Rare Rolling Stones memorabilia that’s rarely seen.

As far as collectors go, I’m pretty much a newbie.
There are plenty of folks out there that have been at this a lot longer than me.
They were buying in the early days scoffing up displays, toys, posters, autographs, when no one saw any of this stuff as being at all valuable.
It was for all intents and purposes seen as junk for Stones cuckoos and fanatics.

They had the last laugh.

Here’s a bunch of early Stones items that I’ve yet to see or run across.
Once in a great while you hear one of these babies sold privately for some sick amount of money.
On occasion they may show up in auction also commanding top dollar.

It’s stuff like this that keeps me collecting and constantly on the hunt.
Back to eBay.
Wish me luck.

Photo courtesy of Matt Lee.

Photo courtesy of Ira Korman

In honor of Mick Taylor’s birthday, a post on the greatest Stones album ever, Exile on Main Street and the 1972 tour.

A billboard on Sunset Blvd promoting the new album. As you can imagine, not without controversy.

Super rare promo poster featuring 3-Ball Charlie.

Exile on Main Street was a 1972 release (on Atlantic Records) by The Rolling Stones, with cover artwork & design by John Van Hamersveld. When the Rolling Stones released Exile in 1972 – a double album of songs representing the many different genres of music that shaped Stones music at the time – fans and critics found themselves having to spend a lot of time trying to “get it”. It required a number of listens to gain an appreciation of what, on the surface, often seemed to be a collection of studio out-takes and Richards/Taylor/Watts jams than a freshly-recorded musical offering.

Many critics of the era failed to appreciate the Stones’ explorations of R&B, Soul, Country and roots Rock that were spread over the 4 album sides. In fact, the record was comprised of a series of recordings done during the previous four years and, as such, they featured a variety of mixes (some better than others) and showed the band building on top of these influences in their own inimitable style to the point that, now over 35 years later, the package is considered by many to be the band’s most-authentic offering. It is always listed near the top of most of the “Best Of” and “Greatest” lists (#7 on the Rolling Stone Magazine 2003 list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”, #22 on VH-1’s survey, and even impressed the younger generation enough to be ranked #11 on Pitchfork’s 2003 list of Best Albums of the 1970s).

In a similar fashion, when the buying public took their first look at the design and imagery of the sprawling record cover, most people admitted that they didn’t “get it”. Having just soaked in Warhol’s ultimately-iconic zipper cover for Sticky Fingers, fans should have been ready for anything, but John Van Hamersveld’s designs seemed to confound them, asking them to digest a rough, anti-establishment, punk-before-there-was-punk collage of images that may have, initially, combined with the unfamiliar musical stylings to impact sales (don’t worry, as the record was supported by the now-famous 1972 American concert tour and songs such as “Happy” and “Tumbling Dice” got some significant radio play, the record went on to top the charts in the U.S. and the U.K.).

And so when Van Hamersveld, who’d established his industry cred via his poster and package designs for Hendrix, The Beatles (Magical Mystery Tour), Jefferson Airplane (Crown of Creation) and others, was approached by the Rolling Stones (who were in a studio in LA putting the finishing touches on this new album) to work on the graphics and packaging for a songbook project the band wanted to release, an interesting series of events on the day of their initial meeting had a profound impact on the course of album art history.

Bill Janovitz' book on Exile. A must read.

Above is the ultra rare Exile Store Display.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exile_on_Main_St.

Some girls give me money, Some girls buy me clothes.

I thought I’d start the New Year off by writing a post on one of my favorite Stones albums, Some Girls.

Some Girls is the 14th British and 16th American studio album by The Rolling Stones, released in 1978.
Considered a highlight of their output and the best of their post-Exile on Main St. records, the album revitalized the band’s career upon its release and re-established The Rolling Stones as a vital rock and roll band in an era infused with punk rock and disco.
It also became the band’s biggest-selling album in the United States, with more than six million copies to date.
Some Girls is ranked number 269 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

At least as important for the band’s reinvigoration was the addition of Ronnie Wood to the lineup, as Some Girls was the first album recorded with him as a full member. His guitar playing style meshed with that of Keith Richards.
Wood’s slide guitar playing would become one of the band’s hallmarks, and his unconventional uses of the instrument are prominent on Some Girls.
In addition, Jagger, who had learned to play guitar over the previous decade, contributed a third guitar part to many songs. This gave songs like “Respectable” a three-guitar lineup.

Here’s the framed shirt Keith wore in the “Respectable” video shot on May 2, 1978.

Mick Jagger is generally regarded as the principal creative force behind Some Girls, a conception that, though disputable (Richards was present at all of the sessions), is plausible considering Richards’ various legal entanglements at the time. Jagger claimed in a 1995 interview to have written a great number of the album’s songs (though when the amount was pointed out to him he denied that the record was mostly his own), including its signature song, “Miss You.” In addition to punk, Jagger claims to have been influenced by dance music, most notably disco, during the recording of Some Girls, and cites New York City as a major inspiration for the album, an explanation for his lyrical preoccupation with the city throughout.

The inspiration for the record was really based in New York and the ways of the town. I think that gave it an extra spur and hardness. And then, of course, there was the punk thing that had started in 1976. Punk and disco were going on at the same time, so it was quite an interesting period. New York and London, too. Paris—there was punk there. Lots of dance music. Paris and New York had all this Latin dance music, which was really quite wonderful. Much more interesting than the stuff that came afterward.

Above is a complete Some Girls press kit signed by the band as well as Ian Stewart and Ian McLargen.
Ronnie Wood signed Woody which he never does.
The Art Collins collection.

Rare boxing style poster.

A real oddity.
The die-cut faces that were once part of the original graphics for the Some Girls album cover.
Mick threw these into the audience instead of his traditional rose petals during the brief 1978 tour.