Rolling Stones US 1975 tour: a yellow Chevy stuffed with drugs and the Police in Arkansas. How to escape from cops.Why did we stop for a lunch at 4Dice restaurant in Arkansas full of stuff? At Fordyce, a tiny little village with the Rolling Stones on top of the black list of police from one end to the other in the States.(Source: Life by Keith RIchards).
All the cops wanted to stop us by any means so that they could get a promotion. It was 1975, the Stones hunting season had just begun. After the tour of '72, the Department had decided that we would no longer be in the US.
Our lawyer Bill Carter had told us to keep off of Arkansas, that state had tried to ban the rock by law. We were aboard a Chevrolet Impala yellow, brand new and overwhelmed by drugs.
In Car with me there were Ronnie Wood, Freddie Sesler and Jim Callaghan, the head of security.
We have to stop at this hot table, 4Dyce, and after ordering we went to the bathroom, just to get us up. We were in the bathroom for 40 minutes: sniffing and make idiots. Things that should not happen in those parts. Not then.
That was how the situation rushed and the staff called the police. When we got out a police car was parked in front of the road. As soon as we left, after 20 meters, they stop us and got the rifles right up. I was wearing a hat full of pockets stuffed with drugs.
But stuff was everywhere, even inside the panels of car doors. Bags of coca, peyote and marijuana. Our provisional and tour-only visas were subject to a series of conditions that Bill Carter had obtained thanks to long-term mediation work with the Immigration Service and the Dipartement State
They told us to follow them up to a garage and while we were driving, we flew stuff from the windows. Almost everything, but not everything. Surely they saw us.
They did not know what to do with internationally renowned stars.
They knew that we trying to trace Bill Carter and they were worried because the area was Bill's back yard. He grew up in the nearby Rector town and knew all the agents, sheriffs, politicians, and public prosecutors.
At that point, the police became sorry to have informed the press. Outside the Justice House there was everything: a Dallas TV network hired a jet to be in the front row, and journalist all over. And still we were stuffed. We went to the loo and nobody thought to escorted us.
Freddie, as he threw the stuff into the jug, but he dropped a Tuinal bottle on the floor and all those red and turquoise pills scattered to the floor.
I had thrown the hashish and the marijuana and pulled the flush but the stuff did not go down: too much grass.
There was still Freddy's coke bag in the car. In the end Carter was traced: it was getting a grate at a judge's home in Little Rock. He would rent a plane and in a couple of hours it would come.
The judge told the cop who had no right to search the car.Freddie, as he threw the stuff into the jug, escaped a Tuinal bottle and all those red and turquoise dick scattered to the floor.
I had thrown the hashish and the marijuana and pulled the flush but the stuff did not go down too much grass. There was still Freddy's full of coke bag in the car.In the end Carter was traced: it was getting a bbq at a judge's home in Little Rock. He would rent a plane and in a couple of hours it would come.
The judge told the cop thet had no right to search the car.There was a pantomime between agents, judge, lawyer and us. Finally, Freddie's cocaine came out. 5000 $ fine was payed to security; my knife was kept by the magistrate in memory.
He had drunk half a flask of Wyskie kept in the sock. The agents were pissed off with Carter. Outside there was the crowd that was cheering. The events with The Stones usually ended in two ways: either with arrests or with a procession of cars out of town We managed to have the march and take our plane waiting for us with the bright and engines and full of bourbon. Must be a yellow Chevrolet stll packed of drugs down there.
