Here is an excerpt from today’s Telegraph:
The Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger was the target of an assassination attempt which only failed because the boat the would-be killers were using was swamped in a storm.
The attempt to kill Sir Mick was made by a group of Hells Angels after the infamous Altamont Speedway Free Concert in 1969, which the Rolling Stones had organised and for which the motorcycle gang reportedly provided security.
Meredith Hunter, a black 18-year-old member of the audience, was stabbed and kicked to death by a group of Hells Angels, in an attack captured on film cameras. As a result, Sir Mick allegedly refused to use their services again.
According to Mark Young, a former special agent, interviewed in BBC radio series The FBI at 100, which begins tomorrow, a boat of Hells Angels set out to take revenge on the singer at his holiday home in the Hamptons, Long Island, New York.
“The Hells Angels were so angered by Jagger’s treatment of them that they decided to kill him,” said Tom Mangold, who presents the series. “A group of them took a boat and were all tooled up and planned to attack him from the sea.
“They planned the attack from the sea so they could enter his property from the garden and avoid security at the front. The boat was hit by a storm and all of the men were thrown overboard. All survived and there was not said to have been any further attempt on Jagger’s life.”
Just imagine, had the Hell’s Angels succeeded, the world would never have known such great albums as “Sticky Fingers” (1971), “Exile on Main St.” (1972) and “Some Girls” (1978). Their 1969 masterpiece “Let it Bleed,” might still have seen the light of day, but the title would have taken on an even more ominous meaning.
