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Showing posts with label Stones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stones. Show all posts
Friday, April 27, 2012
Saturday, March 17, 2012
The Rolling Stones to Release Documentary Spanning Entire Career
They may not be touring this year, but The Rolling Stones have other plans, as the gents have revealed plans to unleash a new documentary that will highlight every period of their career, right from their humble beginnings in 1962 up to this year’s 50th anniversary celebration, according to Rolling Stone. The flick, which has yet to claim a 
title, will be directed by The Kid Stays in the Picture director Brett Morgen and executive produced by the Stones. Look for it to debut at the rockers’ 50th anniversary celebration in September.
“For anyone who wants to experience the band, this is the film that will defy convention and create a sonic tapestry to transport viewers into the world of The Rolling Stones,” Morgen said in a release. “The film will deliver the original, bold, sexy and dangerous flavor of the iconic rock band.”
The documentary also promises dollops of never-before-seen shots from the band’s lost stashes and personal archives. “Nobody has put the story together as a narrative," Morgen told Rolling Stone. “We’ve been looking under every rock going through their archives. It will be music never heard before, and I've conducted 50-plus hours of interviews so far. By the time we’re done, they will be the most extensive group interviews they’ve ever done.
“He told me 80 percent of the footage has never been seen before, which amazes me,” Keith Richards told Rolling Stone. “I didn’t know there was that much around.”
Rolling Stones’ Charlie Watts Wanted to Play Queen’s Concert
There’s plenty of activity this week surrounding The Rolling Stones.
First the Stones delayed their 50th anniversary tour by a year, and then drummer Charlie Watts said he’d liked to have been on the bill for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee concert.
He told the Daily Express: “I’d love to have done the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, because that’s a great thing, I think, but I don't think we'd have the time to do it. It’ll be a night of the Sirs, won’t it, with Paul McCartney and Elton. Lovely guy, Elton.”
The televised concert will take place at Buckingham Palace in London on June 4. The lineup so far features Ed Sheehan, JLS, Jessie J, Annie Lennox, Madness, Cliff Richard, Shirley Bassey, Elton John and Paul McCartney.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Music Stars Pay Tribute to Rolling Stones
An all-star cast of music stars, past and present, will tip their caps to the musical legacy of The Rolling Stones in concert at New York City’s Carnegie Hall. The show takes place on Tuesday, March 13, according to Ultimate Classic Rock.
Jackson Browne, Steve Earle, Taj Mahal, Ronnie Spector, members of TV on the Radio, Marianne Faithful, the Mountain Goats, Ian Hunter and many others will recreate every single track on the Stones’ hits compilation Hot Rocks: 1964-1971.
It’s mostly a mystery as to which artists will play which songs. A few have tipped their hands: Rosanne Cash hinted that she will sing “Gimme Shelter” with John Sebastian and Earle told Billboard that he’s playing “Mother’s Little Helper,” because it’s the first song he learned on guitar.
Rolling Stones Won’t Tour in 2012, But…
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have confirmed that there will not be a 50th Anniversary Rolling Stones Tour in 2012. The rock legends said that they aren’t quite prepared to go globe-trotting, according to Rolling Stone.
However, it appears that the Glimmer Twins have their sights set on something in 2013. Richards suggests that a tour next year is actually more appropriate for the 50th anniversary.
“The Stones always really considered ’63 to be 50 years, because Charlie [Watts] didn’t actually join until January,” Richards said. “We look upon 2012 as sort of the year of conception, but the birth is next year.”
Richards and Jagger also talked about a December jam session in January that reunited them with former Stone Bill Wyman.
“We played a lot of blues and outtakes of Some Girls and things like that,” Jagger said. “It went very well.”
Keef added: “We’re back in touch, which is great, because I hadn’t really spoken to him for years.” Richards also theorized that Wyman may rejoin the Stones on their 2013 tour. “I think he’s up for it. We talked about it. I’ll let you know when I can.”
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Rolling Stones’ <em>Some Girls</em>: Sex & Drugs & Rock and Roll
The advent and cultural momentum of punk in the late 1970s provided a wild new lens through which all things – especially bands – considered “corporate” were viewed with leering distain. Ironically, even The Rolling Stones were not spared this fate despite having been punks a good decade before the term became a genre of music and style.
In a sense they invited the sneers of young listeners and critics with their 1976 album Black and Blue. Gibson Les Paul virtuoso Mick Taylor had left the band, taking part of its bluesy soul with him, and the album’s second single was “Hot Stuff,” a calculated attempt to cash in on the disco craze. The good news is that the slagging the Stones received from longtime fans and the media sparked a response from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards that restored the group to at least some of its former artistic glories.
And so they created 1978’s Some Girls, an album that was – like Black and Blue – varied compositionally, but honed close to the rock ’n’ roll bones that made The Rolling Stones great. “Shattered,” “When the Whip Comes Down,” “Lies” and “Respectable” (the latter featuring a three-guitar lineup of Richards, Jagger and then-new full-time Stone Ron Wood) all stomped hard, and while “Miss You” ventured back into disco territory, the song’s lyrics were far edgier than the pulpy “Hot Stuff.”
Jagger, in particular, stepped to the fore. Using New York City’s melting pot society for inspiration, he studied the punk and club culture and came away with lyrics about alienation – a theme Richards also explored with his “Before They Make Me Run,” which was sparked by the 1977 Toronto heroin bust that placed the prospect of a jail sentence at his feet – sex, sadomasochism, class and the spirit of old-school soul.
Another reason for Some Girls’ stripped-down sass was the back-to-basics strategy the Stones adopted for the sessions in Paris’ Pathe Marconi Studios. Eschewing the conglomerations of studio musicians that had played on their albums since 1968’s Beggar’s Banquet, the Stones cut all the basics live and played the tracks themselves with a few notable exceptions: Ian McLagen, a confederate of Wood’s from the Faces; blues harmonica player Sugar Blue; saxist Mel Collins and percussionist Simon Kirke.
The recording sessions ran from October 1977 through March 1978 and reportedly included up to 50 songs. Several of the leftovers would end up on the Stones’ next two discs, Emotional Rescue and Tattoo You. And engineer Chris Kimsey was summoned, returning to the position he held for Goats Head Soup and It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll.
Some Girls’ album cover also took a cue from punk rock culture. The disc featured the band members in drag alongside a list of female celebrities that included Marilyn Monroe, Lucile Ball, Farrah Fawcett, Judy Garland and Raquel Welch, all of whom threatened legal action since proper clearances were never obtained, with Liza Minelli taking up the cause for her late mother Garland.
The disc’s first single, “Miss You,” was The Rolling Stones’ last #1 pop hit, getting dance club as well as radio play. It was a calculated effort on Jagger’s part that paid off commercially, but the rest of the album projected a sense of greater creative integrity. Some Girls reached #1 on the Billboard Top 100 Albums chart and began reaping praise in the media for its return to rock ’n’ roll form. Nonetheless, the disc’s creative stretch ran beyond rock with a cover of the Temptations’ “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)” and “Beast of Burdon” representing hard-core soul music, and “Far Away Eyes” a tongue-in-cheek approximation of country. “When the Whip Comes Down” is singular and improbable in the Jagger-Richards cannon. It’s the story of a gay man who comes to New York seeking his fortune and becomes a trash collector.
But Some Girls’ best-written rocker is hand-down the punk-fueled “Shattered,” an edgy love note to New York City’s gritty late ’70s soul. Jagger reportedly wrote the lyrics in the back of a Manhattan cab, and Richards’ stuttering rhythm guitar riff, with a hint of phase shifter, has the command of a snarling dog.
Some Girls went on to sell six million copies. The sequel, 1980’s Emotional Rescue, sold two million and ’81’s Tattoo You sold four million copies. Together, the trio of albums marked the final years of The Rolling Stones’ golden age of recordings.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Charlie Watts on Rolling Stones 2012 Tour
With rumors buzzing that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have been warming to the idea of a 2012 Stones tour to mark the band’s 50th anniversary, drummer Charlie Watts has chipped in with his thoughts.
Watts told BBC 6Music: “It would be lovely next year to do some shows because it will be 50 years. Ronnie plays, I still play, Mick sings, he can do it anyway, I think Keith is doing some records.”
Watts, however, also explained that such a tour is a vast undertaking, saying: “It would be great if we did, we are just getting to an age where it’s getting a bit difficult to get it together and it’s such a bloody performance getting us together.”
Friday, December 9, 2011
The Rolling Stones’ <em>Let It Bleed</em> Artwork Set for $50K Auction
The original artwork for The Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed album is up for auction. So what? Well, it was sleeve art with a complex history.
In 1969, the Stones’ Keith Richards commissioned his friend Robert Brownjohn to design the now-iconic cover for Let It Bleed. Richards, after leaving art school in 1962, had taken his portfolio around several of the top London designers, including Brownjohn.
The Let It Bleed cover displays a surreal sculpture made by Brownjohn. It consists of the LP being played with an old-style phonogram arm, which is fitted with an automatic changer spindle supporting a number of items that include (instead of LPs): a dinner plate with a magnetic tape/film reel canister, a clock face, a pizza, a bicycle tire, and cake with garish icing and the band itself in the form of wedding cake-style topping figures.
The cake was made by then-unknown chef Delia Smith, now a U.K. TV star. She was instructed by Brownjohn to create a cake and she has recalled that, “they wanted it to be very over-the-top and as gaudy as I could make it.”
Selected Robert Brownjohn works are represented in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Auctioneers Bonhams of London anticipated a ?30-40,000 ($50k) price when all the original artwork is auctioned on December 15.
The album Let It Bleed boasted “Gimme Shelter,” “Love in Vain,” “Midnight Rambler,” Monkey Man” and more and is considered one of the Stones’ finest-ever albums.
Friday, July 15, 2011
This Day in Music Spotlight: The Rolling Stones Play Chess
Special thanks to ThisDayinMusic.com.
By the summer of 1964, The Rolling Stones were just finding their footing. Barely two years old, the band were still in their infancy, best-known for their cover versions of American blues and rock and roll songs. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had yet to really explore what would be a legendary songwriting partnership and their early British hits were all penned by others – Chuck Berry (“Come On”), Buddy Holly (“Not Fade Away”) and John Lennon and Paul McCartney (“I Wanna Be Your Man”).
After The Beatles had conquered America earlier in the year, the Stones embarked on their first U.S. tour in June of 1964. Bassist Bill Wyman would later remember the trek as a “disaster,” because the band had yet to score a big hit in the States. The band got mocked by Dean Martin for their performance and appearance on The Hollywood Palace – it was miles away from what the Fab Four had experienced on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Yet, the tour proved quite fruitful in other areas. During the Stones’ time as guests on Murray the K’s WINS Swinging Soiree radio show in New York, the influential DJ played them a new R&B recording credited to The Valentinos, called “It’s All Over Now.” The boys loved the song, saying that it was exactly the type of American music they were into. “It’s All Over Now” was actually co-written and sung by future soul legend Bobby Womack – The Valentinos were really The Womacks, a vocal group consisting of Bobby and his brothers. The single, which had just been released, was produced by Sam Cooke.
While on tour, the Stones were being pressured by their label to record and release new material to capitalize on their rising profile on both sides of the Atlantic. “It’s All Over Now” quickly became a contender to be the band’s next cover. Nine days after first hearing it on Murray the K’s radio show, the boys recorded their version at a very special place.
“We cut that in Chess Studios the first time in Chicago,” Richards later remembered. “The year before we were playing bars in England, you know. And then we’re walking into Chess Studios which was where all of these records that had been made that were so important to us. Now and again in life you get this feeling that you’ve died and gone to heaven. Luckily, neither was true.”
The Stones got to meet heroes such as Muddy Waters, and make their first American recordings in the same place as Chuck Berry and Willie Dixon. Richards felt the experience brought a rawness to the recording.
“The way you’d get a sound in an American studio in those days was the difference between day and night, compared to working in England or Europe,” he said. “I mean these cats, in America, they’d done it already. So to work in Chess was our first taste of American record.”
The Stones would record both “The Last Time” and “It’s All Over Now” (both destined to be hits) during their visit to Chess – although it was deemed that the latter would be released first. Just to keep things straight: on June 1, the band first heard the song; on June 10, they recorded their cover; on June 26, it was released as their newest single in England.
But Womack was not happy with the situation and told his manager that Jagger “should get his own song.” He probably was less than thrilled that his group’s version now had to compete with the one done by these British invaders. Of course, his attitude changed when the Stones’ “It’s All Over Now” became a monster hit. When Womack got the royalty check in late ’64, he let his manager know that the band could record any song of his that they wanted. Decades later, Womack would even appear on a Stones album – 1986’s Dirty Work.
Bobby had plenty of reason to change his tune. The third Stones single ever put out in America, “It’s All Over Now” gained a lot of airplay and rose to a respectable #26 on the charts. Although Lennon criticized Richards’ guitar playing on the song as sloppy, a young man in New Jersey named Bruce Springsteen was taken by the tune’s rough energy. It was the first song he learned on guitar.
“It’s All Over Now” performed even better in Britain. On this day in 1964, the single became the band’s first song to hit #1 on the U.K. charts. It certainly wouldn’t be the Stones’ last. That other song they recorded at Chess, the Jagger/Richards original “The Last Time,” would hit #1 in the fall (and rise to #9 in the States). For the rest of the ’60s, absolutely every Stones single release in the U.K. would hit the Top 10, with another five topping the charts. They would score five #1s in the States, too.
“It’s All Over Now” proved The Rolling Stones were just getting started.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Paul McCartney: Rolling Stones Jealous of The Beatles
In a new interview, rock legend Paul McCartney has said The Rolling Stones were a bit jealous of The Beatles because of the latter’s singing talent.
“I talked to Keith Richards recently... well, a couple of years ago, and his take on it was, ‘Man, you were lucky, you guys, you had four lead singers,’ whereas the Rolling Stones only had one,” McCartney told the Radio Times (via Spinner.com). “So [for the Beatles] it wasn’t just the frontman and the back-up band. We were an entity. Mick [Jagger] used to call us the four-headed monster. We would show up at places all dressed the same.”
In the same interview, the former Beatle said that timing played a key part in the band’s success.
“A couple of years earlier, we would have been in the Army, and it’s very doubtful that the Beatles would have formed,” he said. “We would have been at Aldershot, or wherever, in various camps, and might not have even met.”
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Rolling Stones Planning Anniversary Concert?
Keith Richards has suggested that The Rolling Stones may be playing a 50th anniversary gig next year in England. Their first-ever show as The Rolling Stones (actually The Rollin’ Stones) happened the Marquee Club in London on July 12, 1962.
According to NME, the band have a notion to mark the occasion. Richards told The Sun: “The idea is there. We kind of know we should do it, but nobody’s put their finger on the moment yet.”
The Stones guitarist also said he and Jagger had patched up any differences that arose from Richards’ memoirs, published last year.
“Mick pouted a bit, as is his wont, ” he said. “I told him, ‘It’s water under the bridge. I want to talk about the future. We’re larger than a little bitching.’”
News came out last week that Jagger has been working with a new group, Super Heavy, alongside Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart, Joss Stone, A.R. Rahman and Damian Marley, while Richards has been working with his X-pensive Winos band.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
When The Rolling Stones Ruled the World
The Rolling Stones always wanted to be American musicians. After all, it was the distinctly “Yank” sounds of artists like Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf that first drew Mick Jagger and Keith Richards together. And for a time, from 1969 to 1980, the Stones were, indeed, the brightest sons of the South on the pop charts despite their birthplace.
During those years, their best albums reflected the dust of the Delta and the sizzle of soul and red clay R&B, with lyric storylines and sounds that trumpeted their adopted roots. Early on, the band mimicked the character of their influences like Waters and Wolf and Robert Johnson, but parallel to the passing of Brian Jones and the addition of Mick Taylor came a new maturity and depth that allowed the Rolling Stones to not only draw on their American musical roots, but expand on them in a way that sounded as natural as what natives like the Allman Brothers and The Band were achieving in the land where the blues began.
From ’69 to ’80 the Stones made a series of works that defined their golden era and retraced the history and development of rock ’n’ roll. Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main St., Goat’s Head Soup, It’s Only Rock ’n Roll, Black and Blue, Love You Live, Some Girls and Emotional Rescue all come from that period. The first three of those discs are sodden with the sounds and spirit of the blues. And just as blues- and folk-inspired American musicians did in the ’50s and early 1960s, Goat’s Head Soup, It’s Only Rock n’ Roll, Black and Blue and Some Girls all wrestle with different aspects of demon rock. And the decline of rock’s 1970s apex is trumpeted in Emotional Rescue’s post-disco dance music fetishism and weak songwriting. That disc also caps the Stones’ period of creative relevance.
The 1970s were also the height of the band’s Gibson years, with Mick Taylor – a die-hard Les Paul Standard player – in the fold and Richards’ first experimenting with the ES-335s that have now become his frequent companions on stage. Of course, Richards was the first Stones guitarist to notably deploy a Gibson. His 1959 Les Paul Sunburst with a Bigsby tailpiece was immortalized in the band’s T.A.M.I. Show performance and was a staple of his stage gear until he sold it to Taylor when the latter joined John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers before throwing down with the Stones.
Let’s take a look at those important albums:
Let It Bleed (1969)
From the drawl in Jagger’s voice on “Gimme Shelter” to the gospel-inspired closer “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” this is one of the Stones’ most “southern” albums, also embracing Robert Johnson’s “Love in Vain,” the Chicago blues of “Midnight Rambler,” the pre-“Honky Tonk Women” C&W of “Country Honk” and the very Chuck Berry “Live with Me.” The album also debuted Taylor with the Stones, as he played slide on “Country Honk” and electric guitar on “Live with Me” alongside Richards.
Sticky Fingers (1971)
The gentle strum of “Wild Horses” plays like a southern California rock ballad, while “I Got the Blues” and Fred McDowell’s “You Gotta Move” hit Mississippi’s hills and Delta, and “Dead Flowers” is all sawdust floors and spilled beer. And “Bitch,” “Brown Sugar” and “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” – with its epic Taylor solo featuring one of the 1958 to 1960-built Les Paul Standards he favored during this period – are all anchored on classic R&B riffs. For the record, Taylor’s tone on cuts like “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” and “Brown Sugar” is a result of the blend of his Les Paul’s humbuckers, mahogany neck, body mass with thin gauge strings – .009s for slinky bending – and Ampeg amps. To round out the American-ness of their sound, the band also brought in pianist Jim Dickinson, Billy Preston on organ and slide man Ry Cooder for sessions in Los Angeles.
Exile on Main St. (1972)
Widely regarded as the Stones’ apex, Exile is a hard-won compendium of blues, soul, honky tonk and rock woven through a drug-hazed period of recording and partying at a French chateau. Nonetheless, it rings with southern American regionalism, from the swagger of “Tumbling Dice” to the propulsion of “Rip This Joint” and, of course, Taylor’s slide on “All Down the Line” and a greasy cover of Slim Harpo’s “Shake Your Hips.” Taylor diverged from his usual Les Paul to include a Gibson ES-345 and a Gibson SG for his tracking, and Richards’ used an ES-335 for many tracks, including his six-string rumbles with Taylor on “Rocks Off” and “Tumbling Dice.”
Goat’s Head Soup (1973)
Goat’s Head Soup isn’t just a delicious alternative to chicken noodle. It’s also a divergence from the Stones blues influences to a sound anchored more in rock. “Angie” is a straight-up ballad. “Dancing with Mr. D” and “Star Star” are galloping rockers. “Silver Train” is the only notable flashback, with its slide guitar and harmonica-driven sounds.
It’s Only Rock ’n Roll (1974)
There’s still a glimmer of down-home R&B here, in a cover of the Temptations’ hit “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” and the sassy licks of “Dance Little Sister.” “Fingerprint File” is a phase shifter freak-out and a radical departure, and the title track plus “Time Waits for No One” present an ornately arranged synthesis of influences from meat-and-potatoes flat-four rock to Latin rhythms.
Black and Blue (1976)
Ron Wood replaced Taylor for this disc and more of the Stones’ Americana instincts went with him, nudged over by the reggae derivations of “Hot Stuff,” “Hey Negrita” and “Cherry Oh Baby,” and the balladry of “Memory Motel” and “Fool To Cry” – the latter two featuring Jagger’s weak-kneed soul singing, which is in juxtaposition with those songs’ L.A.-style arrangements.
Love You Live (1977)
On stage the Stones have always been a different beast than in the studio, and this double-LP set is proof that despite the drift into other musical forms on vinyl, the band was often sticking to their blues basics under the bright lights. Woods sounds thoroughly integrated here, thrashing with Richards through A-plus versions of classics like Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy,” Howlin’ Wolf’s “Little Red Rooster,” Chuck Berry’s “Around and Around” and McDowell’s “You Gotta Move,” plus Stones hits and obscurities from “Sympathy for the Devil” to “Happy.”
Some Girls (1978)
Once again riding cultural tides to keep their winning streak on a roll, the band nods to punk rock (“Shattered”), disco (“Miss You”), country (“Far Away Eyes”) and their conception of Tin Pan Alley (“Some Girls”) here, plus their own distillate rock formula on “Beast of Burden” and “When the Whip Comes Down.” What’s surprising is how effective all this is, largely due to the intelligence (countered only by Jagger’s misogyny) of the lyrics and the strong musicianship displayed throughout.
Emotional Rescue (1980)
The Stones spent part of this album attempting to conquer the dance floor even as disco shuddered in its death throes with the title track, “Dance (Pt. 1)” and arguably “She’s So Cold.” Oddly, some of the best material cut for this disc – “Start Me Up,” “Hang Fire,” “Little T&A” – was shelved for the next album, 1981’s Tattoo You, where the standout ballad “Waiting For a Friend,” which the band first began cutting in 1972, was brightened by Mick Taylor’s original guitar tracks and a cameo by jazz great Sonny Rollins.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
U2 Set to Break Rolling Stones’ Record
The Rolling Stones formerly laid claim to the highest-grossing tour of all time, but U2 have overtaken them with their U2 360° world tour, which began in 2009 in Barcelona and is still going strong.
This Sunday, April 10, U2 will officially break the record with their performance at Sao Paolo’s Morumbi Stadium. At that point, the 360° tour will have fetched more than $558 million. And it’s not over yet, kids.
Billboard estimates that by tour’s end, it will have grossed more than $700 million.
A U2 tour date reportedly grosses about $6.4 million, with the band playing to an average crowd of 63,600. So far the 360° tour has hit more than 30 countries.
The Rolling Stones previously held the record for highest-grossing tour with their 2005-2007 A Bigger Bang tour.
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