Parachute Women
Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, and the Women Behind the Rolling Stones
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3.8 • 19 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Discover the true story of the four women who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to help shape and curate the image of The Rolling Stones—perfect for fans of Girls Like Us.
The Rolling Stones have long been considered one of the greatest rock-and-roll bands of all time. At the forefront of the British Invasion and heading up the counterculture movement of the 1960s, the Stones' innovative music and iconic performances defined a generation, and fifty years later, they're still performing to sold-out stadiums around the globe. Yet, as the saying goes, behind every great man is a greater woman, and behind these larger-than-life rockstars were four incredible women whose stories have yet to be fully unpacked . . . until now.
In Parachute Women, Elizabeth Winder introduces us to the four women who inspired, styled, wrote for, remixed, and ultimately helped create the legend of the Rolling Stones. Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger, and Anita Pallenberg put the glimmer in the Glimmer Twins and taught a group of straight-laced boys to be bad. They opened the doors to subterranean art and alternative lifestyles, turned them on to Russian literature, occult practices, and LSD. They connected them to cutting edge directors and writers, won them roles in art house films that renewed their appeal. They often acted as unpaid stylists, providing provocative looks from their personal wardrobes. They remixed tracks for chart-topping albums, and sometimes even wrote the actual songs. More hip to the times than the rockers themselves, they consciously (and unconsciously) kept the band current—and confident—with that mythic lasting power they still have today.
Lush in detail and insight, and long overdue, Parachute Women is a group portrait of the four audacious women who transformed the Stones into international stars, but who were themselves marginalized by the male-dominated rock world of the late '60s and early '70s. Written in the tradition of Sheila Weller's Girls Like Us, it's a story of lust and rivalries, friendships and betrayals, hope and degradation, and the birth of rock and roll.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Poet Winder (Marilyn in Manhattan) paints a fascinating portrait of Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger, and Anita Pallenberg (1942–2017), four women who styled, wrote lyrics for, and in equal measure enraptured and enraged the Rolling Stones. Actors, models, and artists in their own right, the women helped catapult the British lads into the spotlight, styling them from their own wardrobes and introducing them to film directors, acclaimed writers, and high-society elites. But they also became targets for the band members' frustrations and insecurities, including how Pallenberg's relationship with Brian Jones—and its media attention—stirred up jealousy in Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, with whom she went on to have a 13-year relationship. Winder traces how the band shot to popularity even as the women's public images nose-dived, as when a drug raid at Richards's house found Faithfull, the only woman with the band at the time, naked under a bearskin rug: "Sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll became an icon, and Marianne became... a symbol for the general moral degeneracy." Winder's renderings of fiery, messy love affairs, bonds and betrayals, and vicious rivalry are backed up by keenly described historical background and an expert understanding of 1960s and '70s rock culture. The result is a wild ride worthy of rock's heyday.
Customer Reviews
Enjoyable
Fascinating stories that you might not have known anything about before reading this book. Lovely descriptions of fashion from the time period. At times the interpersonal scandals read a bit like an issue of People and less like an novel. Would encourage any music fan and feminist to read.