Chris Jagger Releases The Book Talking To Myself And Album Mixing Up The Medicine

Published: Sept. 21, 2021, midnight

You will find many of Chris' life adventures detailed in this new pull-no-punches memoir, Talking to Myself. It’s a rich, detailed, hilarious and gossipy tale that digs deep into he and his older brother Mick’s upbringing in Dartford, Kent. The book plots the siblings’ emergence into adulthood and shared lifelong appreciation for the blues. It also chronicles the younger Jagger’s musical adventures from the 1970s onwards with entertaining detours into his travels to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Israel, where he acted in a production of the musical Hair.



“I thought about starting a book in the 1990s, because I began writing some journalism pieces,” Jagger explains. He returned to this project in 2019, and really concentrated on it during the pandemic. “Writing took longer than I anticipated. I did find I had to give it my full attention, and it was a lot harder than I thought. It’s all very well linking a lot of stories together, but what’s your style? I wrote it myself — I didn’t have a ghost writer — so I had to find my voice.”



Talking to Myself is the only book — so far — to document the life of growing up in the Jagger family in Dartford, Kent. “I said to (Mick), ‘I’ve almost finished my book, now let’s do yours’ and he laughed,” Jagger shares. “He’d do a fantastic book.” Jagger also admits that “writing can be quite prosaic and descriptive. It doesn’t have to be all poetry. I have even included some recipes in [my book] too.”



With Mixing Up the Medicine, Jagger has made a joyful, life-enhancing album that distills his affinity for an eclectic mix of musical styles into ten tight tracks. As Jagger explains it: “I was reading this book by Ezra Pound, and he mentioned Beddoes. I found this book of his called Death’s Jest Book, in which he wrote these kind-of-weird plays. I read some of his verse and took them and put them to music.”



The album draws upon Jagger’s rootsy interest – a loose, lively mix surfaces on several tracks including Jagger’s autobiography-inspired “Talking to Myself,” and the comforting bluesy lament of “Hey Brother,” are a lovely ode to lifelong fraternal bonds.



One thing unites all the songs: a relaxed, raw quality that conveys the warm sense of a band of brothers having a ball. “Let’s face it, we’re coming to the end of our careers,” Jaggar concedes. “You never know if it’s gonna be your last record.



Jagger, as is his wont, has always stayed busy; he has been a journalist, worked in theater, designed clothes, acted in movies, made blues documentaries for the BBC, was a partner in a guitar company, and wrote songs, including contributing to several Stones tunes.