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fresh fish from the locals as the boats come in of a
morning, before settling down in the garden of the
citadel with a copy of
Le Monde
.
Today, the old citadel is devoted to three art galleries
which showcase work by artists with connections to
the area, including Volti, whose stout bronze models
of the female form lie inside and out of the restored
fortress, and painter Henri Goetz, a friend of Picasso
whose work veers between surrealist horror and
subterranean peace.
Back then, however, the citadel lay empty and
Keith, fresh from demanding that the in-house cook at
Nellcôte stop cooking French cuisine and start serving
meat pies and fish and chips, decided to race his sports
car around the winding coastal roads. When a couple
of Italian tourists scraped their car against his, Keith
produced a gun, which he began waving in their
direction. It was only a few signed copies of Stones’
albums to the local
gendarmes
that prevented him
from being locked up.
In between the madness, and in 32°C heat, the
band recorded basic versions of the tunes that would
make up
Exile,
including “Ventilator Blues”, “Rip this
Joint” and “Happy”, on which Keith sings lead vocals.
“The acoustics were terrible in that basement,
which explains the strange bluesy sound of the record,”
Greenfield recalls. “They had a mobile recording unit
parked outside the house, but the electricity supply was
erratic and the heat was so intense that all the guitars
kept going out of tune.”
Progress remained slow as summer turned into
autumn. With a newly married Jagger commuting in
from Paris, and Watts and Wyman living miles away
from the coast, tensions began to flare. Increasingly,
shady characters from the Marseille drug mafia began
to spend more time at the house; Keith’s collection of
guitars was stolen and then, in October, after seven
months at Nellcôte, the inevitable warrant for Keith’s
arrest was made – on a charge of drug trafficking.
Before the legal process could begin, however, Keith
and Anita raced to Nice Airport, ending up in Los
Angeles with the rest of the group, to mix and overdub
the Nellcôte sessions.
Today there are no plaques, no monuments to the
Stones’ time in Villefranche. As the decades drift by,
there are fewer left alive who remember their summer
there. The record, however, continues to be regarded as
an all-time classic. Having sold over 26 million copies
in the US alone, the double album’s claustrophobic,
sweaty sound is a testament to the crazed mayhem
that took place there.
“It was never boring,” concludes Greenfield.
“Although there was a lot of lethargy and lots of
waiting around for the band, as Mick and co sat about
waiting for Keith to emerge from upstairs, it was a
place where the atmosphere was just incredible.”
Much as its residents may not like it, four decades
on, this quiet corner of the French Riviera seems
destined to be forever associated with one of the most
decadent rock and roll summers of all time.
“It was never boring... It was a place where the
atmosphere was just incredible”
Keith Richards,
left
, andAmerican
musician Gram
Parsons at Nellcôte in
Villefranche-sur-Mer
in the spring of 1971
Nellcôte,
was ho
Rollin
while the
tax exile i
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