Ian Stewart (musician)
In early December 1985, Stewart began having respiratory problems. Ian Andrew Robert Stewart (18 July 1938 – 12 December 1985) was a Scottish keyboardist and cofounder of The Rolling Stones.He also played piano and organ on the 1982 Bad To The Bone album of George Thorogood and the Destroyers. Stewart also played with the back-to-roots band Rocket 88, a late-70s/early-80s venture which included Watts, Alexis Korner, Cream frontman Jack Bruce on stand-up acoustic bass, Bob Hall sharing piano with Stewart, and a horn and brass section including Colin Smith, John Picard, Dick Morrissey and Don Weller. Stewart contributed to The Rolling Stones 1983 Undercover, and was present during the 1985 recording for Dirty Work (released in 1986). I never ever swore at him, Watts says, with rueful amazement. Stewart contributed piano, organ, marimbas and/or percussion to all Rolling Stones albums released between 1964 and 1983, except for Beggars Banquet.
I think he looked upon it as a load of silliness, said guitarist Mick Taylor. Another was Howlin Wolf s 1971 London Sessions album, featuring Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, Klaus Voorman, Steve Winwood, and Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts.
I think he found it very hard. When the Stones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, they requested Stewart s name be included. According to a Sunday Herald article in March 2006, Stewart was the basis for a fictional detective: The lyrics to Aidan Moffat & The Best-Of s song The Sixth Stone are about Stewart.
None of the other band members had a telephone; Stewart said, In early May 1963, the band s manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, said Stewart should no longer be onstage, that six members were too many for a popular group and that the burly, square-jawed Stewart didn t fit the image. Stewart loaded gear into his van, drove the group to gigs, replaced guitar strings and set up Watts drums the way he himself would play them. I also think it was because he saw what had happened to Brian.
Stewart was not the only keyboard player who worked extensively with the band: Jack Nitzsche, Nicky Hopkins, Billy Preston, and Ian McLagan all supplemented his work. He was dismissed from the line-up in May 1963 but he remained as road manager and piano player. Born in Pittenweem, East Neuk of Fife, Scotland, and raised in Sutton, Surrey, Stewart (often called Stu) started playing piano when he was six.
Stewart played piano on numbers of his choosing throughout tours in 1969, 1975-76, 1978 and 1981-82. Stewart remained aloof from the band s lifestyle. The song is included on Chemikal Underground s compilation Ballads of the Book, which features Scottish authors and poets writing lyrics for contemporary Scottish bands. .
He took up banjo and played with amateur groups on both instruments. Stewart had a job at Imperial Chemical Industries. We all did. Stewart contributed to Led Zeppelin s Rock and Roll from Led Zeppelin IV and Boogie With Stu from Physical Graffiti, two numbers in traditional rock & roll vein, both featuring his boogie-woogie style.
On 12 December he went to a clinic to have the problem examined; he suffered a heart attack and died in the waiting room. The Stones played a tribute gig with Rocket 88 in February 1986 at London s 100 Club, and included a 30-second clip of Stewart playing the blues standard, Key to the Highway at the end of Dirty Work. I could tell from the expression on his face when things started to get a bit crazy during the making of Exile on Main Street.
