Tony Scaduto's Jagger: Everybody's Lucifer (A Book Review)

In the early Seventies Tony Scaduto, a crime reporter for the New York Post, had the good fortune of landing a contract to do a bio on Dylan. His claim to fame here was writing as a journalist rather than a fan. His background on the mafia and crime reporting may have also been carried over into a jaded, hard-boiled Humphrey Bogart-like approach that makes everyone a suspect.

The results must have been successful because other books followed including books on Marilyn Monroe, Sinatra and the Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger, the topic of this blog post. Keep in mind that this book was written in near forty years ago, so it doesn't cover anything in the 80's, 90's or current century, which is a large swath of territory.

First, this is not a great book and I was surprised to see some rave reviews at Amazon.com, though I should not have been. And then there is the one-star review which begins, "Skip this book, and read Philip Norman's Mick Jagger instead. Also, read Keith Richards' Life or Sam Cutler's You Can't Always Get What You Want."

I picked up the book knowing that even he didn't consider it his best work. Not sure where I'd read that. Nevertheless, in the Sixties I was a Stones fan. I had most if not all of their early albums. Like many, I was attracted to their "bad boy" image, a clear contrast to the squeaky clean cheerfulness of the Fab Four. The Beatles went on Ed Sullivan in matching suits; Jagger performed there in a torn sweatshirt.

From the opening line Jagger surprised me. The first words were "Brian Jones was still alive back then." After decades without Jones the whole Brian Jones story came rushing back. I remember it making the news when he drowned in his pool, heavy-laden with barbituates and alcohol. Images of Jones with Nico in Hollywood, came to mind  along with bits and pieces of recollection. During his time recording with the Stones he played at least seventeen different instruments.

Where Scaduto takes the story, however, is quite different from what I'd expected. The entire first section (Book One) is about Brian Jones. If you go to the two photo sections, it's photos of Brian Jones juxtaposed with Jagger shots.

Tony Scaduto must have disliked Mick Jagger because every story in the book is written in such a way so as to put the singer in the worst light possible. Throughout the book he refers to Keith Richards as Keith, Marianne Faithfull as Marianne, and Brian Jones as Brian, but Jagger is always Jagger.

Those familiar with the story know that Brian Jones created the Rolling Stones. Over time Richards and Jagger, with the help of their young manager Andrew Loog Oldham, pushed forward to be the front men for the group. Jones's skills were weakening due to his drug use excesses among other things and he was ultimately becoming a detriment to the band. In the end Jones was kicked out and replaced with Mick Taylor.

Scaduto the former crime reporter lays out the details that allege that this power play and additional maneuvers by Jagger and Richards were what killed Brian Jones. Keith stole Brian's girl (Anita Pallenberg) and the band was stolen from him as well. Nothing ever seems to be Brian's fault. These sins of commission were not what finally nailed Brian's fate, rather it was Jagger's sins of omission, his failure to make efforts to suture the emotional lacerations to Jones' fragile soul after this massive humiliation (being evicted from "the world's greatest rock and roll band.") This, it seems, is the picture the author aims to produce.

I don't believe Jagger himself was ever interviewed by Scaduto, who does do a good job of painting pictures of some of the Stones concerts, especially the Stones' 1969 U.S. tour, which ended in the disaster called Altamont. Marianne Faithfull's perspective is a primary source throughout, though the Amazon.com reviewer claims much of this came from her autobiography.

Jagger: Everybody's Lucifer ranks #2,311,587 in the book section, Amazon Best Sellers. You can buy it used for a penny and draw your own conclusions.

Margie's 1972 Search To Find Bob Dylan: The Audacious Adventures of Day Two (Tony Scaduto and Philip Schechter)

This is Part 2 of Margie Marcus' three day adventure in New York in mid-January 1972. Part 1 appeared Friday here. It was through Anthony Scaduto that Margie hoped to find and meet Dylan. This past month it was through Margie's search to find and re-connect with Anthony Scaduto that she found me, or rather, found my blog about Scaduto's book Bob Dylan. As a result of sharing her story, I made an effort to help her by writing a blog entry about her quest. In the end she was successful in both her quests, in unexpected ways.

FRIDAY, January 14, 1972

At 10:00 my phone rang, woke me, and the voice on the other end was Tony Scaduto--the man I had written to and made an appointment with from Deerfield. I wanted to make sure that when I got to New York he could see me and not be too busy. He is the author of the new book Bob Dylan: An Intimate Biography and probably has done more research and knows Dylan better--not personally but consciously and thinking-wise--than anyone except perhaps old acquaintances like Joan Baez. I would say after reading Tony’s book he knows him better than anyone, period. He figured out his mind so well-that there were ten pages in the original manuscript to the book, that he left out because he and the editors felt it was just too heavy--it weighed the book down with a personal psychoanalysis of Dylan’s head—so that Tony didn’t really feel he should print it or had the prerogative to do. So he left it out and told me he would send it to me in the future.*

He called me at 10:00 and asked if he could come to my hotel earlier than we had planned because he had to take a 4:30 train to Long Island. I said “sure, anytime.” I really had nothing planned for the day--I was playing things by ear. I got up, ordered breakfast in and then got on the phone and called Philip Schechter. He is a Rabbi who was fired from his pulpit because of his radical ideas and appearance--and the things he was saying from his pulpit were not what the wealthy members of his Temple wanted to hear. They fired him and he was written up in the Rolling Stone at length last year, which is when I made my first correspondence contact with him. He interested me and what he was saying interested me. Not only that, I knew Schechter knew Dylan and I wanted to get in touch with anyone who knew Dylan. So, I called him. His answering service said he wasn’t in and I tried to persuade her to give me his home phone number. (I had called the JWB Lecture Bureau, which was the only number I had.) She said she wasn’t allowed to give me his number and I kept talking, and this was one example of the perfect timing that seemed to be with me during my whole NY trip. As I was trying to get the number out of her he picked up the phone and said he had just gotten home. I told him who I was and he remembered me from the letters I had sent him and my interest in Dylan. We began to talk.

He said his lecture schedule and all his other commitments to the congregations he was working with part time did not allow him to time to see me, but he would be glad to talk with on the phone awhile. A while turned out to be about 45 minutes of delightful conversation. I asked him a million questions, some about Dylan and some about himself and he was really nice to talk to. He first met Dylan on the street while Dylan was taking his son to get a haircut. It seems that when Schechter was fired he had a rather large interview by the Brooklyn Bridge, a newspaper I believe in the Village, and Dylan was at the interview because he was curious about Schechter. Dylan didn’t identify himself at the time, but recognized Schechter on the street and stopped to speak to him, most unusual for Dylan. The conversation was peculiar. They talked about their kids. There would be lags in the conversation, then another comment would be dropped. I’m sure I didn’t get it the way it happened because my notes are sketchy but Dylan does not want to talk about his music, Schechter said. They talked a little about Israel and Dylan’s recent connection with leaders of JDL and giving money to Israel etc., and Dylan denied it all saying it was a lot of baloney. Dylan made a few disparaging remarks about Abbie Hoffman and told Schechter to read a book called The 1st 3rd, published by City Lights and about Neil Cassidy.

Won’t go into all the details, but Schechter said didn’t know what Dylan’s theology is, thinks there’s a lot of theology in his ‘Father of Night’ and thinks Dylan means that people use God to justify their behavior. Schechter said he’s a changed man since he was fired. He seems to be able to deal with things on many different levels and is still really trying to find out ‘exactly what I am’ but knows that he is comfortable with the word God. He is not a completely humanistic Jew, he is only humanistic as far as bringing things back to the people rather than to institutions. When our conversation came to a close it was 11:30 a.m. Friday.

Tony Scaduto called my room about 2:45 and I came downstairs to meet a very friendly and smiling gentleman. We went into the bar at the Sherry Netherland and sat down to have a drink. We immediately started talking about Dylan and I don’t think we stopped for almost 2 hours.

Tony had to leave at 4:30 to catch a train to Long Island and in all that time I really learned nothing about him at all except that he worked for the NY Post for 20 years as a reporter (I learned later from his book and other articles that he was a court and police reporter, too) and then quit the Post and is freelancing. He was a fascinating and incredibly nice person. He was so friendly to me--we had no trouble communicating at all--we both seemed as though we had known each other before. When our time was up, he told me to call him the next day in Long Island and we would talk some more. He gave me a copy of his book which he autographed, reading: ”Dear Margie: You are warm, you are lovely, and I dug so much talking to you. Good luck in your search. Tony Scaduto."

I read every word of the book in a week and my regret was that it was finished. I wished it had gone on forever. He again promised to send me that part of the manuscript that contained a lot of things that go on in Dylan’s head which Dylan said was very accurate. He’s had a lot to do and Part 1 of his book came out in last week’s Rolling Stone. He’s had a bit of a hassle with them--wasn’t sure they were going to print it. He told me he should probably be in Chicago sometime in March and I said I hope so, I’d like to talk with him again.

* Margie did eventually receive those 10 pages and still has them.

In Part III we'll learn how a whim and serendipity made her dream come true. 

No Trivial Pursuit: Whatever Happened To Dylanologist Tony Scaduto?

Whatever became of Anthony Scaduto? In 1972 the Chicago Tribune called him "heir apparent to the title of Dylanologist Number One." This accolade was based on the determined and detailed analysis he brought to his research while writing his book on Bob Dylan. Scaduto was the first Dylan biographer to approach the life of Dylan as a journalist and not a fan.

The reason I ask where he is today is that sometime about a month ago I received an interesting email from a woman in Chicago who knew him when he wrote the book on Bob Dylan. She contacted me because of my blog review of Scaduto's book.

The details of Scaduto's career are sketchy. For a brief period he seems to have been high profile, beginning with the Dylan bio (1972) and his 1974 investigation into the Bruno Richard Hauptmann case whom he believes was railroaded for the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. He also wrote bios of Mick Jagger, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy. But he cut his teeth as a reporter for the New York Post where he was known as an expert on crime and the mob.

According to Richie Unterberger of AllMusic, "The fact that he was, for that era, old for a rock critic (he was around 40 when he wrote the book) probably worked to his advantage. It was a time when young rock critics tended to idolize their subjects, an approach Scaduto never bought into. He also had a lot of reporting experience, not just about music, but also as a police reporter, sometimes covering organized crime. He knew the importance of investigative research, and digging for material that wasn't always going to be easy to find." **

Scaduto got the assignment to do a Dylan bio when it started to become apparent that writing about rock might be something profitable. Grosset & Dunlap called and asked if he might be interested in doing a book on Johnny Winter. Scaduto re-directed. Dylan was the only subject matter that really interested him.

What's a mystery is how a high profile writer with connections to the N.Y. publishing scene would go into hibernation and not leverage these contacts and advantages. According to Wikipedia, Scaduto also writes under the name Tony Sciacca but a quick Google search there only leads to the same books on Amazon, but under a different name.

Maybe it was his boldness in writing about Frank Sinatra's mafia connections that got him into hot water. Or his daring Who Killed Marilyn? with its suggestive subtitle "And Did the Kennedy's Know?"

Scaduto worked hard to develop his craft and it paid off. In the 70's he tackled some big stories. After his season in the sun, he's carried a decidedly lower profile. If Tony's still around, I know one fan who would still like to find him. If you have an information, drop me an email. ennyman [at] northlc [dot] com.

Meantime, life goes on all around you.

* Lynn Van Matre, Chicago Tribune, Sunday May 7, 1972
** http://www.allmusic.com/artist/anthony-scaduto-mn0001798249/biography