Book: You Can't Always Get What You Want by Sam Cutler

Mr. Cutler subtitles his book "My life with the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead and other wonderful reprobates." He was a tour manager in the early years for both these bands, and this well-written book tells of those times in the late 60s and early 70s. Altamont is explained according to Sam. Whether or not he self-aggrandizes, this book is a gossipy, generous tale. He doesn't "tell all" as he is too gentlemanly, but he tells enough. What comes through is how different the West Coast American bands were from the British bands, though both had roots in the blues. The Dead were basically a product of Haight-Ashbury with community, love, drugs, chaos and their music. According to the author, the Stones were naive about the West Coast scene. Sam posits that higher powers (feds) distributed bad LSD at Altamont as they were fearful of the power of the crowds that had gathered at Woodstock. They didn't want this phenomenon to be repeated too often. There are also hints that the Mob was already involved in all of this. The Stones were pressured into doing a "free concert" and the whole thing was hugely messed up from the beginning.

There are drugs and alcohol on every page of this book. Why more musicians didn't die like Jimi and Janis is pretty amazing. But, I guess they learned to fine-tune the amounts they consumed, and the survivors always knew the provenance of the acid they took.

One time, a Canadian heir to the Eaton fortune, Thor Eaton, paid for a trip across Canada via train. About 50 musicians were on board, including the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, New Riders of the Purple Sage among others. It was a non-stop party with sex, drugs and rock 'n roll. At one point, they realized they were soon to run out of alcohol, so they stopped the train and "a horde of us descended on a small liquor store in a one-horse town and purchased several thousand dollars' worth of booze."

And many, many anecdotes like this: "I had watched Mick at Olympic Studios in London, talking with the choir who sang on "You Can't Always Get What You Want, " and had been amused at the choir's very English pronunciation of the word "want." Mick wanted it to come out sounding like "wa-ant" rather than the usual crisp English pronunciation. He struggled for hours with some uptight vocalists who seemed to think the whole thing was beneath them."

Dosing (getting security cops and others to ingest acid unwittingly) happened occasionally, although the police were under strict orders NOT to eat or drink anything while on this particular duty. But a tiny drop on an unopened Coca Cola can did the trick for one particular cop. So it went....he was "on the bus" for that night.