No, it’s an urban legend. Everything started from an “exquisite corpse” (literary exercise) by Alfonso Molina and Rodolfo Santana in the 1980s. The maraquero of the original session of “Sympathy for the Devil” in 1968, according to reliable sources, was Bill Wyman, the usual bassist by The Rolling Stones
Text: Alexis Correa
“Sympathy for the Devil” is one of the great rock songs -although its sound is rather tropical- and also one of the most controversial. Where some see a satanic apology, perhaps one should look rather at one of the most scathing criticisms of communist and authoritarian systems (the Russian novel The Master and Margarita, one of the muses of the verses). The song appeared on the album Beggars Banquet (1968) by the British band The Rolling Stones.
An EsPaja.com user asked us a question through this message: «Hello! Is it true that a Venezuelan played the maracas in sympathy with the devil of the Rolling Stones? Urban legend or historical fact?
As we have often recommended at EsPaja.com, you have to be especially careful with news that inspires or arouses some kind of nationalist pride, especially in times when a country is going through prolonged social, economic or political crises and this type of information is required as water for a castaway on the high seas.
The story of Jaime Martínez, the alleged boy from Cunaviche (Apure) who reached glory as a maraquero at the Olympic Sound Studios in London —hidden under the pseudonym James Martin—, is not only fictional, but has also been filming for years. On the Internet we can read some version, such as the one on José Ramón Quero’s blog (year 2016) and some have even uploaded it to their LinkedIn, a social network of job offers.
The story is quite nice, as long as we take it for what it is: a literary joke (advance: note by Tal Cual, year 2017).
This is a still image from the most popular video of «Sympathy for the Devil»: a video of a live performance by The Rolling Stones in a BBC studio in that same 1968. There we see that there is indeed a «maraquero» (it must be remember that this video does not capture the original studio recording):
The blond musician with maracas in that specific live performance of “Sympathy for the Devil” was guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones, founder of The Rolling Stones, who would die shortly after (1969) at just 27 years old after recurrent episodes of addiction.
We also know that the singer Mick Jagger used to play maracas at concerts (which, as can be read on SuchWhichfueled part of the fictional story of the “maraquero from The Rolling Stones in a hurry”).
Who played the maracas on the original studio recording of “Sympathy for the Devil”? Not all the versions coincide completely, but if we turn to one of the main music databases on the Internet (All Music), a source that can be considered reliable, the maraquero of the session was Bill Wyman, the permanent bassist of The Rolling Stones between 1962 and 1993: the complete credits of the Beggars Banquet album.
According to the note SuchWhich of 2017 (The Venezuelan who never played with the Rolling Stones, 03/07/2017), there was an audiovisual recording in which Wyman was seen playing the maracas in the studio, although that video, apparently, is no longer available on the Internet. YouTube platform in 2022.
How did the false story of the Venezuelan who played the maracas in “Sympathy for the Devil” come about?
As verified SuchWhich In 2017, it all started with a literary exercise —the “exquisite corpse” or collective writing modality— begun by the journalist Alfonso Molina and the playwright Rodolfo Santana in the 1980s. They were traveling along a highway and improvised a fiction. It was later made into a short story in print. Molina declared for SuchWhich:
«I published this story in El Nacional around that time (in the 1980s), as a story, a story, a short story and nothing more. But soon it began to have repercussions, without me realizing it. Napoleon Bravo became the spokesperson for a fictional character that many thought was real. The same goes for our dear Iván Loscher, who has just left us»
“And so many. Over time, new versions of this legend emerged and several were adding details to this fiction and José Gregorio (note: the original maraquero of the fiction) ceased to be from Clarines to become a llanero or maracucho or guayanés boy under the most various names.
This story was confirmed by Alfonso Molina to EsPaja.com in 2022 through a text message:
«Of course, the second part of the note (from Tal Cual) explains it very well. It was an invention of Rodolfo and I that became a legend. The name we gave him (the maraquero) is José Gregorio Torrealba».
If you happen to see on the Internet, social networks or WhatsApp the story of the Venezuelan maraquero who played in the “Sympathy with the Devil” session with The Rolling Stones, remember: it all came from a fictional story. There are many other (real) national musicians that we can be proud of.
Fixed lineup of the Rolling Stones, photo from 1967
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