Scorsese and Jagger get into the groove

By Tim Martin

Directed and produced by Martin Scorsese from an idea by Mick Jagger: you could hardly think of a better pitch for a TV series about music-business excess in the Seventies. Add Terence Winter (“The Sopranos”, “Boardwalk Empire”, “The Wolf of Wall Street”) on writing and show-running duties, and “Vinyl” is looking very special indeed. Rock and roll has provided the soundtrack for Scorsese’s drama from the start: think of the scene in “Mean Streets” (1973) where Robert De Niro weaves through a bar in slow motion as “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by the Rolling Stones strikes up in the background. And Scorsese’s obsession with the bands of the era stretches from “The Last Waltz” (1976) to his documentaries on George Harrison, Bob Dylan and the Stones. He knows its dark side too, having spent much of the decade in the grip of a coke habit that he later described as “wanting to push to the very, very end and see if I could die”.