This is a piece I have been meaning to write for six or seven years but never took the time to gather my head around what precisely it should encompass. The title has been kicking around much longer, two decades, in fact; ever since I was a highschool stoner dreaming of rock stardom and thinking up potential band names. Obviously, it has never been anything but a tribute to the Rolling Stones, often (erroneously) labeled “The World’s Greatest Rock n Roll Band”. If I recall, my original focus for the article was to be the musical output of the original incarnation of the band, with Brian Jones playing guitar (and living.) This was, simply, the best music they ever made—anyone who thinks the 7os were the Stones’ heyday is perversely Philistine: aside from Sticky Fingers and Black and Blue the material is inconsistent and frankly, mediocre—if anything they got better in the 8os. But the recent passing of Charlie Watts has given cause to reconsider the whole of the band’s legacy: for surely, now that Jones, Bill Wyman (still, thankfully, living) and Watts are no longer in the picture, one can no longer speak of the Rolling Stones in the present tense.
But when they really were Rolling and, indeed, Stoned, what wonderful chemistry they enjoyed! No other English group of the 6os could capture the raw libidinous drive that they tirelessly pursued with a masculine vigor exquisitely balanced by a gentle, probing sensitivity which grew and blossomed over successive phases in which they got better and better, like an Alchemist refining pure gold, that is to say, they had it all along but one never missed what was winnowed away by time until they peaked and ejected their raison du bonne!
When Brian Jones, scion of a respectable Welsh Methodist family, absconded with the local group Blues, Incorporated from their erstwhile leader and reformed the unit as The Rollin’ Stones, they were still merely another merry bunch of young white Brits playing blues covers. Jones’ preternatural musicality ever gave the band a signature authenticity that set them apart—whether it was his slide guitar, his rhythm playing, harp-blowing or just a perfectly-timed shake of the tambourine: this was the real deal; the only giveaway being the voice, not Black American, obviously. But, to his credit, Mick Jagger (whose nascent charisma was, even at this early stage, pushing the group forward) never tried to sound Black, as so many others did try and miserably fail, though he did try to sound American, wisely, which set them above, say, The Kinks in terms of international marketing strategy—but developed an authentic blues styling representative of the soul and experience of the post-War generation in the UK. There is an angst that never knew share-cropping, yet can meet the eyes of a Muddy Waters in mutual understanding and non-verbally signal, ‘Mmm, ain’t she cute…’ and I think this is really the heart of Mick’s early appeal, which would later develop into a mature, world-wise bachelor sagacity that encompassed heartbreak and undying compassion which finds an example only in Dylan.
From the go they were more rough, raw and buesy than the Beatles. Yet, Signing to Decca and with Andrew Loog Oldham coming on to manage and produce the group, the Jagger/Richards songwriting team did attempt to follow, to an extent, the formula set by Lennon/McCartney for brilliant, catchy but authentic and deep pop songwriting—gaining acclaim and royalties for the future ‘Glimmer Twins’ yet thereby alienating, or at least initially sidelining Jones, the true architect of the band. Their first LP is still mostly blues brilliance, great covers, though Mick’s voice not yet commanding, not quite inducing mass female lubriciousness and male vicarious idolatry—therefore still letting Jones’ flourishes rise to the top, the cream they were. On the other hand, what may be the first Jagger/Richards credit,
‘Tell Me’ stands as the most enduring track, hauntingly timeless, with piano by the unsung hero of the Stones, Ian Stewart.
I find it apropos to quote Oldham’s original liner-notes to the album here in their entirety:
The ROLLING STONES are more than just a group—they are a way of life. A way of life that has captured the imagination of England’s teenagers, and made them one of the most sought after groups in Beatdom. For the Stones have their fingers on the pulse of the basic premise of “pop” music success—that its public buys sound, and the sound is what they give you with this their first album; a raw, exciting basic approach to Rhythm and Blues which, blended with their five own explosive characters, has given them three smash hits and an E.P. that stayed in the single charts for fifteen weeks. In the eight months since the Stones embarked on their pop career, they have not only chalked up major chart successes, but smashed attendance records on tours the length and breadth of the country. They have emerged as five well rounded intelligent talents, who will journey successfully far beyond the realms of pop music. And in this album there are twelve good reasons why.
A year (and three or four albums, depending on how one tallies various UK and US releases) later brought out the first true classic Stones album, Out of Our Heads. What makes this record so good? Those same elements are present, now in full force: adroitly curated cover tunes with Jones’ precision in execution (including, ironically, a spot-on reproduction of an intro guitar solo by an uncredited and then-unknown Jimi Hendrix, who would come to be friend and neighbor to Jones within a couple of years, the mutual respect, admiration and influence of the two visionary guitarists one of the great legacies of the late 6os) and the Jagger/Richards (and pseudonymous Nanker Phelge) songwriting partnership now at a peak of creativity with iconic tracks like ‘Play With Fire’, ‘One More Try’ and of course ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’. But now we must speak of that quintessential underlying factor which truly gave the Stones their greatness, from the 6os through the late 8os, half of which left shortly thereafter and the other half we have recently been mourning.
Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts were the greatest rhythm section in rock n’ roll, ever; few other groups even came close. This is what grounds the band as a unit and gives it groove and credentials as heavy, funky, hard, sweaty, tight and rooted; rather than just another novelty of privileged white-boy creativity as is most the rest of English rock. What makes ‘Satisfaction’ so, well, satisfying to listen to even today, what made bristle the adolescent hairs of radio-listeners when it was new, what gives a brief and utterly doomed interlude of joy to the epic tragedy of Apocalypse Now is not Jagger’s witty lyrics of sub-Chuck Berry audacity, his caustic observations of midcentury capitalism; not even Keith’s balls-out brilliant, drunkenly shimmering germanium-transistor Fuzz Face proto-metal riff he may or may not have dreamed up in a somnambulistic tape-recorder moment of woodshedding and snoring; but the way Wyman smoothly punches in from the root to the dominant while Charlie locks a perfect, almost unnoticed beat that would still carry the essence of the song if an engineer were to mute all the other tracks: aided of course by Jones’ ingeniously humble ta-ta-ta on the tambour.
Watts, who had to be practically begged (not to mention bribed) to abandon his lucrative gigging to join what must have seemed a bunch of brash and dusty misfits at the time, laid down the groove for all of six glorious and not-so-glorious decades, save the odd coke-fueled Jamaican recording session where Keith laid the track for a kick-drum, &cetera… December’s Children is almost as good an album, with the hit single ‘Get Off My Cloud’ again defined by Charlie Watts, this time from the opening two bards with their snare work that is legend.
Following was 1966’s Aftermath, a mixed-bag whose US version shines due to the inclusion of the single ‘Paint It, Black’ while the UK original release opens with the equally mesmerizing ‘Mother’s Little Helper’; two of the only truly ‘dark’ songs the Stones ever wrote. It’s a shame they didn’t explore this dark side more thoroughly, as frankly they do it better than bands, like The Doors, who were associated with darkness. The aforementioned ‘Play With Fire’, soon-to-come ‘Sister Morphine’ and the way-in-the-future ‘Continental Drift’ being the only other examples that come to mind, obviously the potential was there. Was it not commercial enough for the Economics-major Jagger? Not punchy enough for the pirate’s-life-for-me Keith? Lamentably, we shall never know.
After a lackluster live release, the next Long-Playing record was Between the Buttons, followed by (skipping over the throw-away Their Satanic Majesties Request) Beggars Banquet. These two albums to me are the high-water mark of the Stones’ career, and while I may have more sympathy in my assessment of the latter, Between the Buttons is an unjustly overlooked masterpiece of both English psychedelia and all-time classic-rock. David Bowie saw something in the hit single, ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’, which he covered on Aladdin Sane, but the deep cuts deserve listening by any so-called Stones fan (or anyone with a nice free afternoon and an eighth of mushrooms.) Beggars Banquet is just so timeless I can’t even get into it—turning on side two of that record on a big stereo system at my friend’s house in high school and just lying on the couch with tequila and Marlboros is one of those memories that forever justify all the hardships life has thrown at me since.
Let It Bleed has little greatness and even less Brian Jones. I recommend reading Jim Morrison’s Ode to LA, while thinking of Brian Jones, Deceased, printed in its entirety in his newly released Collected Works.
Sticky Fingers was a great record; another friend in highschool told me his father said that would be his one album to take if he had to live on a desert island, and I won’t argue with such sound reasoning. But without Jones the group is falling apart—Mick Taylor is an highly-overrated imitative schoolboy, with chops, sure, but no originality of vision and an obnoxious tone. So it was a blessing for all parties when he quit; and while Ron Wood would ultimately prove a welcome addition the band, my favorite Stones record of the 7os has to be Black and Blue, which is effectively an audition for the rôle between Wood, Jagger’s favorite as a ‘good old English boy’ and Keith’s preference (and mine) Wayne Perkins, probably the greatest lead guitarist in rock recording history, who also overdubbed the solo on Bob Marley and the Wailers’ ‘Stir It Up’.
Don’t even mention Exile on Main Street or Some Girls, they may have a few decent tracks but other than as a surface for breaking up seeds and stems I don’t see what value the records ever had.
The 8os gave us Tattoo You, which was their real comeback record, Richards’ solo album Talk is Cheap, an excellent work that stands alone out of all their side projects, and Steel Wheels, which closed the decade and was their last great release.
I’m done blowing smoke right now; no longer stoned, the band can keep rollin’ for all I care, Jagger dancing and prancing around ogling his granddaughters’ cohort, until they have to push Keith out in a wheelchair and he can’t even remember the words to the songs he wrote himself in those idyllic days of youth when Brian was still lighting a fire under their miserable old arses.
This piece I dedicate to my Mother, for her magical crates of records I discovered in the attic as a teenager.
Love,
Gabriel Thomas Evans,
The 1st, The One,
and Only
