So very many impressions immediately come to mind, and conflicting emotions of great joy and admiration compete as well with terrible dread, when referencing the Rolling Stones’ November 28, 1969 masterpiece, Let It Bleed. And that goes double for the Stones themselves who made the landmark recording, including poker-faced original bass player Bill Wyman, and then baby-faced twenty-one year old lead guitarist Mick Taylor, who both join me here In the Studio.
The magazine writers at Rolling Stone publication voted as recently as 2020 that Let It Bleed should rank as the #41 album of all time for the music, but here we add the stories of recording “Midnight Rambler”, “Live with Me”, “Monkey Man”, and not one but two quintessential rock classics, “Gimme Shelter” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”. The fastest selling Rolling Stones album to date, the artistic and commercial successes of Let It Bleed, and even their notorious image are all tied inexorably to one particular event on the subsequent American tour with a single concert appearance near San Francisco at Altamount Raceway. Both Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor were there for the ramp up, the planning, and eyewitnesses to the violence which effectively slammed the door on the Summer of Love and the Woodstock promise of peace. Of special note in this classic rock interview is Mick Taylor’s eyewitness account of what really happened leading up to, and the day of, the murder during the November 1969 Rolling Stones’ performance. –Redbeard
In addition to watching the Nick Broomfield rock doc The Stones and Brian Jones, don’t miss my Beggars Banquet episode here In the Studio with my interviews of many of the musicians who were actually there, including Rolling Stones original bass player Bill Wyman, Keith Richards, and Mick Jagger. Beggars Banquet was the last to have Rolling Stones co-founder Brian Jones included, and the considered to be the first great Stones album, plotting the unparalleled course forward for the Mick Jagger- Keith Richards songwriting team for the next half century. With songs “Street Fighting Man”,”Stray Cat Blues”, and the diabolical “Sympathy for the Devil”, my ultra-rare classic rock interviews with original Rolling Stones bass player Bill Wyman, Mick, and Keith as guests set the table for a Beggars Banquet.
Writing on AllMusic.com, one of our most trusted rock writers Richie Unterberger refers to the Rolling Stones’ 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request as “… a fascinating anomaly in the group’s discography.” Four significant things occurred to explain in part why the follow up in late 1968, Beggars Banquet, sounds so completely different: 1) Stones co-founder Brian Jones lost his high-profile model/girlfriend to another man, who just happened to be his band mate Keith Richards; 2) Jones attended the Monterey Pop Festival in full bloom of the San Francisco psychedelic scene but, most conspicuously, without his band; 3) Keith Richards finally found time to actually listen to all of those American blues and r&b records he had purchased on the Stones’ first trip to the U.S.; and 4) the Stones finally let go of their self-conscious competition with the Beatles, and found their own groove in embracing rough-hewn country blues.
There are timeless classics served up at this feast such as “Street Fighting Man” and the leering “Sympathy for the Devil”; chugging bloozy rockers “Stray Cat Blues” and “Parachute Woman”; and musical signposts “Dear Doctor” (their first stab at unabashed country and western) and the under-appreciated “Salt of the Earth”. And that does not count the non-album singles which bookended the album, “Jumping Jack Flash” and “Honky Tonk Women”! (L-R the late Brian Jones, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, and Stone alone Bill Wyman)
Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and original Stones bass player and band historian Bill Wyman are our dinner guests in these classic rock interviews. – Redbeard
The Rolling Stones’ Some Girls was one of the albums of the Summer of ’78 which makes that season so memorable. Easily the strongest tunestack since Exile on Main Street but with even more variety, Mick and Keef gave us rockers “When the Whip Comes Down”, “Shattered”, and “Respectable”; a stone cold country send-up “Faraway Eyes”; a tasty Temptations cover of “Just My Imagination”; and two megahits which seemed ubiquitous that summer, “Miss You” and “Beast of Burden”.
In the Studio writer/producer alumnus Joe Rhodes pointed out to me once that, in spite of the reams of rock commentary written about the Rolling Stones since the May 1978 release of the Some Girls album, precious little was about the music itself. It seemed like everybody who ever had a backstage pass to a Stones show had written a book. There have been countless critiques of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards’ lifestyles; about Mick’s Seventies jet-setting and Keith’s drug taking in the same period; about busts and riots and all manner of rock decadence. But, Rhodes maintains, there had been precious little about the Rolling Stones albums themselves, surprisingly, about the circumstances behind the creation of the music and writing of the songs. On AllMusic.com writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine reminds, “During the mid ’70s the Rolling Stones remained massively popular, but their albums suffered from Jagger’s fascination with celebrity and Keith Richards’ worsening drug habit. By 1978, both Punk and Disco had swept the group off the front pages.” To trace the circuit to the igniter plug that would spark Some Girls into becoming one of the Stones’ greatest albums ever, you have to go back even further to lead guitarist Mick Taylor’s quitting the band prior to the 1975 World Tour. The guitarist who replaced him, Ronnie Wood then of The Faces, is joined here In the Studio by Mick and Keith for Some Girls. The first time I interviewed Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones it was January 1989. The band had been on hiatus for the last half of the decade, and seeing into the Stones’ future was at its murkiest. When asked at that time which were his personal favorite Rolling Stones albums, Keith replied, “The body of work from Beggars Banquet up through Exile on Main Street (which includes Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers), and Some Girls.” Even as we prepare to make the pilgrimage to The Rolling Stones No Filter Tour, with more than twenty-five studio albums from which to choose, I wager that assessment of Summer 1978’s Some Girls (Rolling Stone magazine ranks it at #468 on their Top 500 All Time list, either a typo or an exposure of blatant absurdity) would place it on any Stones fan’s Top Five list, as well.
Just look at this tune stack and immediately you see why: flat-out rockers “When the Whip Comes Down”,”Respectable”,” Keith’s rehab rocker “Before They Make Me Run”, and “Shattered” ; the huge hits “Miss You” and the timeless “Beast of Burden”; and the impeccable cover of the Temptations’ “Just My Imagination”. Keith Richards is joined in my classic rock interviews by Mick Jagger, Ronnie Wood, and former Faces keyboard player the late Ian McLagan who played on this Rolling Stones #1 Billboard album and single (“Miss You”). –Redbeard
So very many impressions immediately come to mind, and conflicting emotions of great joy and admiration compete as well with terrible dread, when referencing the Rolling Stones’ November 28, 1969 masterpiece, Let It Bleed. And that goes double for the Stones themselves who made the landmark recording, including poker-faced original bass player Bill Wyman, and then baby-faced twenty-one year old lead guitarist Mick Taylor, who both join me here In the Studio.
