Christopher Simon Sykes’s iconic 1975 tour photographs of The Rolling Stones go on show at Sledmere House for first time

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. “That was a bit of harsh thing to say!” Christopher reflects.

Thrown in at the deep end, he would 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.

“It was like a text book on touring with The Rolling Stones. 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, staying in the best hotels wherever we went. 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!”

Only Led Zeppelin had mounted an American tour on such a grand scale before T.O.T.A. ’75, in terms of locations, itinerary and stage design. “It was the biggest rock’n’roll tour that had ever been done. The stage was in the shape of a lotus flower, all electronically controlled with closed petals,” says Christopher. “The lights went down, the music struck up and Mick would suddenly appear on top of one of the petals.”

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 Formula One 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.

To pitch for the job, Christopher met the band in rehearsal at Andy Warhol’s house on Long Island. “Prince Rupert said I’d have to pay my fare there, but if I got the job he’d refund me,” he says.

“It was a ‘don’t ring us, we’ll ring you’ situation, where no-one did ring after I showed them my ideas, but the smart thing I did was to get the phone number of the place where they were rehearsing. I used to leave messages for Mick, but he never returned my calls.”

When Prince Rupert told him he ‘couldn’t get Mick to make up his mind’, Christopher  phoned Mick once more. “Look, he hadn’t said ‘No’. I’d had quite a few drinks that night to drown my sorrows. I saw the telephone number by my bed and thought I’d give it one last try,” he recalls.

For once Jagger picked up the phone. ”He said, rather crossly, ‘what do you want?’.” Christopher duly explained. 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!”

“So the mixture of bloody-mindedness and persistence paid off for me, which I think is a good message to young people,” says Christopher. “Never give up; keep trying. Three weeks later, on June 8 1975, I found myself in Milwaukee, feeling terrified as I didn’t know anyone in the rock’n’roll world, so it was rather like the first day at school.

“I went to the hotel, where they had my name for a room, on the same floor as the Stones, but they wouldn’t let me through as I didn’t have a pass and the security guards were as big as elephants.

Time For A Fag: Christopher Simon Sykes’s photograph of Keith Richards from On Tour With The Rolling Stones 1975

“Then all these cars rolled up and Mick took me round to meet all the band, who I’d first met on Long Island, so it was all bit unnerving on that first day.”

Even more so that night when Christopher had no security pass for the Milwaukee concert, 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.

“I had to pinch myself, standing in front of 70,000 people,” says Christopher. “There I was, in touching distance of the Rolling Stones. I could only take photos of their backs, but then suddenly there was Mick, standing only six feet from me, his shirt covered in sweat, taking deep breaths as he prepared for the encore. I got this fantastic shot.”

Looking back on that tour, “I would say the Stones were absolutely at their peak, and it was even bigger than the Led Zeppelin tour. Mick Taylor had left the band and this was Ronnie Wood’s first tour with them, so we called each other the ‘two tour virgins,'” says Christopher.

“He was a sweetheart and he still is. I saw him at Eric Clapton’s 80th birthday party. He thinks of himself more as a painter than a musician – but I say ‘Don’t give up the day job, mate’!

“Ronnie and Keith were like two naughty boys on that tour, spending all their time together. The thing about Keith is that because he’s so cool, you think you’d be a bit scared, but he’s such a straight guy, such a nice man.”

What about Mick Jagger? “Mick is Mick. He could be very nice one day, crotchety the next. Very driven. The businessman in the band,” says Christopher.

After three extraordinary months, he would never photograph a rock band again. “At the end of the tour, I learned a lesson: I didn’t want to be a rock’n’roll photographer. You go for ten weeks with the band on tour, it’s all exciting for the first week, but after that you’re taking the same photograph day after day,” he says.

Mick Jagger in pink on The Rolling Stones’ Tour of the Americas 1975. Picture: Christopher Simon Sykes

“However much you like the band, there’s nothing challenging. It was a great experience but I knew it wouldn’t be my career. I probably could have got a load of work but it wasn’t for me.

“Though it’s exciting, even if you’re young it’s very tiring. For the band, their lifestyle means they sleep in the day, but for photographers, you’re just waiting for the next gig. I made a vow each day to get up and site-visit, because nothing would happen till four or five o’clock.

“Sometimes Mick would do the same. He liked looking at things, going to great art galleries, but it’s always more difficult for him as he can’t move anywhere without security.”

T.O.T.A. ’75 would be last time, as well as the first time for Christopher, but what photographic memories he produced. “I still get a thrill looking at the [Genesis Publications] book, with the photographs, the diary, the memorabilia, beautifully packaged in a box and blue bag,” he says.

“I would like to think that this is the book to show how a rock’n’roll tour works,” he say. “It has everything you could possibly want to know about what happens on tour…

“And the fact is, the music is still fantastic. It just doesn’t age.”

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.

Pensive Bill: Christopher Simon Sykes’s photograph of bass player Bill Wyman on The Rolling Stones’ Tour of the Americas 1975

Why Imelda’s chomping at the bit to play 11 Past The Hour’s songs at York Barbican

“It’s a magical feeling we can only get from live music. Let’s go! ” says Imelda May as she returns to York Barbican

IRISH singer-songwriter and poet Imelda May plays York Barbican tomorrow in the only Yorkshire show of her first major UK tour in more than five years.

“I cannot wait to see you all again, to dance and sing together, to connect and feel the sparkle in a room where music makes us feel alive and elevated for a while,” said the Dubliner when announcing the Made To Love itinerary last April. “It’s a magical feeling we can only get from live music. Let’s go!”

Imagine how she feels, a year on from that “Let’s go!” invocation, as Imelda at last has the chance to promote her sixth studio album, last April’s 11 Past The Hour.

“I’m absolutely chomping at the bit to perform these songs live because normally you put out the album, go out on tour at that time, and see the songs grow as you play them,” says Imelda, 47.

“But until now, I’ve not really played any of them live, apart from Made To Love at a couple of things. When you start playing them, it can change suddenly what you might release as the next single, as you see what people enjoyed, but with this album I had to release them blindly as there couldn’t be any comeback from audiences. So, it’ll be interesting to see which ones they most react to, now I’m touring again.”

The cover artwork for Imelda May’s 2021 album, 11 Past The Hour

On a record that “brims with sensuality, emotional intelligence, spirituality and intuition”, Imelda collaborated with Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, Noel Gallagher, Miles Kane and Niall McNamee.

“Niall is a wonderful Irish musician and actor and it was Ronnie [Wood] who introduced him to me because he was acting in a play by Ronnie’s wife, and we got on so well, we started writing together,” says Imelda.

The duet Don’t Let Me Stand On My Own resulted, with its theme of mental health, sticking together and holding on together. Lo and behold, Imelda and Niall are indeed not standing alone. “We fell in love over the kitchen table and we’re still together,” she says.

Imelda is grateful to Ronnie Wood for that post-show introduction but more besides. “It’s great to have Ronnie on the record, playing on Just One Kiss and Made To Love. I’ve known him since I was 16,” she says. “I’d never gone to music college or state schools; I just jammed at clubs, and I’d just started playing at this little club when Ronnie turned up and we ended up playing Rollin’ & Tumblin’ together.

“Later, I toured with Jeff Beck, who introduced me to Ronnie, saying ‘I don’t if you remember Imelda’, but he did!”

Artwork for Imelda May’s 2017 top five album, Life. Love. Flesh. Blood

Noel Gallagher co-wrote and sings on Just One Kiss while Miles Kane features on What We Did In The Dark. “Miles has been a friend for a long time and Noel is a good friend too,” says Imelda.

Feminist thinkers and activists Gina Martin and Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu contribute to Made To Love. “Gina does incredible work and it’s the same with Dr Shola, who is so eloquent and elegant and makes so much sense,” says Imelda.

“I was writing this song about how we’re made to love, because if we don’t look for love, what are we aiming for, especially now? I’m a living thing! Love is a living thing!

“I was looking for backing vocalists and decided I’d get in touch with Gina and Shola after they really captured our attention and hearts at this beautiful event for International Women’s Day.

“I said, ‘do you sing because I need your heart and passion on this song?’, and they agreed to do it with. We had to be [socially] distanced for the recording with all the doors open. Absolutely freezing, but it was worth it.”

Imelda’s record company, Decca Records, were favouring Diamonds for a single, but Graham Norton asked specifically for Made To Love for Imelda’s performance on his BBC One chat show, and it duly became the single.

Imelda loves being creative. “The writing process is like giving birth. Suddenly something exists that didn’t exist this morning,” she says. “I love it when my brain fires up and a song flows out.

“Then you start working on the artwork and the videos, the songs get to live and that’s another chapter starting. Then you work on how the songs will sound live, which is a very different creative process from studio recordings, especially when we were recording remotely in lockdown.”

Imelda’s creativity has expanded to poetry, as heard on her 2020 EP, Slip Of The Tongue, and printed in last October’s A Lick And A Promise. “Absolutely 100 per cent, poetry will feature in the show,” she says. “When the book came out, the reaction was unprecedented, I was told. The print runs sold out three times. They flew out the door!

“Working on poems for the EP with beautiful string arrangements behind them, the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, I can tell you.”

Now is the time for May in April, songs, poems and all, at York Barbican tomorrow.

Imelda May: Singer, songwriter, poet and multi-instrumentalist

Imelda May fact file

Full name: Imelda Mary Higham.

Born: July 10 1974, in The Liberties area of Dublin.

Occupation: Singer, songwriter, poet and multi-instrumentalist who plays bodhrán, guitar, bass guitar and tambourine.

Breakthrough: Discovered by boogie-woogie pianist Jools Holland, who asked her to tour with him.

Performed duets with: U2, Lou Reed, Sinead O’Connor, Robert Plant, Van Morrison, Jack Savoretti, Noel Gallagher and Elvis Costello.

Featured on albums and live tours with: Jeff Beck, Jeff Goldblum and Ronnie Wood.

Studio albums: No Turning Back, 2003; Love Tattoo, 2008; Mayhem, 2010; Tribal, 2014; Life. Love. Flesh. Blood, 2017; 11 Past The Hour, 2021.

Branching out: In the cauldron of 2020 Black Lives Matter movement, she released her poem You Don’t Get To Be Racist And Irish. Sentiment adopted by Irish government’s ReThink Ireland campaign on billboard displays.

What Imelda did next: Released reflective nine-poem Slip Of The Tongue EP, set to uplifting soundscape. May addressed themes of home and love, feminism, harsh realities of life, defiance, lovelorn longing and escapism.

Book: A Lick And A Promise, debut collection of 104 poems, including two each by her father and young daughter, published in October 2021.

York gigs: February 2009, at The Duchess, in bequiffed retro-rockabilly days; November 2011, York Barbican debut; May 2017, York Barbican, promoting post break-up album Life. Love. Flesh. Blood.

Imelda May plays York Barbican tomorrow (6/4/2022) at 7.30pm on her Made To Love Tour. Box office: yorkbarbican.co.uk, gigsandtours.com and ticketmaster.co.uk or on 0203 356 5441.

Imelda May to follow up Friday’s 11 Past The Hour album with York Barbican gig in 2022

“I cannot wait to see you all again, to dance and sing together, to connect and feel the sparkle in a room where music makes us feel alive,” says Imelda May. Roll on next April

IRISH singer-songwriter and poet Imelda May will play York Barbican on April 6 2022 in the only Yorkshire show of her first major UK tour in more than five years.

Meanwhile, May and April will unite on Friday (16/4/2021) when the 46-year-old Dubliner releases her sixth studio album, 11 Past The Hour, on Decca Records.

Tickets for May’s 12-date Made To Love Tour next spring will go on general sale on April 23 at 10am at yorkbarbican.co.uk, gigsandtours.com and ticketmaster.co.uk and on 0203 356 5441.

“I cannot wait to see you all again, to dance and sing together, to connect and feel the sparkle in a room where music makes us feel alive and elevated for a while,” says Imelda. “A magical feeling we can only get from live music. Let’s go!”

Imelda May’s new album, 11 Past The Hour, is out on Friday

On a record that “brims with sensuality, emotional intelligence, spirituality and intuition, marking a new chapter for Imelda and showcasing her at her most authentic”, May collaborates with Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, Noel Gallagher, Miles Kane and Niall McNamee.

Feminist thinkers and activists Gina Martin and Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu make inspired contributions too to an album that adds up to “an invigorating blast of rock’n’roll with a purpose”.

Born and raised in The Liberties area of Dublin, May – real name Imelda Mary Higham – was discovered by boogie-woogie pianist Jools Holland, who asked her to tour with him.

She has since performed duets with U2, Lou Reed, Sinead O’Connor, Robert Plant, Van Morrison, Jack Savoretti and Elvis Costello and has featured on albums and live tours with Jeff Beck, Jeff Goldblum and Ronnie Wood.

Branching out into poetry: Imelda May’s 2020 EP, Slip Of The Tongue

May last played York Barbican in May 2017 in support of her T-Bone Burnett-produced Top Five album, the post break-up record Life. Love. Flesh. Blood, and previously performed there in November 2011, two years on from a show at The Duchess in her bequiffed retro-rockabilly Love Tattoo days.

Not only a singer and songwriter but also a multi-instrumentalist, equally adept on  bodhrán, guitar, bass guitar and tambourine, last year she added another string to her bow: poetry.

Last June, in the cauldron of the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement, she released You Don’t Get To Be Racist And Irish, a sentiment adopted subsequently by the Irish government’s ReThink Ireland campaign on billboard display.

This was followed in October by the reflective nine-poem Slip Of The Tongue EP, set to an uplifting soundscape as May addressed such themes as home and love, feminism, the harsh realities of life, defiance, lovelorn longing and escapism.

Now comes 11 Past The Hour, to be followed by next April’s tour, for which VIP packages, including access to soundcheck and a Q&A with May, are available.  Eager fans can secure exclusive access to a presale for the tour when they pre-order the new album from May’s store at imeldamay.tmstor.es.

What was Charles Hutchinson’s verdict when Imelda May played York Barbican on May 16 2017?

Imelda May: “The blues, rock, soul and gospel-singing, mature May is a cut above the more derivative, bouncier, boom-boom past”

WHEN else would Imelda May tour but in May, when every day is a May day, 17 dates in all this month on the Irish pocket dynamo’s first British travels in three years.

“It’s been a while,” said the 42-year-old Dubliner, reintroducing herself to a pleasingly full York Barbican crowd for the first time since November 2011. “Thank you very much for sticking with me and turning up tonight.”

Much has changed in that time. Imelda ditched the rockabilly look and sound last sported on 2014’s Tribal album; her 18-year marriage to guitarist Darrel Higham ended; she turned 40; she gave herself permission to find new love; she allowed her spectacular voice full range in her song-writing for the first time since hit single Johnny Got A Boom Boom steered her down Retro Avenue.

The artwork for Imelda May’s 2017 album Life. Love. Flesh. Blood

All this is reflected in her post break-up March album, Life. Love. Flesh. Blood, whose every song – even from the deluxe edition – was in Tuesday’s setlist, bolstered by a couple of Sixties covers (The Animals, The Shangri-Las) and a smattering of May oldies. That’s confidence for you, and one met approvingly by an audience of Imelda’s age and upwards who had in turn experienced Life. Love. Flesh. Blood.

Dressed in black, down to her ankle boots, with hair designed to a Chrissie Hynde template, Imelda began seated as if in a scene from the musical Chicago, she and guitarist Oliver Darling picked out by spotlights for Call Me: the album opener that announces the blues, rock, soul and gospel-singing, mature May is a cut above the more derivative, bouncier, boom-boom past.

Stage lit warmly by nine copper-toned lamps, May fronted a wonderfully responsive band, the guitars and Al Gare’s double bass complemented by saxophone and trumpet, as she sang from and to the heart, with Black Tears, The Longing and The Girl I Used To Be particular highs. The girl she used to be is still there, but the 2017 Imelda May is flowering in fullest bloom.

Review copyright of The Press, York