I first met Mick Jagger on the opening night of the tour, back- stage at the Royal Albert Hall. It was the most beautiful concert hall I had ever seen. It seated 1,000 people and had very sensi- tive acoustics, so when we hit the stage we blew the roof off the mother. Victoria must have been turning in her grave at the likes of Queen Tina and the Ikettes, plus all those screaming teenagers. The place went wild the moment our set began. We were on fire. Then Tina took the stage and just blew it up! She outdid her- self that night. By the time we did ''River Deep Mountain High'', it was just crazy.

For the finale, we Shagged off that stage to thunderous applause. It was one of our most memorable shows. Afterwards, we ran to change out of our wet dresses so we could check out the Stones. When we first met Bill and Charlie at the Galaxy, we''d cracked up at their accents. I had missed them on The Ed Sullivan Show and had no idea how big they were. They came on stage and played ''Paint It Black'' and the pan- demonium was unbelievable. Girls were fainting or rushing the stage to be thrown off like beach balls by the bouncers. If Ike and Tina gave me my first psychedelic experience, this was my second.

Keith Richards'' low-down dirty blues-rock, Brian Jones'' ethnic sound - mystical blues with a touch of Elizabethan magic. Charlie and Bill were incredible. This was some serious hard- core electrifying rock ''n'' roll. As for Mick''s strutting version of James Brown''s Mashed Potato, he was hilarious, with his gangly white-boy sex appeal, trying real hard to look black - but sticking out his chest and flapping his arms like a rooster in the barnyard. I couldn''t stop laughing. He looked like he had been plugged into an electric socket. But he was a magnetic force and his energy was thrilling. The band were loud and I wasn''t too sure about his voice at the time, but you could tell he''d listened to a lot of black music.

He had a deep feeling for the music he was trying to emulate. I was seriously impressed. I knew that Elvis had created this kind of excitement in the US, but I had never witnessed it personally. Everyone in the band looked distinctly British and they were all fine, fine, fine. We were shocked! This band were red hot! The Stones to me were and still are the best rock ''n'' roll band in the world. It was the beginning of an adventure that would change my life all over again. The tour was a gruelling two shows a night for three weeks across England, Scotland and Wales. The Stones travelled in huge black Daimler limousines and Ike and Tina in a big Ford Zephyr, while the rest of us did our normal bus thing.

Apparently the Stones always had a black support act that they admired on their tours. This way they could mix with the creators of the music they loved, while the black artists found a different, mainly white audience. All of which meant more sales, more royalties and a fairer slice of the pie. The Stones stood backstage every night and watched us shake our asses, strut our stuff and boogie down. They were getting off on our sexuality and our hot, live funkiness. Mick in par- ticular loved it. He would come into our dressing rooms and we would teach him the dance steps and the funkier groove we felt he needed. He had nearly perfected the Mashed Potato and the Pony.

We became firm friends. All I had to do was look at him and I''d laugh. He was so cute, with those big red lips. I was fascinated by those lips! He had a long waist, which helped him to move in that wiggly way of his. He loved to hear all the black slang, too. His accent was a scream and I think he felt the same about mine. Sometimes I couldn''t understand a word he was saying. It was curious the way we seemed to click so easily.

I''d never known a white guy up close. Outside of my time as a Bluebird and a Camp Fire Girl, I had no real experience of whites. And the Rolling Stones in 1966 were certainly no Camp Fire Girls. Soon I realised that Mick had a crush on me. Bill had the hots for Rose and the two of them would invite us to hang out with them regularly. If they were hanging out at a club, they would send a limo for us and then we''d go back to our hotel or sometimes to theirs. Everybody was shocked. It seemed totally out of character.

There were actual newspaper headlines that read, ''Would You Let Your Daughter Marry a Rolling Stone?'' and here was shy, introverted me, partying with one of the most notoriously wild white boys in the UK. Naturally Ike was pissed about it when he realised what was going on, but there wasn''t much he could do about it. As long as we arrived at the gig on time, he had no control over Rose and me. His fines became even more petty, if that''s possible. He once fined me $25 for having a run in my stockings. I still hated how he treated Tina and I was starting to feel as if my time as an Ikette had run its course. Maybe I''d leave when I got back to the States, I thought. I still faced the challenge of having no contacts in the business.

How would I support my kids? All the while, Mick and I were just hanging out and having some laughs together. At the end of the evenings, we started exchanging some pretty steamy kisses and I was beginning to wonder what sex with a white boy might be like. I didn''t realise Mick was aware of the problems I was facing, but it turned out he already had a plan.