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Ten Thousand Motels
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Why the Rolling Stones ruled the Seventies
It was in the Sixties that the Rolling Stones first found global fame – but a magnificent new clutch of re-releases from the Seventies confirms it was then that Mick, Keef and the boys struck artistic gold.
By Neil McCormick
3:20PM BST 11 May 2009
Telegraph.co.uk
Universal Music recently announced the imminent release of "14 remastered classic albums" from the Rolling Stones. It is a laughable claim. They may well be The Greatest Rock And Roll Band In The World (a title they conferred upon themselves when introducing live shows in the late Sixties), but I don't know if anyone but the most rabid fan could name more than a handful of Stones albums still worth listening to in their entirety, particularly when the list of the latest reissues excludes their Sixties heyday.
Yet, the imminent first batch of re-releases from the Seventies (Sticky Fingers, Goats Head Soup, It's Only Rock N Roll and Black and Blue) serve as a potent reminder of exactly why the Stones have endured. For a golden period, they released a series of albums almost untouchable in the pop pantheon as examples of free-flowing, high-spirited, elegantly extemporised blues, country and rock and roll. And, it was the replacement of the increasingly dysfunctional multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones with lyrical, technically audacious, young guitarist Mick Taylor (19 when he joined) that resulted in that golden period.
Keith Richards is an economical guitarist, who squeezes out a lot of non-standard tunings and unusual chord voicings. In Taylor, he suddenly had a guitarist foil who was technically far superior, providing subtle licks and fluid lead solos, so that the tracks are always moving, shifting into new places.
With Bill Wyman's slippery, funky bass and Charlie Watts's spare, syncopated drumming, the Seventies Stones stopped trying to be pop stars and just started enjoying the freedom to express themselves. These are albums where the feel is more important than the songs. There is no real sense of artifice, it is as if the producer (Jimmy Miller on the best of them) has found a way to eavesdrop, catching the spirit of live, improvised sessions.
On these albums, the Stones are buoyed by a supporting cast of top session musicians, including jazzy keyboard player Billy Preston and virtuoso saxophonist Bobby Keys, all of whom are given licence to step to the fore, the supporting players turning tracks like Can't You Hear Me Knocking (from Sticky Fingers) and Fingerprints File (from the less cohesive It's Only Rock N Roll) into wildly exciting blowouts.
These are clever musicians who can groove on one chord without it ever becoming dull. And, as if inspired by the sense of freedom, Jagger proves himself an extremely brave singer, bending his voice in Van Morrisson-esque flights of extemporisation.
Everything he tries seems to come off, from squeaky soul falsettos to baritone country croons. On a series of gorgeous ballads (including Wild Horses, Angie and the unsurpassed Fool to Cry) the Stones conjure a kind of mournful, tender arrangement of electric pianos, silvery guitar notes and dirty, half-cocked vocal harmonising between Mick and Keith. The run of albums from Sticky Fingers (1971), Exile on Main Street (the pick of the bunch from 1972, although its re-release is being delayed until later this year) and Goats Head Soup (1973) are scintillating.
It's Only Rock N Roll is more uneven, while Black and Blue (on which they auditioned new guitarists following the departure of Taylor) is a last hurrah, more groove based, with disco overtones and a thickly layered production that points towards a less live, more technical studio approach.
After this, the decline is marked. For a few years, Stones albums still turn up great songs (although many were leftovers from prodigious early-Seventies sessions) but the Stones never recorded with this kind of freedom and near telepathic cohesiveness again. Even the album graphics get steadily worse, the band photos more awkward.
So what went wrong? It would be unfair to blame the decline of the Stones on Ronnie Wood (who only features on three tracks of Black And Blue, but is ever-present thereafter), though he must surely shoulder some blame. By the standards of really great musicians, Wood is pedestrian. Brought in essentially because he was Keith's mate, he is a guitarist very much in the mould of Richards, and the two have a tendency to mirror each other's licks rather than drawing each other out. It's a subtle thing. People don't necessarily listen to Stones albums for the guitar solos but the grooves of those classic records are kept alive by a sheer quality of musical interplay that is sadly absent from latter-day performances.
In truth, the decline of the Stones probably reflects the shift in power from Richards to Jagger, as the former effectively abdicated creative responsibility through his increasingly debilitating drug and alcohol abuse and the attendant lifestyle distractions, a litany of arrests, court cases, accidents and deaths. Before he left in 1991, Bill Wyman characterised the problem with later Stones records as "Mick wanted hits, Keith couldn't give a ----".
Jagger has kept the band going as a moneymaking enterprise with his energy, intelligence and showmanship, but musically, the Stones need some inspiration. If their superstar egos could cope, it would be interesting to see them in a studio with a strong, old fashioned producer like Rick Rubin, who focuses on performances, perhaps with an inspirational younger guitarist like Jack White as a creative springboard. Perhaps, the Stones are too old, too rich, and don't really care anymore.
And perhaps it doesn't matter. Because, as these re-releases attest, they have already done their bit. When you put the best of these records on, loud and proud, they sound as fresh and spirited as if they were recorded yesterday
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