"You Can't Always Get What You Want” is a gripping rock 'n' roll saga which should appeal to anyone who is intrigued by authentic 'I was there' memoirs. Sam Cutler's book is not your usual press clippings cut and paste job from a rock journalist, past- her-sell-by-date groupie or a sycophantic fan.  It's the Real Thing, lucidly and well written from a Napoleon styled tour manager's point of view.

     Sam Cutler, the down to earth author is a late Sixties historical footnote due to hiring the Hells Angels to provide security at the doomed Altamont concert where Meredith Hunter's murder in front of the stage was witnessed on film by Albert and David Maysles  (who were shooting "Gimme Shelter") while the Stones played on.

     It's surprising that Cutler has total recall, due to all the drugs he consumed during his exhausting days of acting as tour manager of bands, the most legendary ones being the Rolling Stones whom he did a twelve month stint with on their notorious  'Let It Bleed' tour; and also the Grateful Dead who became rich and internationally renowned largely through his efforts.

     Cutler's tome doesn't solely focus on his role of tour manager, but starts prior to his career in rock 'n' roll, when he was illegitimately born in a stately home in Hertfordshire during World War 11.  He was consequently placed in an orphanage and was adopted when he was three, but didn’t discover his true parentage until he was fifteen. His natural mother was Irish from a gypsy family who had been abandoned by his father, a Jewish mathematician who then died on active service in the Royal Air Force.

      'In the blood of my veins, I was Irish, Gypsy, and Jew!' Cutler exclaims, thankful he wasn't English but was a mixture of 'three persecuted races’, and not of pure English stock like the Cutlers, his adoptive protestant parents who renamed him Sam (his birth name was Brendan Lyons).

     ‘All I could think was how grateful I was that I wasn’t English and named Cyril, ' Cutler quips which illustrates what a droll writer he is.

      His adoptive Communistic parents always had music in the house and Sam was raised on 'union songs and paeans to Stalin and the Red Army.‘

     'One would reasonably think that after countless acid trips and the experiences of the drug-fuelled sixties, the words of obscure political songs would fade from my mind, but to this day they remain eerie reminders of that distant country which is my past,' Cutler reminisces.

     Sam Cutler's disabled father died when he was eight and when his mother remarried, he was re-located to their new home in the suburbs where in was his own words, he became a 'typical teenager', listened to music and dreamt of going to California.

      Instead, he became a teacher, ran a folk club and played the guitar.

     'I wasn't interested so much in being a performer as in organising shows. Production is a bit like being a general - if you're going to attack Russia, you need a decent plan!'

      After he stopped teaching and emigrated to London, he quickly became involved in the city’s psychedelic music scene.  After working on the Pink Floyd's and Blind Faith's free concerts in Hyde Park, the Rolling Stones asked him to be their tour manager after their Brian Jones' 'memorial' concert in the park, and according to Cutler, 'the largest free concert in England.'

     Fortunately for the reader, Sam Cutler remembers details of events in his life, as well as verbatim conversations with his R.I.P. friends like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jerry Garcia. They are unable to dispute Sam's intimate recollections about them, but according to Jeff Dexter the well-known disc jockey, it wasn't true when Cutler said Jeff didn't turn up at the Stones' concert in Hyde Park.

      'But there was no sign of him, so I took over microphone duties,' Sam writes.

     In fact, Jeff did show up at the Stones' concert before Cutler got there; with the PA system from the Royal Albert Hall where he was committed to be at the last day of the pop proms with The Who and Chuck Berry, which were happening at the same time. (The Stones attended the pop proms after they played at Hyde Park).

     After Cutler was anointed the Stones' new tour manager, he went to Los Angeles with the band and ecstatically moved into Stephen Stills' house prior to the LA concert, so that the Stones who hadn't played together for three years could rehearse.

     'It’s a massive responsibility, looking after people like the Rolling Stones. There are people out there who want to get in bed with them and give them the proverbial cuddle, but there are also people out there who may want to hurt them. So there are security issues, plus making a nice home base in a foreign country.'

     When Sam got on stage at the LA concert, and famously introduced them as "the greatest rock and roll band in the world", he was using reverse psychology, trying to goad them into actually believing it.

     'Sam, when you're introducing the band p-l-e-a-s-e don't call us the greatest rock 'n' roll band in the world,’ Mick pleaded afterwards.

      Sam replied 'like some London gangster':

      'Well, either you fuckin' are or you ain't. What the fuck is it gonna be?'

     After that, Sam used that intro for the rest of the tour, and they are the first words heard in "Gimme Shelter". 

      Sam Cutler is a humorous writer and manages to consistently portray himself as an un-egotistical, selfless and a fair-minded character, unfazed by the antics of the legendary musicians, whose touring lives he looked after twenty four hours a day.

     While the Stones took their roles of cosseted rock stars for granted, Cutler's tough job consisted of him having had to deal with the tour that involved riot police, the groupies, drug dealers, mobsters and the usual flotsam and jetsam of hanger-ons. If that wasn't heavy enough for him to contend with, Sam even bought a gun to protect himself while he was forced to deal with the FBI, the CIA and Mafia figures all on three hours sleep a night.

       After the disastrous Altamont concert, the Stones escaped in a helicopter leaving Cutler to be the scapegoat, which illustrates what a self-centered and selfish breed musicians are.

      There has never been an official investigation into what actually happened at Altamont but Cutler records for posterity the political build up to the free concert and the concert's aftermath, which is the core of "You Can't Always Get What You Want".

     What is also fascinating about Cutler's exemplary 'rock noir' autobiography is that after the Stones dumped him at the end of the book's Act II, at the start of Act III, he effortlessly slid into working with the Northern California's domiciled Grateful Dead. Working with this hippy band and its sprawling family couldn't have been more different from working with the slick Stones.

     Incredibly, when the Dead asked Cutler to act as their tour manager, they were in such deep debt, their dire financial situation threatened to end the band. Cutler ended up with a bleeding stomach ulcer caused by the stress and hard work supervising their tours twenty-four hours a day. And when Jerry Garcia didn't appreciate Sam's heroically working on the Dead's behalf, even though he had helped them become rich and internationally famous, he wished them 'Good luck,' and walked out of their lives.

     This again perfectly illustrates how self-centered musicians are in spite of their hippy credentials. Despite this, the selfless Sam Cutler who's a fascinating raconteur about a revolutionary slice of rock culture doesn't seek revenge via his compelling prose, but tells "You Can't Always Get What You Want" as It really was.  He was there!