The year was 1976 and a young model from England was in a Paris hotel room waiting to meet her new boyfriend. He was so late arriving that Josephine Karslake thought she’d been stood up, but eventually Ronnie Wood – a recent recruit to The Rolling Stones – materialised.
Their passionate embrace at the door was ruined by a wiry young man who pushed past them, took a seat on the bed and immediately started to inject heroin into his veins. It was the first time that Karslake – the future Jo Wood – would encounter Keith Richards.
“I’d never seen anybody using a syringe before,” she says, recalling the moment, “and it was quite shocking really. I thought, ‘I hope they don’t expect me to do that because I’m not going to do it’. But he stopped doing it about six months later and got himself together.”
It was typical of the frenetic whirlwind that she found herself in from the moment she met Wood at a house party just a few months before.
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“He came up to me and said, ‘Do you know who I am?’ and pointed at a picture of himself on the Black and Blue album [the first Stones album to feature Wood – and, let’s be honest here – one of the weakest albums in their entire catalogue.]”
She didn’t tell him she was a model. “When he said, ‘Do you know who I am?’ I said, ‘Oh. My. God’. I told him that I worked in Woolworth’s on the broken biscuit counter. He went there the next day looking for me. Of course, I was modelling and I’d never worked there, but he deserved that little lesson.”
Broken biscuits or otherwise, Wood was captivated by the then 21-year-old and they soon became an item, and would go on to marry and have three children together. They may now be divorced but the pair have patched up their differences and are friends, with the veteran guitarist having given his blessing to a book of Jo Wood photos of life with The Rolling Stones.
“They used to call me shutterbug,” Wood says, “because I had my camera with me all the time. Nowadays everyone can take photos whenever they want but it was very different then. There wasn’t that sort of constant scrutiny and often, backstage, I’d be the only person with a camera. Everyone was very relaxed. They weren’t worried about being stitched up.”
Stoned features more than 500 photos – which she likens to family snapshots. They may not be artistically pleasing, but the images capture the band like we haven’t seen them before. Virtually none are posed. They show the men behind the icons. There are several of Ronnie Wood’s own drawings too – and there’s obvious talent there.
Jo Wood grew up in Essex in a sleepy town. “It was only 30 miles from London but it felt like a world away,” she says. “All I wanted to be was a model living in London. I dreamed of being like Twiggy.”
She duly became a model and, at 17, was named the ‘Face of 1972’ by The Sun. “I’d got used to meeting famous people so it wasn’t a huge adjustment to this new life once I’d met Ronnie. I think I’m quite good at adjusting to things. I’d fallen in love with this man, he wanted me to go on the road with him and I just went with the flow. My parents brought me up to be very open-minded and I wanted adventure.”
And she got plenty of adventure in the globe-trotting exploits of one of rock history’s most totemic bands. “The first tours were so rough and ready,” she says with a hearty laugh. “Back then, we hardly slept. I remember on one occasion, security had to break into our room because we were late for a gig and there were clothes and things just thrown everywhere. I had to stuff everything into big plastic bags and get on the tour bus. Thank God, there were no cameras everywhere then!”
But by the time of the Steel Wheels tour of 1989, all had changed. A new ultra professionalism had taken hold and everyone on the tour was issued with a thick ‘manual’ informing them where and when they had to be each day and so on.
“We were so much freer in the early days,” she says, “but it made sense for it to become this slick operation.
“I remember on the Steel Wheels tour, Mick [Jagger] came to me and said ‘Ronnie needs a PA – you’re getting the job’. I said, ‘Do I get paid?’ And he said, ‘Yeah’. And we all get per diems, but I saved all mine up and used Ronnie’s!”
Their children – Leah, Jamie and Tyrone- came on tour. “I don’t think it was difficult for them,” she says. “The kids loved it. We’d take a tutor with us and they and the other kids on it became really close and they’re still close to day. It wasn’t that difficult for them to adjust – all they had to do was pick up the phone and order room service.”
After three years living in a pre-gentrified Manhattan, Ronnie, Jo and children moved to Ireland. “We bought the house in 1989 and lived there for a long time. I really loved that house, it wasn’t far from Naas.
“I’d such good times in Ireland. It was all Lillie’s Bordello and [nightclubs on] Leeson Street. I remember meeting Bryan Adams in Lillie’s Bordello and later falling down the stairs and breaking two fingers. Those were the days!”
Her children went to school near Clane.
“They weren’t happy about having to learn Irish,” she says. “They had to have private Irish lessons in order to try to catch up, but I don’t think anything stuck.” It was during her time living here that Wood would change her entire outlook on food and well-being. In 1989, she was diagnosed with the inflammatory bowl condition Crohn’s disease, and that inspired her to adopt an organic diet.
“It was in my garden in Co Kildare that I planted my first lot of organic potatoes and carrots,” she recalls. “I’d such a wonderful crop of new potatoes and when we were going on tour, I took all those potatoes in a suitcase and I took them to Paris. I got the chef there to cook them for everyone on the tour.”
She believes the good health she has subsequently enjoyed is down to a diet rich in organic food. “Ninety five per cent of what I put into my body is organic. I always look out for wild fish and locally grown food and I really do believe that we can do wonders for our health if we eat right.
“But I do like to let my hair down a bit. I fell in love with Guinness in Ireland and I still drink it. Keith used to love it too.”
Her interests in an organic way of life led her to found a cosmetics company – which is named after herself. A new skincare line will be launched next year.
But now, the 64-year-old has more immediate concerns. When Weekend calls, she is in the final stages of a house move, swapping London for the Cotswolds. “It’s a strange thing to pack up everything and move,” she says. “So many memories come flooding back.”
There’s a new man in her life, too. Carl Douglas is a former rugby coach and she says she’s smitten. “My lovely Carl,” she says. “He’s from Newcastle and he’s never held a guitar in his life. He’s so kind and I think we’re really good for each other.”
After a comparatively acrimonious split with Wood, she insists the two are on very good terms. “Life is so short,” she says. “Why ruin it with bitterness? We’re not just parents, but grandparents too.
“I became a grandparent at 44. Can you believe that? I didn’t want to be called a granny then but little Charlie came along and he was so cute that I was OK with it.”
Towards the end of their marriage, Wood had to cope with her husband’s infidelities. It came to a head when he cheated on her with a then 20-year-old Ukrainian cocktail waitress. Such behaviour might be seen as de rigeur for rock stars of a certain generation, but it still hurt and in the early stages of their break-up, Jo Wood spoke openly about the betrayal she had felt.
She long ago left animosity behind. “When I look back on all these photographs in the book – and they’re only a small selection of the thousands of photos I took – I can see two people that were very happy and had this incredible adventure together.
“Those memories are precious,” she adds, “but it’s really good to be looking forward as well as back. I’ve had some great moments in my life and here’s to many more!”
‘Stoned: Photographs and Treasures from Life with the Rolling Stones’ is published by Cassell Illustrated
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