Freddie sessler autobiography in five shorts

Brooklyn kid Bill German trailed the Rolling Stones for 17 years, chronicling their exploits in his fanzine, “Beggars Banquet.” But he wasn’t the only non-Stone backstage. The group traveled with an entourage of drug dealers, bodyguards and assistants. In this second of three excerpts from “Under Their Thumb: How a Nice Boy from Brooklyn Got Mixed Up with the Rolling Stones (and Lived to Tell About It)” (Random House, 2009), German talks about the Stones’ most unlikely hanger-on.

THERE were a number of characters among the Stones’ rotating cast of assistants and friends. Like Svi, the pharmacist and Talmudic scholar, who was given $700 every day by the tour’s accountant to buy things for Keith Richards. Or Video James, owner of the largest collection of Stones footage on the planet, whom the group would contact whenever they wanted to watch old TV clips of themselves.

PHOTOS: THE ROLLING STONES: BEHIND THE SCENES

But if you had to pick a “Rolling Stones insider” out of a line-up, Freddy Sessler would be your last candidate. He was a Holocaust survivor with two decades on Keith and four decades on me.

MORE: Read part one of the series

I met him in the mid-’80s during an all-nighter at Ron Wood’s house. His first words to me were “So vot are you vorking on vit Voody? You vant maybe some blow?” His accent was so thick, I can’t do it justice in print. He pronounced Keith “Keet” and Woody “Voody” and sounded like Peter Lorre from those old horror films.

By his own estimation, Freddy had been on every Stones tour since “England’s Newest Hitmakers.” He had supposedly laid more groupies than Mick Jagger and Bill Wyman and snorted more toot than Keith and Woody. His biggest claim to fame, however, was his participation in the “Fordyce Four incident.”

It took place in 1975, after a Stones concert in Memphis. The band was boarding its private jet to Dallas, when Keith made an announcement: “Leave without me, ’cause I’m drivin’.”

He wanted to experience America’s Deep South firsthand and not from the window of an airplane, so he rented himself a Cadillac. The tour’s promoter, Peter Rudge, begged Keith not to do it, but Keith told him to f- – – off. He got behind the wheel and brought along three passengers – Freddy, bodyguard JC and Woody. A quartet that would come to be known as the “Fordyce Four.”

Fordyce, Arkansas, I’m told, was the kind of place where hog-calling contests made front-page headlines. The most heinous crime was the theft of a peach pie from Aunt Bea’s windowsill. So when Keith Richards and Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones stumbled into the town’s greasy spoon, no one knew what to make of it. The town’s police force kept its eye on these suspicious-looking characters.

After a burger and a pee, Keith and his traveling companions hopped back in the Caddy. But when Keith drove off, the car kicked some dust and spun out a bit. Deputy Barney Fife flipped on his siren and pulled them over. A search of the car turned up an illegal knife and a stash of cocaine.

“The Fordyce Four” were hauled to jail and it looked like the Stones’ concert in Dallas, if not the whole tour, might be canceled.

Two things worked in Keith and Woody’s favor. First, Barney Fife found only a smidgen of the coke that was actually in the car. As Keith would reveal to me years later, “There was more drugs in that car than car.” And second, Freddy Sessler played the fall guy. He convinced the judge, who also ran the general store and was the mayor on Tuesdays and Fridays, that he was a hitchhiker and that the drugs were all his. “Vot means Rolling Stones? I don’t know dem.”

The others shrugged in agreement. “Yeah, we never met this guy before today.” After seven hours in jail, they were allowed to leave. Freddy got booked.

NO ONE ever forgot that Freddy took one for the team. He was credited with saving the tour and was rewarded for his loyalty. He was granted carte blanche and was loosely recognized as the Rolling Stones’ team mascot – like Paul’s grandfather in “A Hard Day’s Night,” but nowhere near as cute.

Freddy Sessler was born in Krakow, Poland in 1923. When he was 15 years old, Hitler’s forces came through his Jewish neighborhood, torching homes and shooting people in the street. Freddy, along with his entire family, was rounded up and sent to a nearby concentration camp.

He attempted an escape one night, and it worked. He left his family behind and made his way to Russia. But when the Communists got hold of him, they shipped him to Siberia. They then sent him to England during World War II, because the Allies needed translators in London. Freddy spoke English, Polish, Russian, German and Yiddish.

When the war was over, he returned to Poland to search for his family, but learned they were dead. The house he grew up in was no longer standing. Freddy had to start his life over.

Being a jazz fan, he romanticized New York, so that’s where he headed. He became a fixture at nightclubs like Birdland and supported himself by taking a job as a busboy. While working at the famed Lindy’s, he hobnobbed with some of his idols, like Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday. He befriended them and began scoring them drugs.

Eventually, Freddy took a job with Volkswagen. In 1961, as the Berlin Wall was going up, he was transferred to the company’s headquarters in West Germany. He frequented the strip joints and music clubs of Hamburg, where he caught a show by an unknown band from England. “I became good friends vit John Lennon,” Freddy would tell me. “Very good friends.”

A year or so later, Freddy moved to London, where he stayed in touch with John. He would see John’s band at the Cavern in Liverpool. One night, John introduced Freddy to a kid who said, “I’m gonna be the greatest guitarist in the world someday.” “And you know who dat kid vuz? Eric f- – -ing Clapton! Dat’s vy he wrote dat song about me, ‘Hello Old Friend.’ ”

Supposedly, Lennon also told him to check out an up-and-coming band at London’s Crawdaddy Club. “And you know who dat vuz? De f- – -ing Stones! I became good friends vit Brian and vit all of dem.”

When Freddy appeared on the scene, he immediately stood out from the pack. He was 20 years older than anyone else in the room. Keith immediately gravitated to him. You need to bring something to the table, like drugs or celebrity, to hang with the Stones. Freddy had the drug part covered, but he offered Keith something more.

To Keith, Freddy represented a father figure. Keith’s real dad had split on him when he was young, so Freddy filled a definite void. Keith and Freddy may have acted like mischievous siblings at times, but there was an undeniable father-son thing underneath.

Another thing that bonded Keith and Freddy was World War II. Keith takes the war personally – “Hitler dumped a V-1 on my bed” – and has been obsessed with it most of his life. To Keith’s thinking, he and Freddy had each stared down Der Fuhrer and won.

THE Stones were surrounded by so many “yes” people, Keith found it refreshing to have someone give it to him straight. If Freddy thought a Stones show sucked, he’d tell him, “Keet, you sucked!”

Conversely, if Keith had a problem with Freddy, he wouldn’t pull punches, either. Or bullets. Woody once told me how Keith got so pissed off at Freddy, he whipped out a .45. It was at Keith’s old apartment on 10th Street. Woody couldn’t recall what the disagreement was about, but he said Keith aimed for Freddy’s feet and made him dance an Irish jig.

Freddy was full of get-rich-quick schemes. He claimed he made a fortune selling aglets, the things on the tip of your shoelaces, and a fortune selling lightbulbs to the Empire State Building. But he’d always lose his shirt in the long run. “I been a millionaire eight times, and I been broke eight times!”

The challenge for me – primarily as a journalist – was to discern which of Freddy’s statements were true and which weren’t. It wasn’t always so easy.

During the Stones’ “Voodoo Lounge” tour, Freddy insisted that Keith was going to announce his birthday in the middle of a concert. For days, he wouldn’t shut up about it. “Keet’s gonna announce my boit-day from de stage, Keet’s gonna announce my boit-day.” He told every roadie, every groupie, and even the bellboys and chambermaids.

“The Stones aren’t Willard Scott,” I said. “They don’t do birthday announcements. They’ve never done a birthday announcement.” But sure enough, when Keith stepped to the mic to sing “The Worst,” he dedicated it. “There’s a special friend of mine here tonight, and it’s his birthday. Freddy, this one’s for you.”

The more I got to know Freddy, the more I understood why he needed to be on tour with the Stones. People may have labeled him a dope pusher, starf- – -er, bulls- -t artist and dirty old man, but he was a much more complex character.

“Hitler killed my family,” he reminded me one night. “My mudder, my fadder, viped out. But vot can I do about dat now? Sit in de house and cry? Vait for my blood clots to kill me? I gotta live, baby! I gotta prove dey couldn’t finish me off.”

The groupies, glamour and fast pace offered Freddy a vibrancy he couldn’t find anywhere else. While folks his age were playing shuffleboard, Freddy was hangin’ with the Stones. Every line he snorted and every groupie he laid was an affirmation of life and a proclamation of survival.

“Look vehr I am today, and look vehr you are, you Nazi c- – -suckers!” Every time he danced at a Stones concert – and man, you should’ve seen him – it was like he was dancing on Hitler’s grave. “I’m gonna dance not just for me, but for all my relatives who can’t.“