Here’s a link to a feature article in The Independent describing Ian Stewart’s role in the band. The title: “Ian Stewart: The Sixth Rolling Stone.” What’s interesting is how the Stones’ tightly structured guitar-based songs don’t allow Stewart to show his prodigious gifts to full advantage.
March 10, 2011
January 20, 2011
Country Stones:
In Life, Keith Richards extols Gram Parsons to the high heavens–and you can read “high” in more than one way. Parsons, a singer/songwriter who was also a member of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers, is credited with being a major force in marrying rock and country to the point where they’re virtually indistinguishable and with creating what he called “Cosmic American Music.” (for more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/, keeping in mind that it was Dylan who made country cool). More to the point, Parsons was a drug and songwriting buddy of Richards in the late sixties, the one who illustrated the difference between Bakersfield country and Nashville country.
According to Wikipedia, “In the 1950s and 1960s, local musicians such as Bill Woods, Tommy Collins, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, and Wynn Stewart developed a streamlined country music style called the Bakersfield sound, which emphasized pedal steel guitar, the Fender Telecaster electric guitar and intense vocals. Bakersfield country was considered a spinoff of the honky-tonk style of country music that emerged from Texas, appropriate since many musicians there hailed from either Texas or surrounding states. Today, Bakersfield is third only to Nashville, Tennessee and Texas in country music fame, and Bakersfield continues to produce famous country music artists.[citation needed] The late Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace is a respected concert venue, regularly featuring new recording artists as well as established country music stars. Buddy Alan (Buck’s eldest son) performs with The Buckaroos (Doyle Curtsinger, Jim Shaw, Terry Christoffersen and David Wulfekuehler) regularly. Country music artist Gary Allan bases his music on the Bakersfield sound . . . .”
“In 1978, The Rolling Stones released the song “Far Away Eyes” on the album Some Girls. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards collaborated extensively on writing the song and it was recorded in late 1977. The Rolling Stones, longtime country music fans, incorporated many aspects of “Bakersfield sound” country music into this song. Bakersfield is mentioned in the first line of the song.”
Strains of country music first made their appearance on Beggars Banquet, which was released in December of 1968, a few months after the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo and a full year after Dylan hinted of a country direction with the last two tracks of John Wesley Harding (1967), ”Down Along the Cove” and “I’ll Be Your Baby, Tonight,” songs which were cause for mild alarm among Dylan fans like me, only to be followed by outright horror when Nashville Skyline was released in April of 1969. Not so much because the songs themselves were intolerable–many were actually quite good– but because of the unthinkable possibility he might never leave country. This great country scare paled in comparison to comparison to the great born-again scare of the early eighties, though. In retrospect, country and gospel are just parts of the great American music tapestry he and others drew on.
In According to the Rolling Stones, Mick says this about country and the Stones: ”There was a kind of country and blues feel to tracks like ‘Prodigal Son’. You just let certain parts out when you wanted to . . . . As far as country music was concerned, we used to play country songs, but we’d never record them–or we recorded them but never released them. Keith and I had been playing Johnny Cash records and listening to the Everly Brothers, who were so country–since we were kids. I loved George Jones and really fast, shit-kicking country music, though I didn’t really like the maudlin songs too much. And to me all these old rockers were really converted country singers; Jerry Lee Lewis is the most obvious example of that, but you could hear it in Gene Vincent and Ricky Nelson.”
“The country songs, like ‘Factory Girl’ or ‘Dear Doctor’ on Beggars Banquet were really pastiche. There’s a sense of humor in country music anyway, a way of looking at life in humorous kind of way–and I think we were just acknowledging that element of the music. The ‘country songs’ we recorded later, like ‘Dead Flowers” on Sticky Fingers or ‘Faraway Eyes’ on Some Girls are slightly different. The actual music is played completely straight, but it’s me who’s not going legit with the whole thing because I think I’m a blues singer not a country singer–I think it’s more suited to Keith’s voice than mine” (p. 112-113).
What distinguishes the Stones’ country forays is the insistent drive that comes from the Jerry Lewis side of country.
“Dead Flowers” is noteworthy not just for the country influence but also for its class antagonism and its drug references (see post on “Sister Morphine”). Here the narrator shows a mocking disdain for the upper-class woman who’s rejected him and seeks comfort in “the needle and the spoon” and “ragged company” of “another girl,” presumably of the salt-of-the-earth variety. Keith and Mick remember where they came from.
Well when you’re sitting there in your silk upholstered chair
Talkin’ to some rich folk that you know
Well I hope you won’t see me in my ragged company
Well, you know I could never be alone
. . .
Well when you’re sitting back in your rose pink Cadillac
Making bets on Kentucky Derby Day
Ah, I’ll be in my basement room with a needle and a spoon
And another girl can take my pain away
For a comprehensive examination of country and rock, check out Are You Ready for the Country: Elvis, Dylan, Parsons, and the Roots of Country Rock, by Peter Doggett.
January 7, 2011
Sister Morphine
Keith Richards is one of the more famous rock and roll drug fiends, being rumored, among other things, to have had his entire blood supply changed at one point with fresh blood replacing the drugged stuff. Mick Jagger is known to have had his share of drugs, too, though well short of the legendary level of his songmate’s. Yet for all this drug use and abuse, the Stones’ canon is stingy in terms of drug songs. Written under the influence of drugs yes, but about them, not much. The best known exception to the rule is “Sister Morphine,” which is sung in the persona of a hospitalized drug addict addressing “sister morphine,” asking her, among other things, to “turn my nightmares into dreams.” The lyrics offer a pretty conventional take on drugs–that they cause pain and suffering etc., but they mesh well with the eerie melody, and song as a whole does give us a haunting slice of the drug experience. It’s the Altamont side of the Woodstock drug dream.
In Life, Keith Richards says Marianne Faithfull “had a lot to do with ‘Sister Morphine.” I know Mick’s writing, and he was living with Marianne at the time, and I know from the style of it there were a few Marianne lines in it” (p. 283).
And as to his own initiation into the wonderful world of drugs, he writes elsewhere in his book: “Beginning in ’65, I’m starting to get stoned–a lifelong habit now–which also intensified my impression of what was going on. Just smoking week at the time. The guys I met on the road were, to me then, older men in their thirties, some in their forties, black bands that we were playing with. And we’d be up all night and we’d get to the gig, and there would be these brothers in their sharkskin suits, the chain, the waistcoat, the hair gel, and they’re all shaved and groomed, so fit and sweet, and we’d just drag our asses in. One day I was feeling so ragged getting to the gig, and these brothers were so together, and shit, and they were working the same schedule we were. So I said to one of these guys, a horn player, ‘Jesus, how do you look so good every day?’ And he pulled his coat back and reached into his waistcoat pocket and said, ‘You take one of these, you smoke one of those.’ Best bit of advice. He gave me a little white pill, a white cross, and a joint. This is how we do it: you take one of these, you smoke one of those. But keep it dark! That was the line I left the room with” (p. 157).
January 6, 2011
B-Side Stones: Play with Fire
The simple ballad “Play with Fire” was the B side of “The Last Time” and is one of the twelve songs on the Stones’ breakthrough album, Out of Our Heads (1965), which also featured “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.” It’s a song easily overlooked because of the power of the hit singles, but in just three chords and two-plus minutes it does a fine job of giving a glimpse of a smoldering sexual conflict within a class context. The singer would seem to be of a lower class than the woman with her wealthy father, heiress mother, diamonds, and chauffeured car, all of which she flaunts. The singer is the fire she’s playing with, of course–and fire can be read in multiple ways–and he threatens to burn her as her father did her mother if she “plays” with him. Thus, the relationship is given that extra incendiary edge by the class antagonism. The use of allusions to St. John’s Wood, Stepney, and Knightsbridge would take on special meaning to Brits and others familiar with the implications of these locales, but even without that knowledge, you can pretty much sense the social stratification. Think of the song’ as sort of a variation of Stanley Kowalski and Blanche Dubois from Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. Blanche, a faded relic of a Southern Belle, is playing with fire when she gets involved with Stan. He’s attracted to her, but part of him wants to pull her down from the pillars and get her under the colored lights. Play with Fire (live ’99)
By this time, the Rolling Stones were making inroads among the euro-trash, jaded aristocrats, and trendy jet-setters. In Life, Keith Richards has this to say about the song:
“When we recorded ‘The Last Time,’ in January 1965, we’d come off the road and everyone was exhausted. We’d gone in to record the single only. After we finished ‘The Last Time,’ the only Stones left standing were me and Mick. Phil Spector was there–Andrew had asked him to come and listen to the track–and so was Jack Nitzsche. A janitor had come to clean up, this silent sweeping in the corner of this huge studio, while this remaining group picked up instruments. Spector picked up Bill Wyman’s bass, Nitzsche went to the harpsicord, and the B-side, ‘Play with Fire,’ was cut with this unique lineup” (p. 173-174).
Well, you’ve got your diamonds and you’ve got your pretty clothes
And the chauffeur drives your car
You let everybody know
But don’t play with me, ’cause you’re playing with fire
Your mother she’s an heiress, owns a block in Saint John’s Wood
And your father’d be there with her
If he only could
But don’t play with me, ’cause you’re playing with fire
Your old man took her diamonds and tiaras by the score
Now she gets her kicks in Stepney
Not in Knightsbridge anymore
So don’t play with me, ’cause you’re playing with fire
But you’ve got some diamonds and you will have some others
But you’d better watch your step, girl
Or start living with your mother
So don’t play with me, ’cause you’re playing with fire
So don’t play with me, ’cause you’re playing with fire
January 5, 2011
Beast of Burden
A major reason for the success of the Stones’ comeback album Some Girls (1978), arguably their last great record, “Beast of Burden,” the instantly enthralling ballad, is the softer side of the Stones’ rocking blues take of Muddy Water’s classic “I Just Want to Make Love to You” on their first album, both exploring the theme of wanting only a lover, not some beast of burden. In According to the Rolling Stones, Keith Richards’ says that in retrospect what he had in mind when he wrote the song was relieving Jagger of the burden of running the Stones’ circus all by his lonesome, but Jagger obviously took the lyrics somewhere else.
The song is particularly noteworthy for the interplay of guitars between Richards and Ronnie Woods, who makes his first appearance on a Stones record here. Because Mick Taylor was so gifted, the Stones had fallen away from Richard’s ideal of having two guitarists who could switch between rhythm and lead in an interweaving way. Writes Keith:
Woods “was perfectly adapted to the ancient form of weaving, where you can’t tell the rhythm from lead guitar, the style I’d developed with Brian, the old bedrock of the Rolling Stones sound. The division between guitar players, rhythm and lead, that we had with Mick Taylor melted away. You have to be intuitively locked to do that, and Ronnie and I are like that. ’Beast of Burden’ is a good example of the two of us twinkling felicitously together” (Life 372).
And in According to the Rolling Stones, Woods concurs: “The guitar interplay between Keith and myself that occurs . . . is something that just evolved without words. It is done during the playing thanks to some kind of miracle that is born in the two of us. If it doesn’t happen we don’t pursue the song, but nine times out of ten our parts just click in without either of us having to say anything. Keith will go down to the bottom of the neck, and I will go up to the top or the other way around, or we both hover around the middle like we did on ‘Beast of Burden,’ when we were both playing on a similar part of the guitar neck, crossing over, so that we don’t know which part is which” (p. 242).
January 3, 2011
Sweet Virginia
Exile on Main Street is ranked as the seventh greatest album of all time in Rolling Stone’s The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: “A dirty whirl of blues and boogie, the Rolling Stones’ 1972 double LP ‘was the first grunge record,’ guitarist Keith Richards crowed proudly last year. But inside the deliberately dense squall . . . is the Stones’ greatest album and Jagger and Richards’ definitive songwriting statement of outlaw pride and dedication to grit” (p. 22). But if the record’s so great, why are there so many pooches on it? Pooches not found on the three albums preceding it– Beggar’s Banquet, Let It Bleed, and Sticky Fingers. I was among the legions who were disappointed with the record when it first came out, and after many repeated listenings, I still don’t hear the masterpiece all the hype would have me hear. Not as a double record, anyway. And I have one prominent member of the Stones in my corner–Mick Jagger, who says this in According to the Rolling Stones:
Exile on Main Street is not one of my favorite albums, although I think the album does have a particular feeling. I’m not too sure how great the songs are, but put together it’s a nice piece. . . . The thing about Exile is that everyone loves it, but I don’t really know why. There aren’t any real hits on it, apart from ‘Tumbling Dice’ . . . .” Part of the problem is the mix, which Mick grumbles about elsewhere, explaining that “Jimmy Miller was not functioning properly. I had to finish the record myself, because otherwise there were just these drunks and junkies” (pp. 140-141). But a bigger problem is that there just aren’t enough distinctive songs to warrant two albums even if you add the best of the outtakes. Is there any law that says you can’t both a grunge feel and great songs? In any event, an example of one song that does combine both is the twangy, bluesy, and raunchy “Sweet Virginia,” which jumped out at first hearing and continues to appeal. Like so many stellar Stones’ songs, it’s just a few chords and a raucous truth.
Mick again: Exile is a mixture of bits and pieces left over from the previous album recorded at Olympic Studios and which, after we got out of the contract with Allen Klein, we didn’t want to give him: tracks like ‘Shine a Light,’ ‘Sweet Virginia’” (p. 141). Both of them worthy of the Stones, along with a single album’s worth of other tunes.
”
January 2, 2011
Wild Horses
“Wild Horses” is a rare beast for the Stones: A great song that wasn’t also a great single, reaching only number 28 on the U.S charts after eight weeks. In Rolling with the Stones, bassist Bill Wyman, attributes the mediocre showing to the fact that albums were becoming the thing, not singles. He might also have added that this was accompanied by a shift from AM radio to the extended-play format of FM radio. For all the fame and acclaim heaped on the Stones for their high-intensity rock groove, their way with a ballad probably has as much to do with their enduring success. Who could have imagined when the song was released in 1971 that almost forty years later a middle-aged winner of a talent contest, one Susan Boyle, would kick off her eclectic middle-brow CD with it? Can you think of a Sex Pistols or Clash song that would fit the bill? If so, I’d like to hear it.
“Wild Horses” is also a touch unusual in that the chorus of this country ballad are in dispute. On the one hand, Jagger says that “Marianne Faithfull’s first words when she regained consciousness after a failed suicide attempt were, “Wild horses wouldn’t drag me away from you” (Doggett, Are You Ready for the Country? p. 79), though it took only a Bianca to drag Jagger away from her.
Yet Keith says he authored it., writing “‘Wild Horses’” almost wrote itself. It was really a lot to do with, once again, fucking around with the tunings. I found these chords, especially doing it on a twelve-string guitar to start with, which gave the song this character and sound. There’s a certain forlornness that come out of a twelve-string. I started off, I think, on a regular six-string open E, and it sounded very nice, but sometimes you just get these ideas. What if I open tuned a twelve-string? All it meant was translate what Mississippi Fred McDowell was doing–twelve-string slide–into a five-string mode, which meant a ten-string guitar. . . . It was one of those magical moments when things come together. It’s like ‘Satisfaction.’ You just dream it, and suddenly it’s all in your hands. Once you’ve got the vision in your mind of wild horses, I mean, what’s the next phrase you’re going to use? It’s got to be ‘couldn’t drag me away’” (Life, pg. 277). Because Mick told him so perhaps?
Later, Keith quotes Jim Dickerson, the Muscle Shoals musician who played piano on the song when Ian Stewart couldn’t handle the B minor chord and other minor chords, declaring them ‘fucking Chinese music’: Keith had ‘Wild Horses’ written as a lullaby. It was about [his son] Marlon, about not wanting to leave home because he’d just had a son. And Jagger rewrote it, and it’s, perceptibly, about Marianne Faithfull, and Jagger was like a high school kid about it and wrote the song for her. . . . The way he did it, Keith had some words and then he grunted and groaned. And somebody asked Mick, do you understand that? And Jagger looked at him and said, of course. It was like translating, you know? They were unbelievable, the raw vocals. They both stood at the microphone together with the fifth of bourbon, passing it back and forth, and sang the lead and the harmony into one microphone . . . (p. 279).
Meanwhile, Bill Wyman says “Keith came up with the line ‘Wild Horses’ wouldn’t drag me away’ about having to leave Anita and baby Marlon to go on tour. Mick finished the lyrics during the difficulties he was having with Marianne, so it got slightly confused. Mick Taylor played a 12-string and Keith soloed on ‘Wild Horses’” (Rolling with the Stones, p. 284).
What Wyman’s referring to is the disjuncture between the chorus and the later verses. ”Wild Horses couldn’t drag me away” is about sticking together whereas the rest of song concerns a breakup. If they couldn’t drag you away, how come you’re declaring your freedom and proposing to do some living “after love dies?” Whatever the lyrical confusion, though, the feel of the song comes through, and it was recorded in only two takcs on an 8-track recorder in Muscle Shoals, an 8-track being Richards’ preferred type of recorder because fewer mixing decisions need to be made.
January 1, 2011
BROWN SUGAR
“Black Pussy” is the original title of one of the Stones’ immortal songs, “Brown Sugar.” Mick made a wise change there. “Brown sugar,” women and even kids can sing along with that–”Brown sugar, how come you taste so good?” But “black pussy”? That would be pretty tough for a lot of people to swallow, starting with radio stations. Limited airplay means no smash hit–number two in the UK, bested by the immortal “Knock Three Times” by Dawn; and number one in the States. But even aside from that, the change in title illustrates the power of subtlety and suggestion over blatant specificity. The song itself evokes slavery and young black girls, particularly the predilection some of the founding fathers had for a little brown sugar on the side. Here again, the salacious lyrics mesh perfectly with the raunchy music. Dirt with dirt to a Chuck Berry rhythm.
It’s well known that Keith Richards came up with most of the riffs while Mick wrote the lyrics. It’s also well known that Mick’s musicianship was mostly restricted to harmonica and vocals. But “Brown Sugar” was his baby, though Keith helped out with his open G tuning take on it. Here’s what bassist Wyman has to say about song’s origins in his book, Rolling with the Stones:
“Mick came up with the song while filming in Australia. It was Mick’s riff rather than, as you might assume, something by Keith. It was inspired by the music of Freddy Cannon . . . .The lyrics were inspired by a black backing singer we knew in LA called Claudia Linnear” (p. 379). One has to wonder about the implications of “inspired” and “knew.”
Brown Sugar (Palais: 8/16/02)Brown Sugar (Goat’s Head Tour)
Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields
Sold in a market down in New Orleans
Scarred old slaver knows he’s doing alright
Hear him with the women just around midnight
Brown sugar how come you taste so good?
Brown sugar just like a young girl should
Drums beating, cold English blood runs hot
Lady of the house wonderin’ when it’s gonna stop
House boy knows that he’s doing alright
You shoulda heard him just around midnight
Brown sugar how come you taste so good, now?
Brown sugar just like a young girl should, now
Ah, get along, brown sugar how come you taste so good, baby?
Ah, got me feelin’ now, brown sugar just like a black girl should
I bet your mama was a tent show queen
And all her boyfriends were sweet sixteen
I’m no schoolboy but I know what I like
You shoulda heard me just around midnight
Brown sugar how come you taste so good, baby?
Ah, brown sugar just like a young girl should, yeah
I said yeah, yeah, yeah, woo
How come you…how come you taste so good?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, woo
Just like a…just like a black girl should
Yeah, yeah, yeah, woo
December 31, 2010
Champagne and Reefer for New Year’s Eve
If the Stones aren’t inviting a hot artist of the moment to join them for a tune onstage, especially for a filmed performance, they’re likely to be inviting an old blues master. Despite becoming rock icons and multi-gazillionaires, they’ve never forgotten their roots, nor have they ever lost their respect and gratitude for the blues pioneers who made it all possible. The exposure that comes with a guest spot in front of thousands is a form of payback. But the old blues masters are equally indebted to the Stones; for the fact is that until the Brits invaded America in the sixties with the Stones and other vanguard groups like the Led Zeppelin, the Yardbirds, the Cream, and John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, to name just a random few that spring to mind, the old masters were languishing. After all, Muddy Waters was reportedly painting the Chess studios when the Stones first met him and helped carry their equipment in. The Brits gave the blues back to America, and in the process gave the old masters a second, more lucrative chance at fame and glory. Writes Keith in Life:
“When we put ‘Little Red Rooster,’ a raw Willie Dixon blues with slide guitar and all, it was a daring move at the time, November 1964. We were getting no-no’s from the record company, management, everyone else. But we felt we were on the crest of a wave and we could push it. It was almost in defiance of pop. In our arrogance at the time, we wanted to make a statement. ’I am a little red rooster/Too lazy to crow for day.” See if you can get that to the top of the charts, motherfucker. Song about chicken [a bit of an understatement!]. Mick and I stood up and said, come on, let’s push it. This is what we’re fucking about. And the floodgates burst after that, suddenly Muddy and Howlin’ Wolf and Buddy Guy are getting gigs and working. It was a breakthrough. And the record got to number one. And I’m absolutely sure what we were doing made Berry Gordy at Motown capable of pushing his stuff elsewhere, and it certainly rejuvenated Chicago blues as well” (p. 161). Here’s an ode to the two intoxicants of choice for many a New Year celebrant.
December 26, 2010
Tumbling Dice
The other day, in a conversation prompted by Richards’ autobiography, Life. a songwriting cousin of mine ragged on Jagger’s lyrics, saying that there were undistinctive placeholders that contributed little to the Richards’ riffs to which they were wedded, “placeholders” being his term for bland words merely holding a spot in the melody till richer ones come along. To his way of thinking, Richards had already done the challenging part by coming up with a memorable riff. Though I conceded that Richards had a genius for riffs and deserved a tip of the hat for it, I had to come to Jagger’s defense. I put it to me cousin this way: How many songwriters do we know who have tons more melodies and riffs than they have lyrics? In fact, I ventured further, I bet you have a lot more riffs than words yourself. Yes, he did, but . . . . But without lyrics, most songs never get off the ground, unless you’re Link Wray, Dick Dale, or one of the Ventures. It’s all too easy to slight or dismiss the lyricist, but Richards never does, probably because he knows how essential the right sort of words are for songs. A case in point is the enrapturing “Tumbling Dice,” one of a string of great riffs Richards attributes to his discovery of open G tuning. If I’d have had Life with me, I’d have quoted this section for my cousin:
“‘Tumbling Dice’” may have had something to do with the gambling den that Nellcote turned into–there were card games and roulette wheels. Monte Carlo was around the corner. Bobby Keys and cats did go down there once or twice. We did play dice. I credit Mick with ‘Tumbling Dice,’ but the song had to make the transition from its earlier form, which was a song called ‘Good Time Woman.’ You might have all the music, a great riff, but sometimes the subject matter is missing [Hear that cousin?]. It only takes one guy sitting around a room, saying, ‘throwing craps last night . . .’ for a song to be born. ’Got to roll with me.’ Songs are strange things. Little notes like that. If they stick, they stick. With most of the songs I’ve written, I’ve felt there’s an enormous gap here, waiting to be filled; this song should have been written hundreds of years ago. How did nobody pick up on that little space?” (p. 304-305). Hmmm, maybe they did but lacked the words to fill it.
“Tumbling Dice” offers a stellar example of a song where the lyrics mesh perfectly with the melody, especially with the tumbling dice echoing the descent of the chorus riff. At the same time, its seize-the-day theme (“make me burn the candle right down”), rambling, gambling imagery, and bawdy whorehouse sexuality evoke the old literary and blues masters. When the singer equates himself with the tumbling dice (“call me the tumblin’ dice”), the invitation to roll the dice takes on multiple meanings–take a chance on me, roll with me down the road, or at least roll with me in the sack and be my “partner in crime” since time is flashin’ by. No offense to my cousin, but Jagger deserves a tip of the hat for his contribution to the song just as much as Richards does. As an interesting sidetone, compare the rapturous fadeout riff of “Tumbling Dice” with that of Springsteen’s “Backstreets,” which came out about three years after “Dice.” And as to Jagger’s candle reference, look no further than the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay: “I burn the candle at both ends/It will not last the night/But ah my foes, and oh my friends/it gives a lovely light.
Tumbling Dice (Goat’s Head Tour) Tumbling Dice {piano intro}