Pete Townshend on Mick Jagger’s father

I’m not sure if it’s been reported widely before, but Pete Townshend recently revealed that he used to bump into Mick Jagger’s dad around London and that Joe Jagger suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.

The anecdote was buried near the bottom of an interview with the Who guitarist published by The Times in June 2023. (Hyperlink is likely paywalled.)

“ . . . Mick Jagger is a wonderful example to us all. Every time I feel a bit creaky I think: all I need to do is start running around Richmond Park and I’ll be as fit as he is. His dad wrote two books about the calisthenics movement and how to stay young, and he was a very fit old man, but he ended up with Alzheimer’s. Every time he saw me he would say, ‘I know you. You’re in my son’s band.’”

Basil Jagger, known as Joe, died in 2006, reportedly succumbing to pneumonia at Kingston Hospital, Surrey, after falling at his granny flat behind Jagger’s Richmond home. He was 93. I wrote about it at the time when I worked for Reuters, here.