Happy Anniversary: Mick Jagger, “Memo from Turner”
44 years ago today, Mick Jagger released his very first solo single, a song which was taken from the soundtrack of the film that provided him with his first chance to be a movie star.
With the Rolling Stones running neck and neck with the Beatles as the biggest band in the world, Jagger was certainly a familiar face to teenagers everywhere, but he had a hankering to step off the stage for a bit and step in front of the camera. The role of Turner wasn’t what you’d call a tremendous stretch for Jagger, given that the character was a former rock star, but it certainly provided him with some unforgettable onscreen moments with Anita Pallenberg and Michele Breton, and it also gave him a chance to check “get shot in a movie” off his to-do list.
In addition to serving as Jagger’s motion picture debut, the original plan of action was for the Stones to write the film’s soundtrack as well, but things didn’t end up panning out that way. Now, maybe that was because of how close things were getting between Jagger and Pallenberg, who was actually in a relationship with Jagger’s bandmate, Keith Richards, at the time, and maybe that didn’t have anything to do with it. All that really matters is that the soundtrack ended up being culled together from tracks by Randy Newman, Merry Clayton, Ry Cooder, Jack Nitzsche, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and the Last Poets.
Oh, right, and Mick Jagger, too.
There are actually three different versions of “Memo from Turner” floating around, but only two of them have ever seen official release. The first version is the one you’ve probably never heard – although let’s just say it’s not entirely impossible that you could’ve heard it – and it was recorded by Steve Winwood, who played all of the instruments except for drums, which were handled by his Traffic bandmate, Jim Capaldi. The second version can be found on the Rolling Stones’ Metamorphosis compilation, but it’s always been a bit enigmatic as far as how many actual Stones are playing on it. Maybe Richards is playing guitar, maybe Al Kooper is, or it could be both. And without any credits, who’s to say if that’s Charlie Watts or Jim Capaldi playing drums? We certainly wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to guess.
The third version, though, is the one anyone who’s seen Performance has heard – Jagger lip-synchs it at one point – and it’s also the version that was released as a single 44 years ago, featuring Ry Cooder on slide guitar, Russ Titelman on lead guitar, Randy Newman on piano, Jerry Scheff on bass, and Gene Parsons on drums. If you’ve seen Goodfellas, then you’ve also heard the song, as Martin Scorsese selected it as the soundtrack to the scene where Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) is driving to the hospital to pick up his brother.
“Memo from Turner” never saw release as a single in America, but in the UK, it earned Jagger his first hit as a solo artist. A small one, mind you, as it only made it to #32, but, hey, a hit is a hit is a hit. Unfortunately, Jagger’s performance in Performance didn’t do a heck of a lot to further his acting career: after his turn as the title character in the 1970 film Ned Kelly, he wouldn’t find his way back to the big screen until the 1992 sci-fi film Freejack, and since then…well, let’s just say it’s worked out well that he’s had a day job to fall back on.
