In the Spring of 1981 you couldn't walk around Manhattan without seeing flyers for the Lounge Lizards, a band that was half rock/ half jazz. The jazz side included leader and sax player John Lurie and his pianist brother Evan. Noise guitarist Arto Lindsay, Feelies drummer Anton Fier and bassist Steve Piccolo made up the rock side. John Lurie described the Lounge Lizards as "fake jazz". The band deconstructed familiar tunes and added jagged edges courtesy of Lurie and Lindsay. They played together well into the 1990's . Lurie is now best known for acting and his HBO series "Painting With John".
The Rolling Stones : Everything Is Turning To Gold
On March 12, 1981 The Rolling Stones released Sucking in the 70's, which opens with "Shattered" and includes the B-side "Everything Is Turning To Gold", a live version of "When the Whip Comes Down" and only one never released track, "If I Was a Dancer ( Dance Part II)". Not essential by any stretch. Even radio programmers had trouble selecting a track to play.
The 101ers : Keys To Your Heart
In March of 1981 Andalucia Records released this compilation by the 101ers, Joe Strummer's pub rock band before he formed The Clash. Strummer sings lead on most of the tracks, recorded between 1974 and 1976. Best known tracks are "Keys To Your Heart", written about Palmolive of The Slits and a cover of "Junco Partner" which would be covered by The Clash on Sandinista!
Ellen Foley : Torchlight
And while we are on the subject of the Clash Ellen Foley has a new sound courtesy of her boyfriend Mick Jones. He and other members of The Clash write play and produce some of the songs on Spirit of St Louis. That explains the marimba!
Rosanne Cash : Seven Year Ache
The title track from Rosanne Cash's critically acclaimed third album would top the country charts. Produced by husband Rodney Crowell, Cash also offers cover versions of Merle Haggard's "You Don't Have Very Far To Go" and Steve Forbert's "What Kinda Girl". Two other songs on the album topped the country charts," My Baby Thinks He's A Train" and "Blue Moon with Heartache".
On April 22, 1979 Keith Richards had some company when he played two benefit shows for the blind, as he was sentenced to do by a Canadian judge after his conviction for heroin possession. First Keith played a set with The New Barbarians (featuring Ron Woods, Meters drummer Ziggy Modeliste, Stanley Clarke on bass and Rolling Stones sidemen Ian McLagan and Bobby Keys) that included "I Can Feel the Fire" and "Before They Make Me Run". The lights went down, then came back up as Keith sat alone on a stool with an acoustic guitar playing the opening notes to "Prodigal Sun". The singer who appeared next to him drew a roar from the crowd. It was Mick Jagger. When the song ended, the test of The Rolling Stones joined them to play a nine song set drawn heavily from Some Girls.
“Listen,” Mick Jagger told Rolling Stone's Chet Flippo, “the judge’s sentence was to play for the disabled. Not for money. If it’d just been a matter of charity, of providing money, we’d have just written them a check. But the judge wanted Keith to perform, so we put on a show.”
Two shows actually. Both bootlegged under the nameBlind Dateand Blind Date Revisited.
I'm not sure how a music snob can justify naming a Bee Gees smash my favorite song of the year, but "Night Fever" has topped my list. It must be something deeply buried in my cortex because it has nothing to do with the chorus ( "night fever, night fever, we know how to do it") and the wah wah guitar in the bridge. I spent most of 1978 as a long haired, too tall and too skinny 14 year old who rarely attended dances at his boarding school. When my parents played the first side of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack and tried to get me to dance, I bolted from the room. But if I closed my eyes on a Saturday night, I could imagine astonishing my classmates with my Travolta like disco moves.
Nah, never happen.
The Big Hits
Bee Gees Night Fever
Rolling Stones Miss You
Gerry Rafferty Baker Street
Robert Palmer Every Kinda People
The Babys Isn't It Time
Disco
This was a new discovery: a disco song by art rocker Arthur Russell with guitar lines contributed by David Byrne.
Dinosaur : Kiss Me Again
Chic Le Freak
Heatwave The Groove Line
Cheryl Lynn Got To Be Real
Sylvester You Make Me Feel Mighty Real
The Jacksons Blame It on the Boogie
Power Pop + New Wave
Wings : Backwards Traveller
A 69 second McCartney throw away. But I like this half finished, pure shot of inspiration on the otherwise bland London Town.
Tom Petty + the Heartbreakers Listen to Her Heart
Cheap Trick Surrender
The Motors Airport
Chris Stamey + the dB's (I Thought) You Wanted to Know
Jules and the Polar Bears : You Just Don't Want to Know
The more I hear this one, the more I like it. Jules Shear would eventually make a name for himself on MTV and as a songwriter but this early tune is my favorite of his.
Nick Lowe I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass
NRBQ Green Lights
The Records Starry Eyes
The Cars Just What I Needed
New York City
Television : Days
Gorgeous song I've loved for decades and decades. Gah! I'm getting old.
Talking Heads Take Me To The River
Johnny Thunders (You Can't Put Your Arms Around A ) Memory
Lou Reed Street Hassle
Blondie Hanging on the Telephone
Ramones I Just Want to Have Something to Do
Bruce Springsteen Prove It All Night
UK Critical Faves
Magazine : Shot By Both Sides
DeVoto had something to prove with his first solo single since leaving the Buzzcocks, taking nothing but his awful haircut and a guitar riff the Buzzcocks would also use in "Lipstick".
The Jam Down in the Tube Station at Midnight
The Clash (White Man) in Hammersmith Palais
Siouxsie + the Banshees Hong Kong Garden
The Buzzcocks Ever Fallen in Love
Elvis Costello : I Don't Want to go to Chelsea
In which the Attractions show why they may be the best backing band in the world. They deserved songwriting credit for the way they made these songs jump out of the speakers.
Bryan Ferry Sign of the Times
Devo Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy
The Undertones Teenage Kicks
The Saints Know Your Product
Discovered This Year
Be Bop Deluxe : Panic in the World
From the final Be Bop Deluxe album, a catchy should-a-been hit.
Kleenex Ain't You
Radio Birdman Aloha Steve and Danno
The Wipers Better Off Dead
Ultravox Slow Motion
The B-52's : Rock Lobster (DB Records version)
I like this original version better. See! my snobbery is coming back.
Shoes Tomorrow Night (Bomp! Records version)
Embarrassed to Admit
Journey : Lights
I grew up in San Francisco so this is a sentimental favorite.
Suzi Quatro + Chris Norman Stumblin' In
Billy Joel Rosalinda's Eyes
The Doobie Brothers What a Fool Believes
Todd Rundgren Can We Still Be Friends
And then...
Rolling Stones : Shattered
To be cranked on headphones whilst walking down the avenues of NYC when your life is in tatters.
Kraftwerk The Model
Warren Zevon Lawyers Guns and Money
Bryan Ferry Carrickfergus
BONUS :
A list of the most played 1978 songs on my computer (number of plays)
Bee Gees Night Fever 19
Bryan Ferry Take Me to the River 13
Magazine Shot By Both Sides
Paul McCartney Backwards Traveler
Al Di Meola Mediterranean Sundance 12
Blondie Hanging on the Telephone 11
Ramones I Just Want to Have Something to Do
Talking Heads The Good Thing
The Saints A Minor Aversion 10
Blondie Heart of Glass 9
Bryan Ferry What Goes On
Bryan Ferry Sign of the Times
Rolling Stones Miss You
The Saints This Perfect Day
The Babys Isn't It Time 8
Bryan Ferry Carrickfergus
Devo Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy
Gerry Rafferty Baker Street
Kate Bush Wuthering Heights
The Only Ones Another Girl/Another Planet
Pere Ubu Non Alignment Pact
Shoes Tomorrow Night
Of Give 'Em Enough Rope, Lester Bangs wrote "though it sounds a bit overworked, contains more evidence that The Clash are the greatest rock n roll band left standing. There are nods to Mott the Hoople and reggae, but their most characteristic sound is built on martial drums and Mick Jones's Keith Richards in "Cracked Actor" guitar blasts, the feedback filtering through like smoke.'
The Clash: Give 'Em Enough Rope (Epic) 30;
Ramones: Road to Ruin (Sire) 20;
Joe "King" Carrasco and El Molino: Tex-Mex Rock-Roll (Lisa) 15;
David Johansen (Blue Sky) 5;
Bob Seger + the Silver Bullet Band: Stranger in Town (Capitol) 5; (Bangs is also from Detroit)
Lou Reed: Street Hassle (Arista) 5;
Television: Adventure (Elektra) 5;
Pere Ubu: The Modern Dance (Blank) 5;
Brian Eno: Before and After Science (Island) 5; No New York (Antilles) 5.
Among the albums to not make Lester's list is Some Girls by the Rolling Stones. In 1980, Bangs would reconsider, writing that it had taken “ten thousand varyingly voluntary rehearings” for him and a friend to actually like it. The pair discussed whether the band should break up on such a high note and Bangs’s friend said it would be better if the Stones were still “grinding away at the same Chuck Berry licks when they’re 60 years old!” (60! Can you imagine? Keef turned 75 yesterday)
Bangs added, “Go ahead and laugh, but they’re probably going to do exactly that, and after panning just about everything they released in the ’70s I’ve had a change of heart. You tell me whether it has something to do with turning 30 and all that, but what I said to another friend the other night in a similar conversation was, ‘Shit, yeah, let’s all grow old with the Rolling Stones. I can think of worse things.’ ”
On Black and Blue, Mick Jagger sing about spending a lonely night at the Memory Motel with a woman with a peachy kind of girl who had hazel eyes, a slightly curved nose, slightly curved teeth and a mind of her own. We may never know for sure whom he is singing about but we do know there really is a Memory Motel on Montauk, Long Island, not far from Andy Warhol's place where Jagger spent some of the Summer of 1975 rehearsing for the US tour.
Owner Estgher Agtas told Rolling Stone the Stones "were all over the place, walking around" that Summer.
How did she feel, having her 19-unit resort motel immortalized in song? "It's very nice. I just wish they'd send me some royalties".
This is the first show of our tour so we're ...finding out what things we do good and what things we do terrible.
-Mick Jagger to fans
On June 1, 1975 The Rolling Stones baptized their "Tour of the Americas '75" in Baton Rouge, introducing Ronnie Wood (who would officially become a member of the band in December), Billy Preston on keyboards and "Tired Grandfather", the band's nickname for a 15 foot inflatable phallus that wasn't always up for the show.
As a Baton Rouge Advocate reporter wrote
"One of the stranger parts of the show is the appearance of a tall wind-blown bag of air resembling a male organ which rises from a trapdoor at the center of the stage."
In 24 hours time, The Stones had rehearsed for six hours and played two two and a half hour shows, with The Meters opening. Next Stop: San Antonio. Which, thanks to an article in the Rupert Murdoch owned San Antonio News, would not be receptive to the cock.
One of the highlights of the '75 tour was seeing how Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards played off each other, trading rhythm guitar licks and leads. As Richards explained toRolling Stone's Chet Flippo:
"I mean, rhythm and lead are blurred because it gets past that. Someone strumming away in the background and someone else doing all the playing, it's way past that. We're just playing with each other. And we just click in together."
The band wasn't touring a new album, but their label released two compilations in June of 1975 that topped the Creem Magazine's readers poll for Best Reissues of the year.
1. Rolling Stones - Made In The Shade
2. Rolling Stones - Metamorphosis
3. Bob Dylan - Basement Tapes
4. John Lennon - Shaved Fish
5. Free - Best Of Free
6. Yes - Yesterdays
7. Elton John - Empty Sky
8. Jeff Beck and The Yardbirds
9. The Who - The Who Sell Out/A Quick One
10. Chicago - Chicago IX, Chicago's Greatest Hits
“I grew up in the apricot orchards that later became known as Silicon Valley, and was lucky enough to have my young spirit infused with the social and artistic revolution of the day called rock and roll. It has never left me.”
Apple cofounder Steve Jobs was in his mid teens when most of his top ten albums were released. That is a sweet spot for most of us. Jobs was obsessed with Dylan, collecting hundreds of hours of bootlegged shows from 65 and 66. ( His fave Dylan song: "One Too Many Mornings"from The Times They Are A-Changin) By the time Some Girls came out in 1978, Jobs was two years into Apple and probably far too busy to listen to a lot of new music with the same passions he had in his teens.
1.Bob Dylan : Highway 61 Revisited
2. Cat Stevens : Tea for the Tillerman
3. The Grateful Dead : American Beauty
4. Glenn Gould : Bach -The Goldberg Variations
5. Jackson Browne : Late for the Sky
6. John Lennon : Imagine
7. Miles Davis : Kind of Blue
8. Peter Paul and Mary : Around the Campfire
9 Rolling Stones : Some Girls
On May 1, 1975 The Rolling Stones announced their 1975 'Tour of the Americas" by pulling up outside a 5th Avenue hotel on a flatbed truck and performing an extended version of "Brown Sugar".
By now, the Stones had selected Mick Taylor's replacement: Ronnie Wood of the Faces (though he wouldn't be made an official Stone until December).
“Sometimes I feel that my whole career with The Birds, Jeff Beck and The Faces was one long audition to join The Rolling Stones," Wood tells Uncut Magazine.
***
Also on this date John Cale and his band, featuring Chris Spedding, performed a four song set on John Peel's radio show.
When the Rolling Stones were looking for a guitarist to replace Mick Taylor, Nils Lofgren called Keith Richards. He got the number from Ronnie Wood. Lofgren tells the rest of the story in this interview:
Keith Richards answered. I couldn't believe it. He didn't know me, but was totally honest and open with me. He said, 'Yeah, we want Ronnie but he won't do it. I'm frustrated.' He said the whole band was going to audition guitarists at a cattle call in Geneva or some exotic city and if I wanted to come down, no problem. Then, within the next week or so, Ronnie changed his mind and took the gig. That's the whole story.
But that story doesn't explain this song from Nils Lofgren's 1975 solo debut, which sounds like a plea to Keith Richards ( who along with Mick Jagger produced albums as The Glimmer Twins) to get healthy and stick around for future Rolling Stones albums and tours. Here's Nils's explanation:
It is intended to be a giant thank you note to Keith on behalf of all of us fans. The ominous chords and melody, were also a great backdrop to implore Keith to take care of his health for his sake and ours and to continue sharing his great gift with us all.
I'd just like to point out that Nils Lofgren's solo debut is also a great gift and very easily one of my 10 favorite albums of 1975. Guess I'm not the only one who feels that way:
In April of 2014, Nils uploaded this acoustic version of "Keith Don't Go" and even if you can't spare the entire seven minutes, you should at least skip ahead to the 3:00 mark for some jaw-dropping guitar playing.
*************
On this date in 1975, The Wiz : The Super Soul Musical "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" mades its Broadway debut.
Henry Cow founder Fred Frith's stunning Guitar Solos is an album of eight tracks recorded in four days of improvisation using modified and specially tuned guitars. On the track "No Birds" he's simultaneously playing two guitars placed neck to neck on a table.
The album made the NME Critics Poll of Best albums of 1974. At the 9:45 mark, you can probably hear why Brian Eno wanted to record Before and After Science and Music for Films with Frith.
The rest of the NME Critics Poll looked like this:
NME Albums 1974
1. Pretzel Logic - Steely Dan
2. It's Only Rock 'n' Roll - Rolling Stones
3. Before The Flood - Bob Dylan
4. 461 Ocean Boulevard - Eric Clapton
5. Todd - Todd Rundgren
6. On The Beach - Neil Young
7. Rock Bottom - Robert Wyatt
8. Fulfillingness First Finale - Stevie Wonder
9. Country Life - Roxy Music
10. Average White Band - Average White Band
11. Future Days - Can
12. Smiler - Rod Stewart
13. Secret Treaties - Blue Oyster Cult
14. Maria Muldaur - Maria Muldaur
15. Another Saturday Night - Various
16. Sold American - Kinky Friedman
17. On The Border - Eagles
18. Court And Spark - Joni Mitchell
19. Odds And Sods - The Who
20. Kimono My House - Sparks
21. Okie - J.J. Cale
22. Grievous Angel - Gram Parsons
23. Radio City - Big Star
24. Mysterious Traveller - Weather Report
==
Sheer Heart Attack - Queen
==
Big Fun - Miles Davis
27. Rock 'n' Roll Animal - Lou Reed
28. Deal Gone Down - Michael Chapman
==
I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight - Richard And Linda Thompson
==
It's Too Late To Stop Now - Van Morrison
31. Teasin' - Cornel Dupree
==
Close Up The Honky Tonks - Flying Burrito Brothers
33. Feats Don't Fail Me Now - Little Feat
==
Veedon Fleece - Van Morrison
35. Paradise And Lunch - Ry Cooder
==
Dreamer - Bobby Bland
37. In Concert - Beach Boys
==
Fear - John Cale
==
For Everyman - Jackson Browne
==
His California Album - Bobby Bland
41. Limited Edition - Can
42.
The Psychomodo - Cockney Rebel
==
Good For You Too - Toni Brown
==
Live - Marvin Gaye
45. Live From Deep In The Heart Of Texas - Commander Cody
46. All American Boy - Rick Derringer
==
Pretty Much Your Standard Ranch Stash - Mike Nesmith
==
Streetwalkers - Chapman-Whitney
==
Keep On Smilin' - Wet Willie
==
Planet Waves - Bob Dylan
51. Anthology - Marvin Gaye
52. Soon Over Babaluma - Can
==
Spyglass - Greenslade
54. Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley - Robert Palmer
55. Propaganda - Sparks
56. The Shipbuilder - Bob Pegg & Nick Strutt
==
Learn To Love It - Jesse Winchester
==
Guitar Solos - Fred Frith
59. Angel's Egg - Gong
==
Good Old Boys - Randy Newman
Mick Jagger promised him a credit on "Moonlight Mile" and a couple of other things but never have it to him. He saw Keith a couple of years ago and Keith was crying and saying "Oh, we really owe you, man. We really owe you". But nothing came of it. I think Ronnie Wood said, "Well, Mick Taylor neurally really was a Rolling Stone." And he was right. He wasn't. I think Mick always felt he had sold his soul for rock'n'roll. And didn't get paid nearly enough in exchange. But then you never do, do you?"
Between 1969 and 1974 The Rolling Stones made and released Let It Bleed, Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out, Sticky Fingers,Exile On Main St. and Goats Head Soup, and Mick Taylor played on all of them. He got one writing credit, for "Ventilator Blues" on Exile which he shared with Jagger. On December 12, 1974, at a party in London, Taylor told Jagger he was leaving the Stones. “To ask if I regret leaving The Rolling Stones is to ask the wrong question”, Taylor has said. “The hard one to answer is, do I regret joining them?”
Mick Taylor's 6 Best Moments on Rolling Stones records:
1. "Can't You Hear Me Knocking", Sticky Fingers.
Sure, the song stars with a classic open chord riff from Richards but at about 4:40 in, Taylor takes the song --and his Gibson ES-345 --in a smooth direction reminiscent of Carlos Santana.
2. "All Down the Line" on Exile on Main St.
Mick Taylor on slide guitar, played with a bottle on his finger, punctuates every Jagger line and takes a mind blowing single at the 2:10 mark.
3."Winter" on Goats Head Soup and 4."Moonlight Mile" on Sticky Fingers
Taylor should probably have received a co-writing credit for both tunes with Jagger. Richards wasn't even at the studio the day they knocked out "Winter". Taylor can be heard on slide guitar and then with a piercing lead on "Winter". It was Taylor's idea to add the string section on "Moonlight Mile". 4. "Stop Breakin' Down" on Exile on Main St.
Producer Andy Johns says this is his favorite song on the legendary double album. Jagger was playing rhythm guitar and Taylor those bluesy solos.
6. "Sway", Sticky Fingers
Taylor plays the bottle neck guitar on this song which he always claimed to have written with Jagger. The last minute is all Taylor too.
On October 16, 2014 The Rolling Stones released It's Only Rock 'n Roll, their 14th US album and the last one to feature Mick Taylor on lead guitar.
Though Taylor would complain that he left after a dispute on songwriting credits, his lead guitar work is less than inspired. But then he didn't have much to work with on this album. The ballads, "Till the Next Goodbye" and "If You Really Want to Be My Friend" are bores. The second one runs over six minutes in length.
"Luxury" is an embarrassment . It sounds like the Glimmer Twins took notes from the drivers and maids they met on a Jamaican resort. "Dance Little Sister" repeats its title more often than even Bob Seger would dare. And "Ain't Too Proud To Beg" ain't too good a cover version.
"Fingerprint File" is the sole bright note, a preview of the underrated funk of Black and Blue. More relevant than ever, the song could be the anthem of the post 9/11 citizen surveillance. There some great bass runs by Wyman before it breaks its spell and gets silly.
At the time, critics fawned over the album. These were, after all, The Rolling Stones! Goats Head Soup may have been underwhelming but surely the greatest rock n roll band in the world wouldn't release a second dud.
Jon Landau called the album "one of the most intriguing and mysterious, as well as the darkest, of all Rolling Stones records" while Robert Christgau gave the album a B and claimed he heard "enough hooks for here ordinary albums".
Only Lester Bangs called it right, calling the album "false. Numb"
The solution to the Stones problem "inspired" the title cut, guitarist and the best friend of just about every UK rocker, Ronnie Wood.
On July 26, 1974 The Rolling Stones released the single "It's Only Rock 'n'Roll (But I Like It)" which featured the immortal lyrics :
If I could stick my pen in my heart,
And spill it all over the stage;
Would it satisfy ya,
would it slide on by ya,
Would you think the boy is strange?
Ain't he strange?
While songwriting credits for the song are credited to Mick and Keef, the song was actually written by Mick and future Stone Ron Wood at Woody's home one night in '73. They recorded a demo with Bowie singing back up.
What does the song --and all of its suicidal imagery--mean? Jagger says:
"The idea of the song has to do with our public persona at the time. I was getting a bit tired of people having a go, all that, 'oh, it's not as good as their last one' business. The single sleeve had a picture of me with a pen digging into me as if it were a sword. It was a lighthearted, anti-journalistic sort of thing."
The song peaked at #10 in the UK and #16 in the US and raised expectations that the next Stones album, due in October, would be better than Goats Head Soup. Spoiler alert: It's not.
"There is a sadness about the Stones now, because they amount to such an enormous 'So what?' -Lester Bands Creem
The most remarkable thing about The Rolling Stones Goats Head Soup is how unremarkable it is. Outside of some "Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo"s , the tune "Silver Train" (which dedicated rock fans had already heard performed by Johnny Winter on his Still Alive And Well album) and a line about a groupie giving Steve McQueen head , this is about as uninspired as the world's greatest rock band can sound. Naturally it shot to #1 worldwide and went triple platinum, thanks in large part to the #1 simpering single that preceded it, "Angie", written by Keith for his daughter Dandelion.
The Stones were due a let down after a four album winning streak consisting of some of the best albums ever made in the rock era ( Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile On Main St). It didn't help that Keith Richards was a full blown heroin addict and Mick Jagger a jet setter preoccupied with his new rival David Bowie.
Recorded mostly in Jamaica, with percussionists roaming in and out of the studio and Billy Preston playing clavinet, Goats Head Soup had a few noteworthy leftovers that appeared on Tattoo You: "Waiting On a Friend" and "Tops"
It would be three years before the Rolling Stones would do something interesting again. By then Ronnie Wood would replace Mick Taylor but that's a story for another day,
One week after Elvis performed his worldwide concert from Hawaii via satellite, The Rolling Stones formally kicked off their Pacific Tour with three shows in the Aloha islands on January 21-22, 1973. Ben Fong-Torres and photographer Annie Leibowitz followed the band for a Rolling Stone magazine cover story. But I prefer the way local columnist Wayne Harada describes the first night:
Jagger at the beginning of "Sweet Virginia"
Jagger made his entrance in pure stardust -- with glitter flowing from his hair, the lights reflecting his rhinestoned headband and matching bracelet, his eyelids painted a decadent silver, his clinging white bodysuit revealing a trim, feline frame. And it was a screeeeammm when he burst into "Brown Sugar"...
(Jagger) is both clown and adagio dancer, in a myriad of expressions. Sometimes he smiles a gentle smile: another moment, he is vulgar and even sexual in his caresses with his microphone...It was indeed the greatest show on earth.
The next stop was supposed to be Japan but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to let the band enter because of drug charges. The Pacific Tour resumed February 11th in New Zealand. The Hawaii shows were the last Rolling Stones concerts to feature Mick Taylor.
The Rolling Stones gather in a closed movie house in Montreux, Switzerland on May 21st to rehearse for the upcoming "Cocaine and Tequila Sunrise" North American tour.
With a baby on the way, Keith and Anita decided to clean up their act . Going "cold turkey" in the US, England or France was not an option so they went to a clinic in Vevey, Switzerland, four miles from Montreux.
.
It is fucking awful. ..the whole body just sort of turns itself inside out and rejects itself for three days...your skin crawls, your guts churning, you can't stop your limbs from jerking and moving about, and you're throwing up and shitting at the same time.
--Keith Richards on going cold turkey in his book LIFE
It was while getting clean that Keith says he wrote "Angie".
All rock records should be made in dank basements of old Nazi strongholds on the Cote d'Azur, with reliable heroin connections in Marseille and Gram Parsons hovering in the paneled hallways. That way they might sound half as good as Exile On Main St.
-Barney Hoskyns, The Observer, 2004
Recorded in the cold and humid basement of tax exile Keith Richards's villa in the South of France, Exile On Main Street is often hailed as the greatest rock album of all time. How it ever got recorded with all the drugs, the booze, the never-ending house party, with anywhere between twenty and thirty visitors making noises upstairs, is a tribute, to of all people, Keef himself. Sure he was strung out and sleeping the day away, but at the oddest hours, Keith was a self described task master churning out song after song:
"Rocks Off", "Happy", "Ventilator Blues", "Tumbling Dice", "All Down The Line" --that's five string tuning to the max. I was starting to really fix my trademark; I wrote all that stuff within a few days. Suddenly, with the five-string, songs were just dripping off my fingers".
Keith might have a line or two in mind to go with these riffs but it was up to Mick to come up with the lyrics. As Keith wrote in his autobiography:
"Most of what I had to do was to come up with riffs and ideas that would turn Mick on. To write songs he could handle. They had to be good records but translatable to being played on stage. I was the butcher cutting the meat"
To this day Mick has referred to Exile as "a bit overrated"...with , again in his opinion, none of the great songs that made Sticky Fingers and Let It Bleed such classics. But Mick wasn't always around for Exile. He would occasionally disappear with his new very pregnant bride Bianca . Keith was living the album-- producing two songs a day on a heroin habit which he said helped him shut out all of the daily stuff and concentrate on the music. "Happy" wasn't even recorded with the Stones but with producer Jimmy Miller on drums, Bobby Keys on baritone and Keith doing everything else.
Even when that legendary summer at Villa Nellcote ended, the Stones still spent four or five months in LA mixing and over dubbing, recording two new cuts ( "Torn And Frayed and "Loving Cup"), adding percussion in some places, backing vocals in others. Richards and Jagger were both at the monumental recording of Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace album at LA's New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, and were inspired to add gospel inflections to songs like "Let It Loose" and "Shine A Light".
Released on May 12, 1972, the album got mixed reviews. Naturally some critics compared it unfavorably to The Beatles double album. Lenny Kaye, writing for Rolling Stone, said "here are songs that are better, there are songs that are worse, and others you'll probably lift the needle for when the time is due."
To listen to Exile in its entirety --even the remastered 2010 deluxe version--is to immerse yourself in a thick stew of roots oriented rock n roll at its most ragged. For the most part, the songs don't sound over practiced ( though sounds can be deceiving-- "Tumbling Dice" was played more than 100 times before they captured that languid intensity we hear today). The bloom of inspiration shines on just about every cut. Still, I'll try to follow Lenny Kaye's lead and, at the risk of losing some of that claustrophobic basement funk, condense Exile into one epic ten song LP:
1 Rocks Off
2 Rip This Joint
3 Tumbling Dice
4 Sweet Virginia
5 Loving Cup
6 Happy
7 Let It Loose
8 All Down The Line
9 Shine A Light
10 Soul Survivor
When the Stones recorded "All Down the Line" at Nelcote, the sixteen room mansion Richards rented in the Summer of '71, engineer Andy Johns remembers Mick saying "This is a single. This is the single!" Johns thought Mick was out of his fucking mind:
And I went out and said to him "You're wrong about this. This is not a single?" And he went "Really? Do ya think so?" And that was the first time I realized "Jesus , he'll actually listen to me".
In the end it was "Tumbling Dice" that became the single. Johns recalls:
I think we may have spent two or three weeks just getting the track on that. That was just a performance thing. And the could play really badly,those guys. Most of the time, they were fucking terrible, There must have been some arrangement of it during the period but what I remember is just looking for a magical performance. But it went on and on and on. I had about thirty or forty or fifty reels of tape on that one song"--from Exile On Main St. by Robert Greenfield.
(Between 15 and 25 hours worth)
An early version of the song was recorded during the Sticky Fingers sessions as "Good Time Woman"
The single peaked at #5 in the US. #7 in the UK. But it topped Creem/ Rolling Stone critic Dave Marsh's list of the best singles of the year:
DAVE MARSH'S LIST OF THE 40 SINGLES OF 1972
1. Rolling Stones Tumbling Dice
2. Derek And The Dominos Layla
3. Temptations Papa Was a Rollin' Stone
4. Curtis Mayfield Freddie's Dead
5. Mott The Hoople All the Young Dudes
6. O'Jays Back Stabbers
7. Johnny Nash I Can See Clearly Now
8. Al Green I'm Still in Love with You
9. The Band Don't Do It
10. Carly Simon You're So Vain
11. Al Green Look What You Done for Me
12. War Slippin' into Darkness
13. Harold Melvin And The Blue Notes If You Don't Know Me by Now
14. Mel And Tim Starting All Over Again
15. Paul Simon Mother and Child Reunion
16. Luther Ingram (If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want to Be Right
17. The Stylistics Betcha by Golly, Wow
18. Curtis Mayfield Super Fly
19. The Who Join Together
20. B J Thomas Rock and Roll Lullaby
21. The Spinners Could It Be I'm Falling in Love
22. War The World Is a Ghetto
23. Michael Jackson I Wanna Be Where You Are
24. Rod Stewart You Wear It Well
25. Todd Rundgren I Saw the Light
26. The Chi-Lites Oh Girl!
27. Alice Cooper School's Out
28. The Spinners I'll Be Around
29. The Faces Stay with Me
30. The Stylistics I'm Stone in love with You
31. The Hollies Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)
32. Elton John Rocket Man
33. Michael Jackson Rockin' Robin
34. Timmy Thomas Why Can't We Live Together
35. Arlo Guthrie The City of New Orleans
36. Looking Glass Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)
37. Bread Diary
38. The Staple Sisters I'll Take You There
39. Rick Nelson Garden Party
40. Ringo Starr Back Off Boogaloo
Nils Lofgren and band mates hit power pop perfection with the single "White Lies" but it only received heavy airplay in the Washington D.C. area.Even with an "A" rating from Robert Christagu, 1 +1 , released in January of 1972, did not sell. C'est dommage! At 20, Lofgren had already played guitar and piano on After The Gold Rush and with Crazy Horse on their debut. After Grin broke up, years before touring worth Springsteen, Lofgren recorded a self-titled album in 1975 that will always stand out as a personal favorite.
BTW, I planned to post a song from this album. I know I used to have "Lost A Number" on a now-deceased IPod. In the digital age we can lose songs as easily as a sock in the dryer.
Fingerpickin' guitarist Leo Kottke gets funky all by himself on this opening track from his January 1972 release Greenhouse, my introduction to this brilliant musician. "The Song of The Swamp", "Louise" and the buoyant "Spanish Entomologist" reveal the exuberant talent of this Athens GA native.
Carlos Santana's brother Jorge was one of the guitarists in the 12-piece San Francisco band Malo. You'll hear more brass than on any Santana album, often used to great effect. "Suavecito", which has become something of an anthem for American Chicanos, hit the Top 20 in 1972. Maybe it's because I was growing up in Malo's hometown then, but this song transports me to a spot on the Marina Green beneath dozens of flying kites.
Members of the Rolling Stones jamming with Ry Cooder may sound like a great way to spend your time and money but it's really nothing more than a curiosity.
Don Covay was the original "double threat". Not only could he sing, he could drive. Covay played chauffeur for Little Richard and sometimes opened for his idol. In return Little Richard produced Covay's debut single "Bip Bip Bip" which sank like a stone in 1957
Fast forward to 1964 and Covay, finding success as a songwriter for Jerry Butler, Gladys Knight & the Pips and Wilson Pickett gets a young Jimi Hendrix to play guitar on a new record he wrote: "Mercy, Mercy". The single, a short soulful stew of blues, groove and sweat would hit #35 on the Billboard charts. The Rolling Stones recorded a better known cover version on Out of Our Heads. It's interesting to hear the two versions side by side. If Mick Jagger hasn't transformed himself into Covay, he sure as hell seemed to be trying his best to make it happen.
Covay also wrote the #44 pop hit "See Saw" and "Chain of Fools" both covered by Aretha Franklin. In 1969, Covay and the Jefferson Lemon Blues Band recorded a brilliant blues-rock album called House of Blue Light. For more on that amazing album, check out this excellent review on The Rising Storm . Despite a debilitating stroke, Don Covay, mercifully, is still with us.
