EMP offers unprecedented glimpse inside groundbreaking Rolling Stones tour

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards perform at Forum in Los Angeles in 1972 in one of the exclusive shots featured in a new exhibit opening this weekend at EMP (Jim Marshall photo courtesy EMP)

When Mick Jagger first sang “what a drag it is getting
old,” he probably couldn’t have ever envisioned the
Rolling Stones would still be going a half-century later.
And as the band gathered Thursday in London to commemorate
the 50th anniversary of its first show, a new exhibition
featuring never before seen photographs of the Stones
seminal 1972 tour is set to open this weekend at Seattle’s
EMP museum.

The Rolling Stones 1972, Photographs by Jim Marshall,
features 37 photos captured during the Rolling Stones 1972
tour, and original album cover artwork for Exile on Main
St.

Marshall is the celebrated photographer known for
capturing some of rock’s most iconic images, including
Jimi Hendrix setting fire to his guitar at the Monterey
International Pop Festival and Johnny Cash at San Quentin
State Prison. And the Stones gave him unprecedented access
both onstage and off, says EMP curator Jasen Emmons.

“He got all this access that other photographers didn’t
get, he was also getting access to them on the tarmac and
backstage. And with Jim you also see the sort of tedium
and exhaustion of being on tour and those moments you see
the Stones in a much more vulnerable way than you
typically do when they are in performance,” Emmons says.

Among his favorites is a previously unprinted shot of
guitarist Keith Richards, who he says looks like the
spitting image of Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the
Caribbean, the character star Johnny Depp modeled after
Richards.

“The person from Jim Marshall’s estate and I were
marveling over the fact that Jim had never printed this
one before. It’s Keith with a bottle of Jack Daniels and
his guitar and just looking right at Jim. And I think when
you look back on it now you think ‘that is the essence of
Keith Richards,'” Emmons says.

Emmons says while the exhibit is a must see for hard
core Stones fans, it has plenty of appeal for anyone who
loves rock and roll.

“There’s this carnal energy, there’s this Bohemian
decadence to it. It really sort of created the template
for what a rock star tour looked like and Jim Marshall had
unprecedented access to that.”

“Once Jim was in, he was another Stone. He caught us
with our trousers down and got the ups and downs. I love
his work,” says Keith Richards in the foreword to a new
book of Marshall’s photographs being released in
conjunction with the 50th anniversary and the exhibit.

And while it might be a drag getting old, Jagger admits
it beats the heck out of the alternative, considering most
of his contemporaries have long since broken up or died.

Groups in those days and singers didn’t really last
very long, Jagger, 68, told the BBC this week. “They
weren’t supposed to last. It was supposed to be ephemeral.
It was only really Elvis and The Beatles that were the
biggest things that ever happened in pop music that I can
remember. But even (Elvis) had lasted perhaps less than 10
years, so how could anyone really last?”

The Rolling Stones 1972, Photographs by Jim
Marshall opens Saturday July 14 and runs through January
6, 2013 at Seattle’s EMP Museum.

The Associated Press contributed to this
report