Chris Jagger gets an assist from his older brother Mick in the new video for his song, “Anyone Seen My Heart.”
“Anyone Seen My Heart” is a snappy tune that incorporates elements of soul, pop, and ska. The new video, directed by Oska Zak, is simple but charming, opening with a shot of the Jagger brothers working on a song together while Chris goes on to belt lead and Mick provides backup.
“Anyone Seen My Heart” appears on Jagger’s recent album, Mixing Up the Medicine, which arrived on September 10th. The song, like several others on the LP, was inspired in part by the obscure 19th-century poet Thomas Beddoes: “I was reading this book by Ezra Pound, and he mentioned Beddoes,” Jagger said in a statement. “I found this book of his called Death’s Jest Book, in which he wrote these kind of weird plays. I read some of his verse and took them and put them to music.”
The 73-year-old musician, writer and former actor has made a dozen albums, shared a stage with Pierce Brosnan, been on a journalistic mission to Tibet, made blues documentaries for TV and written lyrics for two Rolling Stones albums.
So he has a story worth telling. And unlike Mick, who returned the £1million advance for his autobiography because he found the past too difficult to face, Chris embraces his history.
He tells of the close relationship the siblings had growing up in the 1950s, and what it felt like to be in London at the centre of the Swinging Sixties.
I tell him how jealous I was reading about the constant stream of A-listers he was introduced to back then, but life has left him unimpressed with fame.
Chris and his wife of 40 years Kari-Ann live in a farmhouse near Glastonbury in Somerset.
She teaches yoga in the barn in which he and his band rehearsed his latest album, Mixing Up The Medicine, out this month. Kari-Ann, a Mary Quant model in the 1960s, also appeared on the cover of Roxy Music’s 1972 debut album. Between them they have five grown-up sons (two from her previous marriage, one from his, and two together) and 14 grandchildren.
We talk a week after the death of Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts and Chris is still in shock.
“Charlie was a lovely guy who I knew for many years.
All the infinite jest of Beddoes gave Jagger enough prose to frame his upcoming album Mixing Up the Medicine. (Americansongwriter)
“I had a bit of a writer’s block, so I thought it was interesting to use someone else’s view, interpret it myself, and put it in a different context,” says Jagger. “He was a bit of a failed poet and I thought, ‘He needs a bit of recognition, 100 years later. You bring someone to life by breathing something into it and that’s sometimes the job of a writer. A writer is more like a conduit as much as anything.”
A follow up to previous singles “Loves Horn,” “Merry Go Round,” and the piano-led ballad “Hey Brother,”—with a video showcasing old photos of him and his brother Mick—on “Talking to Myself,” Jagger also weaved in elements of writing the book
Mixing Up the Medicine showcases all the many musical faces of Chris Jagger and his childhood friend Hart, and their assorted “band of brothers” (musicians), including drummer Dylan Howe, Olly Blanchflower on double bass, and producer John Porter (BB King, Elvis Costello, The Smiths). “Like most of my albums, it’s a bit of a mishmash,” says Jagger, “So that’s why I called it Mixing Up the Medicines.”
