Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 23, 1994                   TAG: 9404250143
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Reviewed by NEIL HARVEY
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

JAGGER LOOKS STIFF IN `PRIMITIVE COOL'

By Christopher Sandford. St. Martin's. $23.

Giving a biography a title as lame as ``Mick Jagger: Primitive Cool'' is a bad enough idea as it is. But the fact that Christopher Sandford's biography of Mick Jagger takes its name from Jagger's worst solo album says a lot, right off the bat, about the author's grasp of his subject.

This book is an odd patchwork of familiar Rolling Stones history, clumsy grammar and gaping holes, all thrown over a flimsy structure.

In the first chapter, Sandford describes how Jagger behaves onstage during a concert, and here are two quotes, taken from the same paragraph, that serve as perfect examples of what's wrong with Sandford's book:

``The crowd catches him sullen and still, like a missionary hauled in front of a court - one whose jurisdiction he doesn't recognize; rigid. Remote even.''

``In the guitar break he stamps the stage with his foot four, five, a dozen times, in the way of a talking horse.''

Um ... Okay.

The overall problem with ``Primitive Cool'' is that it doesn't shed any new light on its subject, so the only thing the book has to distinguish itself from countless other books on The Rolling Stones, aside from Sandford's consistently awkward metaphors and chronic abuse of parentheses, is pure blandness. ``Primitive Cool'' is not hysterically, addictively awful like Tony Sanchez's ``Up and Down with the Rolling Stones.'' Nor is it as well written and researched as Phillip Norman's ``The Stones.'' Nor does it even begin to approach the excellence of Stanley Booth's unfortunately titled ``The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones'' (originally and more appropriately called ``Dance With The Devil''), which is not only the best book ever written about the Rolling Stones, but also a great book about rock 'n' roll and America and the 1960s as well.

When there are so many better biographies to read, biographies that train their focus on a musician rather than just a famous person, no one interested in rock history should waste time with such dull stuff as ``Mick Jagger: Primitive Cool.''

Neil Harvey is a Blacksburg writer.