Christopher Simon Sykes’s photograph of Mick Jagger from his On Tour With The Rolling Stones 1975 exhibition at Sledmere House
IN June 1975, Christopher Simon Sykes, of 18th century Sledmere House, near Driffield, joined the Rolling Stones Tour of the Americas: his rock’n’roll baptism of fire as a snapper after specialising in photographing stately home interiors.
“You’ve never been on tour have you, Chrissy. It’s not like country life, you know,” said Mick Jagger, on the Yorkshire aristocrat’s arrival in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to accompany the Stones on their three-month tour of North America and Canada, playing 40 shows in 27 cities: the biggest tour ever staged at that time. Fifty trucks, 100 staff erecting one version of the lotus flower set design at the next location while the Stones played on the same design in another city.
Fifty years later, for the first time, Christopher has picked 34 photographs from the 1,600-1,700 he took for an exhibition on home soil in the Courtyard Room at Sledmere House, with all works on sale at £650 (printed, mounted, signed, framed) or £500 (printed, mounted, signed). Or you could acquire six postcards for a bargain £5 or £2 each.
Christopher, the third son of Sir Richard Tatton-Sykes, 7th Baronet of Sledmere, was 27, (Jagger was 31) when taking on his one and only rock’n’roll commission before he would go on to write 14 books.
“The reason I went on the tour was to do the photographs for a book as the Stones wanted to do a tour diary,” Christopher recalls, over a cup of tea in the early evening sun outside Castle Farm, in Sledmere, his venerable dog at his feet.
“It came out a year later, but it was a terrible, cheap paperback edition, where all the pages fell out after a month. The text was written by Terry Southern [the satirical American novelist, essayist screenwriter and university lecturer], after I sent Mick what I’d written about what it’s like to go on tour, but he’d said it was so ‘boring’ that he’d asked Terry to write the book instead, even though he wasn’t even on the tour!”
Catching Up With The News: Christopher Simon Sykes’s photograph of Mick Jagger reading a newspaper on the 1975 tour
Christopher recalls Southern’s words being “nonsenscical stuff” and the book also featuring American photographer Annie Leibovitz’s photographs from the same T.O.T.A ’75 tour. “I was the official diarist; she was the official tour photographer,” he explains.
“I’ve still got a copy in London. I picked it up the other day, and there’s no glue holding it together now! It was published in Holland by a company called Dragon’s Dream, which tells you everything.”
Not until 2001 did a book do full justice to Christopher’s photographs or make use of his copious diary notes. Step forward Genesis Publications, subscription publishers of gorgeously packaged and embossed books, to print 500 luxury editions at £500 and 2,500 standard editions at £300.
“They all sold out, so you can’t get a copy now, apart from trying to get one online,” he says. Maybe, just, maybe, Genesis Publications might look to do a 50th anniversary re-print. Watch this space.
Until then, Christopher’s photographs, transparencies and negatives had been consigned to a filing cabinet in his London cellar. “I was having dinner one night with Mark Getty, who’d just started Getty Images in 1999, and I was telling him the story of my Rolling Stones photographs when he said he’d love to exhibit them.”
Christopher Simon Sykes’s photograph of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards on the Rolling Stones’ Tour of the Americas in 1975
That Getty Images show – the only comprehensive exhibition of Christopher’s iconic T.O.T.A ’75 tour images until now – was seen by Genesis Publications and the book ensued.
Now Leeds photographer and documentary filmmaker Paul Berriff MBE has mounted and framed the 34 photographs that Christopher whittled down from 90 for the Sledmere show. “All the negatives are still in good conditions,” says Christopher.
“Let Christopher have what he wants,” Jagger informed the band’s lawyers, as the Stones retain the copyright. “I’ve chosen what I thought were the most striking images, all unique, as I had a special access that nowadays, if you’re going on a rock’n’roll tour as a photographer, you wouldn’t get,” says Christopher.
“But when I did it, I was like an extra member of the band. With all the accreditation, I had complete freedom to be wherever I wanted to be, which could be Mick’s hotel room, the dressing rooms, on stage, on the bus, on the plane called the Starship, a wonderful Boeing 737 converted for rock bands going on tour!”
Yet how did Christopher ever land such a gig in the first place? “I was working for Hesketh Racing, taking photographs for Lord Hesketh, a rich young chap, who wanted to prove he could finance a team to win a Grand Prix,” he recalls.
Christopher Simon Sykes’s tour pass as photographer on The Rolling Stones’ Tour of the Americas in 1975, aged 27
The memorial album he made for Lord Hesketh came to the attention of the Rolling Stones’ financial manager, Prince Rupert Loewenstein, who told him of the tour diary project.
Christopher met the band in America, applied for the photographer’s post, but when Prince Rupert told him he ‘couldn’t get Mick to make up his mind’, Christopher phoned Mick once more. “For once he picked up the phone.”
“What, Rupert told you I didn’t want you on the tour?” said Jagger, always the decision maker. “Well, you call Rupert now and tell him I do want you to come!”
The first night, Christopher had no security pass, forcing him to film from the back of the stage. As chance would have it, it produced the opening picture of this exhibition, the one occasion Jagger faced him, as the sweat-drenched frontman took deep breaths in preparation for the encore.
After those three extraordinary months, Christopher would never photograph a rock band again. “After a while, it was just too monotonous,” he reasons. This would be last time, as well as the first time, but what photographic memories he produced.
On Tour With The Rolling Stones 1975, A 50th Anniversary Exhibition of Photographs by Christopher Simon Sykes, Sledmere House, Sledmere, near Driffield, June 13 to July 6, except Mondays and Tuesdays, 10am to 5pm. Tickets: sledmerehouse.com.
Christopher Simon Sykes’s photograph of bass player Bill Wyman on The Rolling Stones’ Tour of the Americas