cover image A Prince Among Stones: That Business with the Rolling Stones and Other Adventures

A Prince Among Stones: That Business with the Rolling Stones and Other Adventures

Prince Rupert Lowenstein. . Bloomsbury, $27 (272p) ISBN 978-1-4088-3279-0

Ever since 1973, when the music press reported that Lowenstein had saved the Rolling Stones from financial ruin, Stones fans have asked the question, “Who the hell is Prince Rupert Lowenstein?” With a dry wit and a gimlet eye for detail, first-time author Lowenstein fully answers that question, in an elegant biography that provides new insights into the Stones’ financial escapades over the almost forty years that he was their advisor. Born into a branch of a Bavarian royal house, Lowenstein describes a youth of “liveried servants, gamekeepers, French governesses” that was actually based on “weak financial foundations.” Lowenstein’s “instinctive sense of money” leads to his financial success; to his own place in early 1960s British society (such as his dinner with a “miserable,” heartbroken Maria Callas); and to Mick Jagger, who he had earlier met at a lavish party, and who asks Lowenstein to address the band’s nearly nonexistent finances. Stones fans will be delighted by Lowenstein’s fascinating descriptions of how he extricated the band from horrible contracts with their record company and ex-manager Allen Klein (which went on for 18 years); his involvement in every aspect of the Stones’ touring life from 1969 through 2008; and the role that his financial advice played in the creation of the band’s classic album, Exile on Main Street. (Mar.)