Brian Jones once stole a sitar from Maurizio Vandelli

This is a funny little story, an anecdote, concerning the legendary – and unfortunate – Brian Jones (soul of the Rolling Stones until 1969, when he was removed from the band and then died in not entirely clear circumstances on July 3, 1969) and Maurizio Vandelellimember of the historic Italian band Team 84.

Vandelli, on his official website some time ago reported a curious memory dating back – most likely – to the end of 1966 or the very first days of 1967. The musician had had a brief liaison with Anita Pallenberg before she got engaged to Jones; Maurizio was in Rome at the time and in a few lines he photographs what – in hindsight – seems like a prophetic scene (the reference is to how things went between Jones, Anita and Keith Richards):

(…) I was at a friend’s house in Rome on the LungoTevere delle Armi in a villa protected by I don’t know which consulate, when Rufus, a black actor from the Living Theatre, entered the room where I was, jumping and chirping in his very approximate Italian: “… she’s coming, beautiful, friend, with the Rolling Stones… wow, fantastic, incredible!”.
I thought an unidentified friend of the Stones was arriving but shortly thereafter, amidst general screams, none other than Anita entered, a year after the last time we had seen each other, together with Brian Jones.
The thing that worried me the most was to understand why, even though she had met my gaze, she had not even “given a glance” to me, going straight to another room with other friends while in the meantime Brian, sitting on the sofa next to me, often with one hand on my knee, talkative, a bit stuttering and with a defective dental “s”, talked to me about this and that making it increasingly obvious to my even summary judgment, that between him and Pallenberg there was not that “engagement” that was talked about in the newspapers but a probable “cover” of something that they wanted to keep hidden! Even the embarrassing misunderstanding between Anita and me ended shortly thereafter with kisses and hugs after a firm “Well!?!?” from me and an immodest “I thought you had forgotten about me!”.
Brian and I saw each other every day for about a week, long enough for me to steal one of the two sitars that had recently arrived from India and it went with them to England!