Library hosting Rolling Stones display

CLOVIS — You can't always get what you want.

Unless you wanted a retrospective on The Rolling Stones, in which case you are in luck.

For the rest of this month, the Clovis-Carver Public Library hosts a multi-part display with art and artifacts reflecting on 55 years of the iconic band from across the pond.

The exhibit was conceived and furnished by Scott Blazek, a retired minister and decades-long fan of the group. He said his appreciation first began almost 50 years ago, as a college student of graphic design in Louisiana. After completing a commission to design a couple of jazz album covers from "a record dealer down in New Orleans," he accepted for payment the first dozen or so Rolling Stones records out at that time.

Those records and many others are now behind three glass cases at the library's entrance, along with cards detailing the band's milestones over more than half a century.

One of the band's first big hits, "Not Fade Away," was a 1964 cover of a song first recorded in Clovis in 1957 by Buddy Holly and Crickets.

In the early '60s, The Rolling Stones were just getting started. Blazek marks January 1962 as the band's inception, when "a drummer named Charlie Watts joined a new English band that collectively loved Afro-America's 'Blues', 'R&B' and the likes of Chuck Berry, Little Richard and James Brown," he wrote in a news release announcing the library display.

The displays behind glass are peppered with other memorabilia, including a frisbee bearing the band's "tongue and lip" logo (acquired at a 1974 concert film screening), a jigsaw puzzle, a trivia game and a set of matryoshka-style wooden nesting dolls painted with the band members' likenesses.

Part of Blazek's intention with the library display was to have something to appeal to a range of visitors, while also showcasing some of the band's own breadth of influences, styles and themes.

"For some I hope it will be kind of a nostalgic blast from the past," he said. "I guess another goal is simply to say, whether you love them or hate them ... this group is amazing. They're in a league of their own. And I think this is also to point out that they're not all hard rock. The ballads and the sensitive, spiritual side is kind of missed. There are many facets to this group that don't always meet first glance."

That spiritual dimension is emphasized in a separate component of the exhibit, through a collection of paintings Blazek made exploring the connections between Stones songs and Scripture.

"Way before the age of Christian radio and Christian pop music ... what you might have had is The Byrds come up with 'Turn!' based on Ecclesiastes 3, or Judy Collins singing Amazing Grace, but other than that spiritual songs from pop groups were very rare," he said. "I guess really with (songs like) Prodigal Son and Sympathy for the Devil, I mean (The Rolling Stones) hit it head on, and it wasn't corny or off-putting. It made you engaged, it made you think."

Blazek's paintings include works inspired by the songs "Gimme Shelter," "Jumping Jack Flash," "Salt of the Earth" and "Wild Horses," many of which were featured in a 2010 display at Clovis Community College's Eula May Edwards Gallery.

"If somebody goes in the library and they start looking at the stuff closely ... there's something going on here and there's something to explore. At every turn you find something else," he said. "It's not all good. The Stones to me are like kids, they do some things you're so proud of and others not so much. ... It's kind of funny because I certainly did like a lot of other groups from the '60s and '70s. But there's something about the Stones that just kind of had an honest, nitty-gritty kind of approach to music."

The multi-part exhibit on one theme is uncommon for the library, which typically hosts entirely different displays in the glass cases at its entrance and the easels just inside the door.

Previous exhibits have addressed all number of topics, from desserts to Biblical archaeology, said Reference Librarian Michael Lijewski. Staff are planning to have a display on Laura Ingalls Wilder during the summer and say they have enough books on Billy the Kid to stock a shelf about him, too.

The Rolling Stones exhibit will be rounded out with a collection of books on the band and other rock-and-roll groups of the era, to be selected and available near the circulation desk, said Library Director Margaret Hinchee.

The band is still producing new albums and still includes some of its 1962 lineup — Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Watts.