Like many, my four fave Stones albums are Beggar's, Let It Bleed, Stick Fingers and Exile. I've always wondered how much Jimmy Miller helped produce those amazing records, so I looked into it and summed it up here. Hope you enjoy the read:
http://www.rocknrollinsight.com/2016/09/producer-jimmy-millers-impact-on.html

Welcome RnRollInsight!!!

More insight into their best recording stretch. To appreciate Miller's influence just play Satanic Majesties back to back with Beggar's Banquet. There isn't enough written about how the songs of that 4 album stretch were finalized. Do early takes of Gimme Shelter or Midnight Rambler even exist on tape? Now that would be a rarities cd to kill for.

KMC wrote on Sep 2^nd, 2016 at 5:18pm:

More insight into their best recording stretch. To appreciate Miller's influence just play Satanic Majesties back to back with Beggar's Banquet. There isn't enough written about how the songs of that 4 album stretch were finalized. Do early takes of Gimme Shelter or Midnight Rambler even exist on tape? Now that would be a rarities cd to kill for.

I know of two early versions of "Gimme Shelter": one with Richards on lead vocals (very buried in the mix), and one with a different Jagger vocal. Both are the same basic backing track; neither feature Merry Clayton.

RnRollInsight wrote on Sep 2^nd, 2016 at 1:12pm:

Like many, my four fave Stones albums are Beggar's, Let It Bleed, Stick Fingers and Exile. I've always wondered how much Jimmy Miller helped produce those amazing records, so I looked into it and summed it up here. Hope you enjoy the read: http://www.rocknrollinsight.com/2016/09/producer-jimmy-millers-impact-on.html

Nice. Though I should point out there is no floor tom on "Jumpin' Jack Flash". Perhaps you were thinking of "Street Fighting Man"?

Some say the best albums by the Stones are those in the Mick Taylor era but no, the best albums are those in the Jimmy Miller era

Hey Mr. Yeats :) there is floor tom in Jumping Jack!! Kinda buried in the mix though. Here's a quote from Charlie Watts (2003 I think):" Jumpin' Jack Flash was recorded at Olympic; we were doing it deliberately for a single. Keith is playing my floor tom-tom on it to give the boom-da, boom-da sound. Now you'd just program it and loop it or something daft like that. The sound on Jumpin' Jack Flash is very close together, because we do sit close to each other in the studio, much to most engineers' amazement nowadays. Nobody does that any more, really."

What Mick hired him for was the spooky, meditative, deep-focus feel that he gave to Traffic's albums, which should be listened to in comparison.  Equally, that's the kind of veneer Mick wanted to impose on Stones records, so you hear it even on Goats Head Soup, where Miller is half-MIA.

Voodoo Chile in Wonderland wrote on Sep 3^rd, 2016 at 9:50am:

Some say the best albums by the Stones are those in the Mick Taylor era but no, the best albums are those in the Jimmy Miller era

I'm one of them, & in The Brain Jones era.

Agreed!!!!

Sorry,as you can see I'm a newbie and just getting used to posting here.Going to take awhile to figure out! Excellent topic though.