Saturday, January 28, 2012
Saturday, January 21, 2012
The World According to… Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper is the original makeup-ed metaller, and there are no substitutions. Taking from heavy metal, vaudeville and symphonic rock, the “School’s Out” rocker built his legacy on mixing haunting musical sounds with horrific onstage theatrics – everything from bright red blood to mile-long syringes to electric chairs. The result? The Coop always paints a picture of horror in his concertgoers’ minds.
Along the way, Alice Cooper has developed a somehow lovable persona, making him rock’s favorite villain to date. In the following choice quotes, Alice talks about hitting rock-bottom during his struggle with substance addiction, touring with fellow horror rocker Rob Zombie, finding a Christian faith and getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Rock on, Alice!
On finally getting inducted into the Hall of Fame, as told to USA Today in 2011:
We were Susan Lucci for quite a long time – or Pete Rose, whichever way you look at it! … I went, ‘That’s kind of cool. Every year, it’s this new outrage.’ I was sitting there, going, ‘Calm down. Don’t worry. Our time will come.’”
On staying excited about music 30-plus years later, as told to Horror Garage:
You know, it's funny, ’cause I think that if it’s in your blood, you never get tired of it. I’m still a rock ’n’ roll fan. I have a 19-year-old and a 15-year-old, and I’m probably the only dad in the world that bangs on their door and says, ‘Turn that up!’ If it’s good rock ’n’ roll, I’m the first one to turn it up. Like anything else: there’s great rock ’n’ roll, there’s crappy rock ’n’ roll. And I’m not real prejudiced. As much as I’m not a big rap fan, I love Eminem. I think Eminem is very funny.
On Lady Gaga, as told to the Washington Post in 2011:
Lady Gaga is the female Alice Cooper. She created a character named Lady Gaga. She wrote songs for Lady Gaga. Not for herself – for Lady Gaga. I write for Alice; I don’t write for me… And she produced those songs on stage for Lady Gaga. Now there’s a Lady Gaga nation out there, and if you meet her off stage, she’s nothing like that person on stage. [Laughs] It’s like, me either. I’m nothing like Alice. But we created a character that belongs to rock and roll.
On touring with fellow horror rocker Rob Zombie, as told to the Gannett Lansing State Journal in 2010:
You know, Rob is one of my very best friends in the business, so it’s great to be out with him. The shows are funny, because my show is so Alice in that it’s got a sense of humor to it, and so does Rob’s, only his is a whole different kind of thing… We’re much more of an opera than anybody else. When Alice says, ‘Welcome to My Nightmare,’ he gives you the nightmare. Everything about the lyrics tells us what to do theatrically with the song.
Regarding how his Christianity and art work together, as told to HM Magazine in 2011:
You know, first of all, I do mostly the secular rock. But I think … My pastor feels the same way. I am not necessarily praise rock. I’m not Christian praise music. I think that I go to a different place. And I think that Christianity needs to go much more into the secular arts. I think that we need to be heard not just by Christians. I mean, it’s nice ... bands like Creed, P.O.D. There’s some bands out there that are saying some pretty good things. And then there’s a lot of really good praise rock bands. I’ve just never felt... I do that in church. I do that in prayer. I do that, but I think that my message is more of a warning. I don’t mind being the prophet of doom. I think that that’s more fitted for what Alice is.
I feel that, if God is going to use Alice Cooper, it’s going to be more on a level of a warning. It’s not going to be on a level of, ‘Isn’t everything great? Isn’t everything good? Aren’t we all wonderful?’ Alice is going to be more like, ‘Be careful! Satan is not a myth. Don’t sit around pretending like Satan is just a joke.’ Because I have a lot of friends that do believe that. I think my job is to warn about Satan.
On the cost of a Cooper show, as recorded by Rock Around the World in their 1970s archives:
Just the stage alone cost around $400,000. But with 43 people working and with rehearsals and everything I would say you’ve got to be spending ... boy, I’m the worst at figures ... but you’ve got to be spending at least a quarter of a million dollars a month just on maintaining everybody. Probably more than that. I’m not really sure ’cause I don’t do any business at all I’m the worst businessman.
On hitting rock bottom, as told to Reuters in 2007:
But it got to the point where I was drinking so much that I was throwing up blood in the morning. Guys in my business – like Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison – usually lasted until the age of 27. I watched them drink themselves to death. And I was pretty much on my way there.
On his love for golf and how it helped save him from substance abuse, as told to Billboard:
I traded one bad habit for another habit, only this habit [golf] was a lot healthier. Golf ended up being a good trade-off. The thing about this book [Cooper’s memoir Alice Cooper, Golf Monster: A Rock 'n' Roller's 12 Steps to Becoming a Golf Addict], is that when I look at the whole juxtaposition of who Alice Cooper is, the golf addiction and the music addiction, still, it’s pretty interesting how they can co-exist.
Regarding his popular radio show, Nights with Alice Cooper, as told to the Gannett Local Music Beat in 2010:
The Dick Clark organization came to me. Everybody was going into satellite radio, and Dick Clark said to me, ‘If you had a radio show, what would it be?’ And I said, ‘I would go back to what I remember FM radio to be: where the DJ played what he or she wanted and it wasn’t a corporate decision.’ You know, ‘These are the most popular songs by demographics for 20 to 35-year-olds’ – I hate that. That kills the whole idea of rock and roll. So, I said, ‘I’ll play bands I like and tell stories about them, because everybody I play, I’m going to know.’ So, I might play songs from The Kinks, Frank Zappa and Iggy and tell stories.
On what horror movies give Alice Cooper the willies, as told to the Concert Livewire in 2001:
There are a couple of horror movies that I think hold up as being scary, and the reason that they are scary is that they're based on real things. I think that when you get into things like Nightmare on Elm Street you're talking about things that just don't happen. But when you're talking about The Exorcist, that's based on truth. That happens a lot. Demon possession and exorcisms really do happen. That’s not just me or anybody saying that, it’s documented on medical record. So it’s very hard to not explain that. I think that anytime you get into the occult you have a realization that this stuff does exist. Probably not as graphic as they do in the movies, but there’s something creepy in the fact that it does exist…
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Dave Grohl: ‘We Don’t Feel Like the Biggest, Best Band in the World’
Nearly two decades after forming Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl continues to view the group as “a really simple band.” In a wide-ranging interview with Billboard.com, the Foos frontman said, “We [still] think we suck and we try really hard to make good records and we practice. We don’t feel like the biggest, best band in the world. We just feel like the same five dorks that were touring in a van 17 years ago.”
Asked about the current state of rock and roll, Grohl seemed optimistic, although he assessed that, in America, “rock and roll isn’t as much in the forefront of the mainstream as it is the rest of the world.”
“The thing that will never go away is that connection you make with a band or a song where you’re moved by the fact that it’s real people making music,” Grohl said. “You make that human connection with a song like ‘Let It Be’ or ‘The Long and Winding Road,’ or a song like ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ or ‘Roxanne.’ They sound like people making [real] music.”
Grohl went on to say that today’s musical climate reminds him of 1991, the year grunge broke.
“The late ’80s was full of over-produced pop that kids had nothing to grab hold of,” Grohl said. “They had no way of connecting to a hair metal band singing about strippers in a limousine on Sunset Boulevard. Who can relate to that? Then you had a bunch of formulaic pop songstress [stuff], and music was boring. And then a bunch of bands with dirty kids got on MTV and rock and roll became huge again. And I feel like that's about to happen.”
Sunday, December 18, 2011
The Beach Boys Reunite for New Album and World Tour
The Beach Boys have announced plans to reform for their 50th anniversary. Founding members Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, plus David Marks and Bruce Johnston, plan a new studio album and a 50-date international tour beginning in April.
No touring dates have yet been confirmed, but the band will appear as headliners at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (April 27 to May 6, 2012).
New commemorative releases are also planned for 2012, including a new Beach Boys hits collection and a career-spanning box set.
Frontman Brian Wilson said of the reunion: “This anniversary is special to me because I miss the boys and it will be a thrill for me to make a new record and be on stage with them again.”
Mike Love added: “We got together at Capitol Records and re-recorded ‘Do It Again.’ Brian and I wrote that song which went to #1 in Great Britain, Australia and elsewhere some 44 years ago. Brian paid me a compliment saying, ‘How can a guy sound that great so many years later?’ Later on, while working out some harmonies on a new song Brian had written, I got a chance to return the compliment.
“Music has been the unifying and harmonizing fact of life in our family since childhood. It has been a huge blessing that we have been able to share with the world. Wouldn’t it be nice to do it again? Absolutely!”
The Beach Boys formed in 1961 and frontman/main-writer Brian Wilson last performed with the band during the making of their 1996 album Stars And Stripes Vol. 1. Wilson has toured as a solo artist since. Two former members, Brian’s brothers Dennis and Carl Wilson, died in 1983 and 1998. By April next year, Mike Love will be 71. Brian Wilson is 69.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith Names the Best Burger in the World
Rock stars love their burgers. Just ask Chad Smith, drummer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Chickenfoot. Smith stopped by Hunter House restaurant in his old stomping grounds of Birmingham, Michigan, last weekend, and he declared the diner has the best burgers on the planet.
“I grew up in this area for 38 of my years,” Smith, 50, told the Observer & Eccentric. “My mom still lives here and I come to visit her as often as possible ... but when I was a kid I used to ride my bike from Telegraph Road and I would come here to the Hunter House for their hamburgers...”
The ride from Telegraph to Hunter House is a long one, but Smith says it’s worth it, since, “these hamburgers, they’re just incredible. There’s a secret ingredient in the Hunter House hamburgers – I don’t know what they do.”
He went on to declare they’re the best burgers in the world! Coming from someone who’s likely had a burger in every state, that’s a major compliment. “I’ve traveled quite a bit. I do get around, and I like my hamburgers,” Smith said. “Nothing beats Hunter House – no doubt, hands down, the finest hamburger in the world.”
Side note: You know the old adage that dad is always right? Well, this writer’s dad – who grew up in Birmingham – has said for years that Hunter House has the best hamburgers on the planet. Father knows best!
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
The World According to … Jimi Hendrix
Though Jimi Hendrix was just 27 when he died in September 1970, he managed to secure the near-unanimous public opinion that he’s the best guitarist who ever lived. Last year, Gibson.com readers voted Hendrix No. 1 in our Top 50 Guitarists of All Time poll, and he’s topped similar lists by Rolling Stone and other music publications. Those that saw him play live say that Hendrix was even more magical and arresting in person than he is on his records and in film. In interviews, however, he had a soft-spoken, wry manner that can be difficult to reconcile with his loud stage presence. Hendrix didn’t grant many interviews, but the ones he did reveal him to be obsessed with his craft, frustrated with and stifled by the music industry, and surprisingly self-depreciating and hilarious. Here are some choice quotes from Hendrix.
On rock and roll, as reported in the 1970 book Rock: A World Bold as Love
“Rock is so much fun. That’s what it’s all about — filling up the chest cavities and empty kneecaps and elbows.”
On his various identities, as told to radio interviewer in 1970.
“All I write is just what I feel … I don’t round it off too good. I just keep it almost naked … what I was trying to do was doing three things at a time, which is my nature … I hate to be in one corner. I hate to be put as only a guitar player, or either only as a songwriter, or only as a tap dancer. I like to move around.”
On his musical intentions, as said on The Dick Cavett Show in 1969.
“We’re playing for our sound to go inside the soul of the person and see if they can awaken some kind of thing in their mind. There are so many sleeping people.”
On how he writes a song, as told to Rolling Stone in 1970.
“Most of the time I can’t [write] it on the guitar, you know? Most of the time I’m just lying around daydreaming and hearing all this music. And you can’t, if you go to the guitar and try to play it, it spoils the whole thing, you know? — I just can’t play guitar that well, to get all this music together.”
On Bob Dylan, as told to rock journalist Steve Barker in 1967.
“I saw him one time, but both of us were stoned out of our minds. I remember it vaguely. It was at this place called The Kettle of Fish in the Village. We were both stoned there, and we just hung around laughing — yeah, we just laughed. People have always got to put him down. I really dig him, though. I like that Highway 61 Revisited album and especially ‘Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.’ He doesn’t inspire me actually, because I could never write the kind of words he does.”
On what he’s aiming for when making a record, as told to rock journalist Steve Barker in 1967.
“We quite naturally want people to like it — that’s the reason for putting the record out. You see, I have no taste. I couldn’t say what’s a good record and what’s a bad one, really. We play records at the flat sometimes and say, ‘This is great,’ and then somebody will say, ‘Oh, yeah, but it’s something else.’ Then they say, ‘That’s terrible,’ and I’d say, ‘That’s great — the tremolos, for instance.’ So I don’t have no feeling about commercial records. I don’t know what a commercial record really is. So what we do is write and try to get it together as best as possible for anybody who’d really dig it. It doesn’t make any difference who.”
On the record industry, as said on The Dick Cavett Show in 1969
“Money is getting to be out of hand now. Musicians, especially young cats, they get a chance to make all this money and they say, ‘Wow, this is fantastic,’ and they lose themselves and they forget about the music itself. They forget about their talents; they forget about the other half of them … The more money you make the more blues you can sing.”
On women and sex, as told to an interviewer in 1967
“If you’re not used to [groupies] it can kill you really. [Sex is] just another way of communication. That’s why a lot of people can’t understand and say, ‘Damn, why you with so many people?’ … It’s a part of you, it’s nature, I just can’t help it, that’s all. Some people just communicate better by not even knowing each other’s name, by just saying, ‘Hey, hi, why don’t you come with me here for a minute?’ We can be the best of friends then. Some even get married after that. It was worse before [I was famous] because I used to be on the block starving. Girls used to really help me. Girls are some of my best friends. Ever since then, that’s why I say to myself, ‘Any girl I meet now I’m going to try to show her my appreciation for what they did for me before.’ [Laughs.]”
On his ideal lifestyle, when asked if he has enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life, as spoken in a 1970 interview with New Musical Express
“Not the way I’d like to live. I want to get up in the morning and just roll over in my bed into the indoor swimming pool and then swim to the breakfast table, come up for air and get a drink of orange juice. Then just flop over from the chair into the swimming pool and swim into the bathroom and shave and whatever.”
On the transformative power of the electric guitar, as reported in the 1970 book Rock: A World Bold as Love
“I wish they’d had electric guitars in cotton fields back in the good old days. A whole lot of things would've been straightened out. Not just only for the black and the white, but I mean for the cause!”
Thursday, May 26, 2011
The Darkness Planning World Tour, New Album
After a five-year hiatus, The Darkness have reunited and are set to play a few shows next month in Britain. But frontman Justin Hawkins recently explained that the band’s plans extend much further.
“There’ll probably be a The Darkness album in 2012, but somehow we’ll get new music out before then,” he told Q magazine. “A U.K. tour at the end of that year and then the world. Again.”
The reunion features original members Justin and Dan Hawkins (guitar), Frankie Poullain (bass) and Ed Graham (drums).
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Thunder from Down Under: The Top 10 Aussie Bands Who Rocked the World
Aussie bands have been cranking out hits both at home and abroad almost since the dawn of rock. For every Elvis Presley there was a Johnny O’Keefe. For each Bad Company there was an Angels. For every Wilco there was a Powderfinger. Not every Aussie band that made it big back home managed to replicate their success in the rest of the world (and Aussies don’t drink Foster’s very often either), but here are 10 who did.
10. The Living End
Australia’s answer to The Stray Cats and The Clash all rolled up into one, The Living End make regular trips to the U.S. and Europe, and are one of the few bands who have been able to open up for AC/DC and not be pelted with beer cups by the eager audience. Chris Chaney is a bona-fide guitar hero, combining the power of pub rock with the sophistication and technique of rockabilly. The Living End’s next album, produced by Nick DiDia (Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, Rage Against the Machine) is due out this year.
9. Jet
Jet were partially responsible for the rock revolution of the early noughties. Breaking out of the legendary Espy, the cornerstone of Melbourne’s thriving live rock scene, Jet combined a little of the ’60s and a lot of the ’70s to create their classic rock-influenced sound, and they damn near took over the world in the process. They also packed a collection of fine Gibson and Epiphone instruments, including the Jack Casady Bass.
8. Rose Tattoo
The Tatts – led by Angry Anderson – were a huge influence on some of the biggest hard rock bands of the ’80s. Guns N’ Roses even covered “Nice Boys (Don’t Play Rock and Roll),” and Slash invited Anderson to perform the song with him in Melbourne for the worldwide-broadcast MTV Classic launch in 2010. Late, great Tatts guitarist Pete Wells was one of the finest blues-based slide players Australia ever produced, and the Tatts beat Motley Crue to the combination of punk and metal by a good half-decade (and didn’t need spandex and hairspray to do it).
7. Hoodoo Gurus
Hoodoo Gurus were always kind of like Australia’s version of Cheap Trick: enough brains for the cerebral crowd, enough edge for the rock crowd, enough groove to dance to and enough cool guitar work to riff along with. The band broke up in 1997 but reunited in 2003. In the interim, they renamed themselves The Persian Rugs, took on a new bass player and explored a more psychedelia-driven, London-meets-Detroit sound. Their latest album is 2010’s ripping Purity of Essence.
6. The Church
The Church have always had a melancholy edge to their sound, even in their earlier psychedelic days. Their combination of ’60s-style jangle and ’70s progressive moodiness coalesced in stunning form on “Under the Milky Way” in 1988, breaking the band internationally and scoring them a #2 hit on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart (it only went Top 30 back home).
5. The Easybeats
Led by vocalist Stevie Wright and backed up by the songwriting talents of Harry Vanda and George Young, The Easybeats were Australia’s answer to The Beatles. Like many great Australian bands of the era and reflecting the multiculturalism that occurred after World War II, the band was made entirely of immigrants from Europe, and they were signed to one of Australia’s first independent production companies, Albert Productions. Their biggest hit was “Friday on My Mind,” produced by Shel Talmy (The Who, The Kinks). The track was also notably covered by David Bowie on Pinups and by punk band London.
4. Silverchair
Silverchair seemed to go from fresh-faced grunge-lite youngsters to symphonic-rock iconoclasts so suddenly that nobody saw it happen. The leap from their catchy-but-derivative alterna-anthem “Tomorrow” to tracks like “Emotion Sickness,” “Straight Lines” and “The Greatest View” was drastic and entirely welcome. Somewhere along the line, bandleader Daniel Johns must have visited a crossroads and sold his soul for a cache of unusual new chords and scales and a surprisingly adept falsetto.
3. Midnight Oil
Midnight Oil stood out like a sore thumb in the glitzy world of ’80s rock: their singer was a six-foot-plus, bald dynamo, and their lyrical bent had more in common with the political edge of U2 and Billy Bragg than the party-hardy attitude of much of the music topping the charts at the time. The group disbanded in 2002 but have performed occasional reunion shows since then for charity, although it’s a little hard to block out some time in singer Peter Garrett’s heavy schedule, as he is currently Australia’s Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth.
2. INXS
Although INXS’s only “full-time” guitarist is Tim Farriss, both Andrew Farriss (keys) and Kirk Pengilly (sax) also hoist the six-string from time to time, and the band’s triple-guitar attack set a new benchmark for intricate axework in the ’80s, taking as much inspiration from new wave, ska and pop as from rock. Charismatic frontman Michael Hutchence met his end via misadventure in 1997 but the band continued on, first with singer Jon Stevens of Noiseworks then with Canadian JD Fortune, who they found via the TV show Rock Star: INXS. Fortune still tours with the band, although their latest album Original Sin features a variety of guest singers reinterpreting the band’s hits, including Rob Thomas, Ben Harper, Dan Sultan and Tricky.
1. AC/DC
C’mon, could anyone else have possibly topped this list? Aside from virtually claiming the Gibson SG as his own, Angus Young and Co. perfected the kind of hard-driving blues-rock that would be imitated by literally thousands of bands since. Even the tragic loss of vocalist Bon Scott couldn’t slow Acca Dacca down, and all Australian guitarists are required by law to learn the riff to “Back in Black” and the intro to “Thunderstruck” before they’re allowed to perform in public.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
The Wild & Wonderful World of Gibson: The Moderne
In 1957, Gibson desperately needed to push the envelope. Not only were fellow guitar manufacturers beginning to issue less traditional designs but other industries inspired change as well. Elvis Presley’s “Jailhouse Rock” rattled the airwaves, Sputnik circled the earth, and Chevy’s tailfins grew suddenly sharp. Gibson, too, had invested in a fresh perspective — hiring Ted McCarty as their new company president in 1950. McCarty spent his first years with the company effectively shaking things up — supervising the design of the original Les Paul model and the introduction of solidbody guitars into the Gibson product line. He also inadvertently created what is now known industry-wide as the Holy Grail of Vintage Guitars — the Gibson Moderne — because many authorities disagree about whether or not a prototype ever existed.
Famous for his forward-thinking, top-quality inventions — including the stop tailpiece and the Tune-O-Matic bridge — McCarty labored in 1957 to introduce a trio of new Korina wood models that included the Flying V, Explorer, and Moderne. With the help of a local Kalamazoo, MI, artist, the modernistic models were designed specifically to revolutionize Gibson’s image.
“There must have been a hundred sketches around the shop, all sorts of weird shapes,” said McCarty in a 1978 Guitar Player interview. “The dealers thought we were too stodgy, too traditional, so we decided to just knock them off their feet. We were working on this one guitar — since it was a solidbody, you could do just about anything with the shape — and it was sort of triangular. It was too heavy and we had to remove some weight from somewhere and we discovered that we didn’t need the back end at all, so we just cut out some material in the middle. We wanted it to look like an arrow. Someone in the shop made a wisecrack and said, ‘The thing looks like a flying V,’ and we thought about the name and eventually used it. That’s how we came up with the Moderne and Explorer, too, just experimenting with shapes. We must have made dozens of variations.”
On January 7, 1958, McCarty was issued patents for the Flying V, Explorer, and Moderne, but many believe that only two of these guitars ever actually rolled off the Gibson production line.
“‘Rare’ is not the word for the Moderne, which was to be the third model in a modernistic trio that included the Flying V and Explorer,” said guitar historian Walter Carter in an interview with Gibson.com last year. “‘Non-existent’ is the correct word, since no genuine Moderne has ever surfaced. Gibson employee Jim Duerloo, who was there in 1958, says they never even made a prototype.”
Others disagree with the idea that a Moderne was never constructed. In American Guitars: An Illustrated History, author Tom Wheeler says he interviewed just about every employee who worked for Gibson during that period but that everyone remembers things differently.
“Two sources were certain that the number [of Modernes] constructed was between 40 and 50, and none suggested a higher figure,” writes Wheeler. “We do know that some were destroyed in the Gibson ‘morgue’ subsequent to the industry’s unanimously negative reaction to the guitar and the company’s decision not to add it to the line. The 22 survivors listed in the shipping totals appeared on routine invoices and do not include Modernes sold at cut rate to Gibson employees or those which were kept at the plant for experimental purposes.”
According to Wheeler, McCarty told him that only a half dozen or so Modernes were made. A possible owner of one of those original Modernes? ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons. In 2009, he told Gibson.com that he believes he owns an original Moderne prototype, but its authenticity can’t be proven.
Gibbons recounts, “A couple of years ago I received a call from a friend who heard that a painter from San Antonio wanted to sell a funny-looking old guitar. No big surprise he thought about me immediately. We drove there, checked out the guitar, and bought it. It looked like an old Gibson Moderne, definitely not one of the reissues that Gibson sold in 1982. We showed it to some experts, but none of them could help. Even guitar guru George Gruhn got on the case. He disassembled the guitar and examined every screw, every cable, everything, but not even he could identify this instrument, because there was no information about the Moderne apart from the blueprints. But what he could tell for sure was that all parts of this guitar were from the ’50s. We’ll probably never know. What’s interesting is how this painter, who has nothing to do with guitars, got hold of it: He found it at a junk clearance somewhere.”
Gibson did “reissue” the Moderne in 1982, and that model has become enormously popular with collectors.
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.