You Can’t Always Get What You Want

You Can’t Always Get What You Want is a magnificent account of the life and times of Sam Cutler with the Rolling Stones, then the Grateful Dead in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As tour manager for the Stones he played a pivotal role at a watershed moment in American history: the infamous concert at Altamont Speedway, where a young man named Meredith Hunter was stabbed to death by a Hells Angel in front of the stage.

There has never been an official investigation into what actually happened at Altamont. Cutler has recorded for posterity the political build up to the free concert, and the aftermath of the fateful occurrences there. The release of You Can’t Always Get What You Want is intended to finally “set the record straight” and his lucid backstage and onstage account is undoubtedly the book’s centerpiece. But, he adds, “there’s more to my story than Altamont. This is the story of his life on the road with two of the world’s greatest bands.”