they went on television and showed America a band that was changing almost as quickly as the culture around it.
Barbara Mandrell Retired From Music at 18 — One Night at the Grand Ole Opry Changed Her Mind
Long before Barbara Mandrell became one of the biggest stars in country music, she had already decided her music career was over.
She was only 18.
That decision sounds almost impossible in hindsight.
Because Barbara Mandrell had been preparing for the stage practically since childhood.
Born in Houston on Christmas Day in 1948, she learned accordion and how to read music before entering first grade. After her family moved to California, she began studying steel guitar at about ten years old while also learning saxophone at school.
Then someone important noticed her.
Country guitarist Joe Maphis saw the young Mandrell performing at a music trade convention in 1960.
He was impressed enough to bring her into his Las Vegas act.
Barbara was still a child, yet she was already sharing a musical world populated by professional country performers.
Before long, she appeared on the Los Angeles television program Town Hall Party and joined a national package tour headlined by Johnny Cash.
By 14, she was performing with her family band at military bases in the United States and Asia. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
It looked as though music had already chosen her.
Then Barbara walked away.
She had fallen in love with Ken Dudney, the drummer in the Mandrell family band.
Dudney eventually joined the Navy and trained as a pilot.
The couple married in 1967.
Barbara decided that was enough.
At 18, she retired from music.
For someone who had spent much of her childhood performing, it was an extraordinary choice.
But the retirement did not last.
When Dudney was away with the Navy, Barbara visited her family in Tennessee.
One evening, she attended a taping of The Porter Wagoner Show before the Grand Ole Opry.
As Barbara watched the performers, something came back.
She leaned toward her father, Irby Mandrell.
She told him she could do what she was watching onstage.
More importantly, she wanted to do it again.
She asked whether he would manage her.
Her father believed in her.
The decision made that night changed everything. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
Barbara soon signed with Columbia Records.
In 1969, she entered the Billboard country chart with her version of Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.”
More hits followed.
By 1972, she had joined the Grand Ole Opry — the same institution connected to the night that helped convince her to return.
Then the career accelerated.
“Sleeping Single in a Double Bed” reached No. 1.
Her version of “If Loving You Is Wrong (I Don’t Want to Be Right)” also topped the country chart.
But Mandrell was becoming more than a recording artist.
She could sing.
She could dance.
She could play multiple instruments.
And onstage, she could move between traditional country, pop, soul, gospel, and show-business spectacle without losing her identity.
By the beginning of the 1980s, Barbara Mandrell was everywhere.
From 1980 to 1982, she starred with her sisters Louise and Irlene on NBC’s Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters, bringing country music into millions of American homes every week.
And the industry recognized what was happening.
The Country Music Association named Mandrell Entertainer of the Year in 1980.
Then she won again in 1981.
She became the first artist in CMA history to win the award in consecutive years. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
That same period produced the song that would become inseparable from her name.
“I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool.”
The song looked back at a time when openly loving country music was not always fashionable.
Then country culture exploded into the American mainstream.
George Jones appeared on the recording, and the song became another No. 1 country hit for Mandrell
The title almost seemed to describe Barbara herself.
She had been playing steel guitar as a child long before television superstardom.
She had toured before she was old enough to drive.
She had quit.
She had started again.
And she had reached the top.
Her life would still bring serious challenges.
In 1984, a devastating automobile accident left Mandrell with multiple injuries and required a long recovery.
Yet she returned again, continuing to record, tour, and act before eventually retiring from performing in 1997. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
In 2009, Barbara Mandrell was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
It was a remarkable ending to a story that could easily have stopped decades earlier.
At 18, Barbara Mandrell thought she was finished with music.
Then she sat in an audience in Nashville and watched other performers doing what she had once done.
Something inside her changed.
She told her father she wanted another chance.
He believed her.
And the young woman who had retired before her career truly began eventually became one of country music’s defining entertainers.
