His last name will always give him away. But Chris Jagger, the younger and only brother of “Rolling Stones” legend Mick (79), never intended to change him. “What would be the damn point?” Says the musician (75), who will perform in Linz on Thursday and in Ebensee on Saturday (more below).
The Englishman remembers a TV show with the brother of Beatles star Paul McCartney. He changed his name to McGear. “And what happens? They introduce him as Mike McGear, Paul McCartney’s brother!”
Chris Jagger, who wrote about music, the environment and travel as a journalist, has long since developed a good radar for the agenda of his counterpart. There are those who “want to interview my brother, which they can’t, and ask me about him. You hardly need any imagination for that, because you’re asking the obvious.”
Five sons, 14 grandchildren
He often says: “Mick Jagger is lucky to have a brother like me. Imagine if he were an only child! That would be a tragedy.” Chris Jagger laughs.
If you want to know who he is, an exciting biography unfolds: father of five boys, grandfather of 14 grandchildren, singer and musician who has created more than a hundred compositions and can look back on more than a dozen albums. He left school at the age of 18. He is self-taught as a musician and as an actor.
He has been married to the mother of his children since 1981 and they live on a farm. Anyone who asks Jagger about his life will sense what characterizes his music in his answers: originality, down-to-earthness. On his current album “Mixing Up The Medicine” there are ten straightforward numbers, born from rock, blues, jazz, folk, country and British craftsmanship.
The music making of his generation has something of a football game. “You find a ball and run at it with friends, you end up falling down, dirty and drinking in the pub with your bastards.” It needs this togetherness. Also with regard to the digital, which dominates in the music business. “We wrap ourselves in so much technology. How long are we going to stare at a screen every day?”
What he also doesn’t have is playback and numbers trimmed digitally to perfection – that could end in a dull void. What also irritates him are modern songs in which there is “a chorus, the punch line and then nothing”. He values telling stories – with a surprising twist. “Mixing Up The Medicine” also comes up with lyrics full of miniatures – about love, life, brothers.
The title is to be taken literally: music is Jagger’s medicine and that of the audience, it keeps the brain “agile”. “I’m 75 now. You never know if the next gig won’t be the last. He’s seen fans and agents die. “You also lose strength, but the music gives it back to you.”
As children, Mick and his parents would have nurtured him and Mick with a special power – equality, closeness, love. “My father always said: There can’t be any favourites.” What would have destroyed him would have been had the family preferred Mick. “They gave us both the basis for a good life.”
Concerts with Chris Jagger: Thursday, April 13: Posthof Linz, 8 p.m., www.posthof.at; Sat., April 15: Ebensee cinema, 8.30 p.m.,
www.kino-ebensee.at
author
Nora Bruckmuller
Editor Culture
Nora Bruckmuller
