The Rolling Stones dealer who lived with the band and photographed them: unpublished shots from the ’70s have just appeared

At the end of February, an exhibition opens in London with a collection of unpublished photographs that tell how people lived on the tours of Rolling stones.

The photos had sat gathering dust in a loft in south London for decadesbefore being discovered by the nephews of Tony Sánchez, a close friend and dealer of the band since the late 1960s.

Nicknamed “Tony Spanish” by Keith Richards, Tony Sánchez lived with the Stones for many years and had unprecedented access to the intimacy of the band.

After his death, the photo collection passed to his son Steve. However, Steve had a complicated relationship with his father, as he was raised by his grandparents and always believed that the Spanish Tony was his brother. To forget it, he locked his father’s photos in the attic of his house in Biggin Hill.

It was only on his deathbed that Steve told his sons, Nick and Matt, about his family connection to the Stones, a fact that led them to rediscover the hidden treasure of memories of the band.

Friend and trader

“Spanish Tony” has worked with the group since one of their first albums, Beggars’ Banquetpublished in 1968.

He was also with the Stones during their famous exile in the south of France in the spring of 1971, when they fled the UK to avoid paying a 93% tax that the Labor government imposed on high earners.

“The Spaniard Tony was a hard man. He ran a casino for Spanish waiters, after hours. He was a drug dealer who drove a Jaguar Mark 10, all done pimp style“Keith Richards wrote about Sánchez in his memoirs, lifepublished in 2010.

According to Oliver Bayliss, owner and founder of Bayliss Rare Books, which will publish a book and exhibition from February 28 to March 5, “While the Stones were busy becoming The Stones in the ’60s and ’70s, Tony was taking photographs that offered an incomparable vision of a band at a time in their lives when anything was possible.”

Some photos came to light in 1979 when Sánchez published his memoirs, Up and down with the Rolling Stonesleading fans to wonder where the originals were stored.

Thousands of negatives, including photographs of the Stones, the Beatles and nude photos of Anita Pallenberg, were stored in boxes and forgotten in a loft until Sánchez’s son Steve spoke about them on his deathbed.

Sánchez’s grandchildren have decided to start sharing their collection of photographs with the world and they now manage their assets with the Spanish company Tony Media.

The sample

The photographs will appear in J/M Galleryin a Notting Hill gallery in an exhibition entitled The Rolling Stones – Elegantly Wasted.

Bayliss said: “We will never see images like these from the Rolling Stones again. “No one had this level of access to them and permission to take photos.”

He adds: “Tony is a fascinating figure: drug dealer, writer, photographer – a true free spirit who, in my opinion, perfectly sums up the century he lived through. “I spent months reviewing the archive and was struck by his unique eye and the quality of these images.”

Today, as the Stones prepare to embark on a new tour in support of Hackney Diamonds Opening a new chapter in their seven-decade history, this exhibition and prints explore the chapter that gave the band its legendary name. The parties, the iconic live performances and more.