On This Day in 2017, the World Lost Rolling Stones Muse, Producer, Backup Singer, and Honorary Band Member

You don’t get to be a band as successful and enduring as the Rolling Stones without the right people backing up your creative endeavors, which is why the band’s muse, de facto producer, backup singer, and honorary member, Anita Pallenberg, was so critical to the Stones’ artistic development.

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Pallenberg played an equally, if not more, important role in guitarist Keith Richards’ life as well, transforming him from a gallivanting rock star to a father with the birth of their first child, Marlon Leon Sundeep Richards, in 1969.

On June 13, 2017, the world lost the woman who played such an integral part in the Stones’ history.

Playing the Role of Rolling Stones Muse, Producer, and Singer

Actor, singer, and “it girl” of the 1960s and ‘70s, Anita Pallenberg, first met the Rolling Stones when she managed to get backstage at one of the band’s concerts in 1965. She soon struck up a relationship with the late guitarist Brian Jones. After that relationship grew tumultuous and violent, shortly followed by Jones’ death in 1969, Pallenberg became romantically involved with Keith Richards. The pair welcomed their first son, Marlon Leon Sundeep, in 1969. But Pallenberg was more than just a band muse for her physical beauty and party girl spirit.

The members of the Rolling Stones deeply respected Pallenberg’s creative opinions. When she criticized the production of a number of tracks off the 1969 Stones album, Beggar’s Banquet, Mick Jagger went back to the studio to remix them. Three years earlier, Pallenberg was the driving influence behind Jones’ experimentation with instruments like the sitar, dulcimer, and koto on the album Aftermath. She even played a small part in the performance of Beggar’s Banquet track “Sympathy for the Devil,” providing background vocals.

Jo Bergman, who worked as the Rolling Stones’ personal assistant from 1967 to 1973, called Pallenberg an honorary band member. “She, Mick, Keith, and Brian were the Rolling Stones,” Bergman said, per The Guardian. “Her influence has been profound. She keeps things crazy.”

Anita Pallenberg Was Important to Other Women in the Stones’ Lives, Too

As is so often the case with rock ‘n’ roll relationships, Anita Pallenberg’s connection to the Rolling Stones was not always smooth sailing. Although she would go on to have three children with Keith Richards, rampant drug abuse and the death of their third child in infancy created irreparable tension in their relationship. Richards would later credit the death of  17-year-old Scott Cantrell, who was staying in their home when he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, as the final nail in the coffin for Richards and Pallenberg’s relationship.

But despite the tragedy and trauma that came out of this harrowing time, there were other, more positive moments, too. Fellow Rolling Stones muse, Marianne Faithfull, wrote of Pallenberg after her death, “Anuta used to say that we (the two of us) are light years ahead of the Rolling Stones. Witty and probably true. I will miss Anita so much. I really loved her. We had good times and bad times, but I only remember the good times now. She taught me so much, especially after we got clean. It was very good and so much fun. Farewell, my love.”

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