Figured it might be time after roughly three years to maybe post some pictures and descriptions of some things I’m looking to add to my collection.
Most of what I’m looking for can be best described as what I don’t know about. It’s always more fun and exciting to stumble upon something you’ve never seen or heard of before.
But, there are some items I would love to add to my collection.
If you have any of these items or know where they are, I’m always interested in talking.
Handwritten letter to a fan, circa 1965.
Keith's pirate worn in the "Respectable" video in May of 1978.
Keith's leather jacket worn in the late 70's.
Keith's Bobby Lee guitar strap used during the Tour of the Americas, 1975.
Main Offender Tour bag.
Signed rubber skull from backstage. "Who is the guy?"
These well worn, well sweated, well jumped around in on stage pants, during The Rolling Stones European Tour in 1982 just brought over $6000.00 including buyer’s premium in the recent Julien’s auction.
The description was as follows:
A pair of Mick Jagger’s stage worn red, yellow and blue pants designed by Anthony Price. The pants were worn during the Rolling Stones 1982 European Tour. The current owner obtained the pants while backstage at one of the concerts. A drink was spilled on the clothing items and the articles of clothing were given to him. When security cleared the area the the clothing was still in his arms. No size present.
A second pair brought even more money hovering around the $7000.00 range, also including a hefty buyer’s premium of 25%.
The market for stage worn clothing is still incredibly strong even in these tough times.
Collectors view these one-of-a-kind items some of the rarest and most valuable to obtain and buy.
I was tempted to buy one of the pairs, but with two kids in college, and my wife standing behind me watching the auction live online, I figured…..maybe better not.
Happy New Year.
Just received data from WordPress on how my blog has been doing over this past year.
Very interesting stuff.
According the the numbers it was viewed roughly 65,000 times in 2010.
If it were a concert at Madison Square Garden, it would have to be performed 3 times.
I wrote 24 new posts this past year and uploaded 91 pictures.
2 of the most popular and viewed posts were about the Stones secret show at Sir Morgan’s Cove, 1981 and Keith Richards’ famous skull ring.
Not surprisingly there is an incredible appetite for anything having to do with Keith. His 5 string guitar. His infamous skull ring. His clothes. The letters he writes to fans.
As I wrote in an earlier blog he seems to still maintain and have the strongest fan base and with the buzz around his new book, seems everyone wants more Keith.
Since my collection has been focused primarily on Keith, I’ll be sharing some of my favorite rarities in this post.
Looking forward to another great year.
Peace,
Gary Rocks
Keith’s pirate shirt worn in the “Respectable” video shoot on May 2, 1978.
Keith’s Bobby Lee guitar strap used throughout the “Tour of the Americas” and well into 1981.
Keith’s leopard lined leather jacket worn in the late 70′s, and given to Art Collins.
A couple of fantastic handwritten letters from the 60′s. (Keith fancies a red biro.)
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.
Much has been written and documented about the now infamous Keith Richards “Lost Sessions” from Longview Farms in North Brookfield, MA prior to the 1981 tour.
When Keith, Patti Hansen his wife, Jane Rose his manager and Alan Dunn and his wife visited Gil Markle’s legendary Longview Farms to check it out before the 1981 Tattoo You tour, Keith as usual made his visit memorable.
Bootlegs galore have been made of those handful of classic songs Keith played on piano along with his Screwdriver and friends sitting close by.
Here is the story written by Gil Markle. Pictured here is the actual Master Tape of that session from Art Collins former Exec. President of Rolling Stones records from 1981-1986.
An excerpt from Mojo Magazine referencing the session.
The Master Tape labeled artist Keith Richards and the songs he sang/takes etc.
The following is an account taken from Gil Markle’s incredible website, “Diary of a Studio Owner.”
http://www.studiowner.com/essays/essay.asp?books=0&pagnum=3018
I was true to the promise I made to Patti Hansen, although it took me a day or two longer than expected to deliver.
“What d’ya think, Keith,” I began. “We’ve been in here for days, it seems. I’ve got to do some things in Worcester. You’ve got to go to Rome. Why don’t I call Bill Mahoney, the pilot, and get you and Patti out of here before the front comes through?”
There really was a lot of bad weather on the way, and it’s best not to fool around with that unless you really have to.
“Sounds O.K. to me,” Keith said. “Sounds O.K. to me. Either that or you’ve got to give me a job banging nails with those lads out in the barn.”
Wouldn’t that be something, I mused. Last remaining superstar guitarist knuckles down with North Brookfield country strong hands — building a Sound Stage for the use of his band, the Rolling Stones.
That didn’t happen, of course. Instead, we called Mahoney and set up a departure out of Worcester for Teterboro at 11 AM the next morning. And I set about doing some rough mixes of the two-inch recording tape I’d made the night before. The piano demos I’d done with Keith. As luck would have it, our Chief Engineer, Jesse Henderson, had taken a week to do some engineering chores for Sha Na Na, in California. And so I had to engineer myself, leaving Reed Desplaines, Night Manager, to play assistant engineer — running back and forth to the tape library for more reels of virgin tape. This for studio buffs: we used three Neumann ’87 microphones on the Steinway, which Pat Metheny left with us two years ago. The piano, I mean. Mikes in our top-secret positions. Another Neumann ’87 on him, close up, with a pop filter; voice highly compressed using an Eleven-seventy-six limiter set at twelve-to-one. Finally, a good measure of live acoustic reverb on either side of his voice, in stereo. Lots of E.Q., on everything. I had only one shot at this, and I wanted it to be right the first time.
The live mix was great all by itself, and the best results of that extraordinary session were in fact recorded directly onto our Studer mastering deck, and not the 24-track. 30 ips; no noise reduction, very hot on AMPEX 456 tape.
“Listen to this one, Keith,” I said, just before driving him to the airport.
I selected the live stereo tape of “The Nearness of You,”1 a classic Hoagy Carmichael ballad dating from the late ’30′s. Keith Richards playing the Steinway, and singing, too.
“It’s not the pale moon, that excites me,
that thrills, and delights me;
Oh no, It’s just the nearness of you.”
“Far out, Gil. Voice sounds great. Sounds great.”
“ZIP — BUZZ . . .” There was a loud, familiar noise on the tape.
“What the hell was that?” Keith asked, with a look of anguish on his face.
“Jane Rose taking a picture of you with her Polaroid camera,” I replied.
“Bloody well ruins that take, didn’t it?”
“No, Keith,” I said. “I think I can razor it out later. We’ve got this tune about six times, anyway. So don’t worry.”
Recording enthusiasts will be interested to know that the eventual edits on these ten or so tunes — classic Keith Richards piano demos — took nearly two weeks’ work. I found the time to do it only a month after the Stones had finally gone, and performed the edits on a 7 1/2 ips dub inadvertently left behind at my house on Cape Cod. Editing at 7 1/2 ips is no fun, as you may know. Several hundred cuts were required, since Keith never really bothered to begin or end any of the tunes. He’d just keep on playing, and singing, with me scrambling to keep tape on the tape machines, late at night in the A-Control Room at Long View Farm.
Don’t
Blue Monday
Studio A at Long View is the one people travel considerable distances to use, and I think you’d hear it said at the Farm that I can make it work pretty much as well as anybody can. Mixing tape is what I like to do. I can make really good, live, super-present mixes. That’s what got me into all this, back in ’72, when I was still teaching Philosophy at Clark. I figured I needed some time off to build a studio to make some mixes in. And that’s how Long View came about.
So when I tell you that the live stereo tape of Keith Richards sounded good, you better believe me that it did.
Oh, what a feeling
Apartment Number 9
We drove Keith Richards and Patti Hansen to the airport the next day. 300-foot overcast; visibility a quarter of a mile in rain and fog. Mahoney couldn’t make it in, missing two instrument approaches in an attempt to land 75 X-Ray. So Randall Barbera, who works for me, as you may remember, offered to drive Keith and Patti over to Westfield in the Cadillac. Westfield was still operating, and only about 45 minutes away. They had a wonderful trip, I learned later. Cruising along on a light powdering, Stolni’s and orange juice, and a fantastic compilation of fifties rock ‘n’ roll classics played at high volume on those wonderful-sounding Auratones mounted on the rear deck of the car. Pete Wolf of the J. Geils Band had left this particular cassette behind. By mistake, I’m sure, because it was a real beauty. “Earth Angel,” “Good Golly, Miss Molly,” “Tears on my Pillow,” and songs like that.
“Take this and listen to it on the way to Westfield, Keith. Only remember it’s not mine but Pete Wolf’s, and he’s certain to want it back.”
“O.K.” Keith said laughing. “I’ll bring it back with me. See you.”
“See you, Keith,” I said.
“Bye, Gil,” Patti said, and then they roared off.
And you take it from here, Pete, if you want that cassette back. He won’t give it to me.
Let’s all pause for a second and note that Keith Richards said “O.K. I’ll bring it back with me.” Meaning the cassette of course. Meaning also that he intended on coming back to Long View. That this gig was going to happen, after all. It was during Randall’s trip to Westfield with Keith Richards that I figured it out all over again — that the Rolling Stones were coming to Long View Farm.
Maybe I’m just a bit slow, sometimes.
Keith's Black leopard lined leather jacket, worn in the late 70's.
Art Collins Vice President of Rolling Stones Records from 1981-1986,
experienced a thing or two in his time with the band, as this post and story will attest to.
Like his office being used by Keith Richards to store various items of clothing.
Specifically the black leather jacket you see pictured.
When I bought this item, I was as fascinated by the story,
as I was being able to buy such an iconic item belonging to the legend himself.
What really defines a rock star?
Many things I imagine.
Obviously their music first and foremost.
But then, a close second has to be their style.
And what describes “The Human Riff,” better than one of his many leather jackets.
In building my collection I’ve always had an eye to collecting items that truly capture the spirit and the essence of the individual.
In the case of Keith Richards, he has for me defined what Rock and Roll is.
In his music, and his lifestyle.
The true definition of Rock and Roll excess.
Here’s the letter from Art describing the circumstances in which he came upon Keith’s jacket as well as an article in a trade magazine describing the clothes Art speaks of piled up in his office on his couch.
Enjoy.
You really don’t want to piss of your partner.
Especially when he’s Keith Richards.
But Mick needed to test himself in 1985 by going solo for the first time in his career
with She’s the Boss.
When The Rolling Stones signed with CBS Records in 1983, one of the options available to them was for individual projects, and Jagger – ready to spread his wings after recording exclusively with his famous band for twenty years – eagerly began working on She’s the Boss.
Following the release of Undercover, Jagger began composing material for his first solo project, sanctioning the help of various musician friends in the studio when recording began in May 1984. Of those involved were Pete Townshend, Jeff Beck, Carlos Alomar and Herbie Hancock, while Jagger would share production duties with Bill Laswell and Nile Rodgers.
Keenly aware of the current musical trends – and taking advantage of his freedom – Jagger endeavored to make She’s the Boss sound hip and contemporary, giving the album a very mid-1980s character with its use of synthesizers and drum machines.
Keith Richards, Jagger’s longtime musical partner in The Rolling Stones, was not pleased that Jagger was pursuing solo work, feeling that their band should be each others’ first priority. The growing friction between both musicians would erupt – in a most publicized way – in 1986, before they resolved their differences a couple of years later.
She’s the Boss was released in February 1985 – preceded by its lead song “Just Another Night”. Both the album and its first single became worldwide hits, with “Just Another Night” reaching #1 on the US Mainstream Rock chart and #12 on the US pop chart, and She’s the Boss going to #6 in the UK and #13 in the US, where it went platinum. Follow-up single “Lucky In Love” would be a Top 40 US hit. Although critical response to the album was warm, many later reviewers consider She’s the Boss – with its distinct 1980s production techniques – to sound somewhat dated in style.[citation needed]
The success of the album – impacted by Jagger’s solo appearance at Live Aid that July and his rush-recorded duet hit cover of “Dancing In The Street” with David Bowie – influenced Jagger to record a successor, Primitive Cool, which would be released in 1987.
Although originally released by CBS, She’s the Boss was acquired and reissued by Atlantic Records in 1993 following the release of Jagger’s third album, Wandering Spirit.
In 1986, Jamaican reggae singer Patrick Alley attempted to sue Jagger over the song “Just Another Night,” which Alley claims he had recorded in 1979 and released on his 1982 album, A Touch of Patrick Alley. Alley claimed that Sly Dunbar (who played drums on She’s the Boss) also played on his recording. The case was cleared in 1988, with Jagger stating “My reputation is really cleared. If you’re well known, people stand up and take shots at you.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She%27s_The_Boss
The following are direct from the files of a former publicist and personal assistant to Mick Jagger.
Typed and xeroxed lyrics with hand written annotations by Jagger.
Concert used memorabilia in collecting is rare and difficult to find. Authenticating that the item was concert used is even more difficult and documentation is even harder to find.
Which makes the pictured item rare indeed.
Concert used and signed drumsticks belonging to Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones.
For starters, they are Ludwig drumsticks.
Charlie used and played Ludwig back in the 80′s.
He now uses Vic Firth.
Secondly they were played at a very unique concert.
December 18, 1981 Hampton, VA, the last show of the “Tattoo You” tour, Keith Richards birthday and a specially taped show for television.
Read the letter from Stones President Art Collins on how he obtained the sticks from Charlie after the show.
A few items signed by Charlie that aren’t as difficult to sign as drumsticks.
RARE STICKY FINGERS STORE DISPLAY FEATURING AN ALMOST LIFE SIZE MICK JAGGER.
Back in 1971 The Rolling Stones were at the height of their craft.
It’s hard to believe any band could produce back to back to back albums the likes of Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street in the span of 3 years.
Unheard of even today.
My guess it will never be matched or done again.
The following is a review from Rolling Stone magazine back in 1971 on the release of Sticky Fingers,
arguably one, if not the definitive Stones record.
In my mind not only did the Stones break new ground recording Sticky Fingers, once again broke the rules, no make that smash and destroy the rules, of record album design.
SIDE ONE
“Brown Sugar:” It begins with some magical raunch chords on the right channel. In the tradition of great guitar intros (“All Day and All of the Night,” “Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown,” and “Satisfaction” itself) it transfixes you: instant recognition, instant connection. Suddenly the electric guitar is joined by an acoustic guitar on the left channel, an acoustic that is merely strumming the chords that the electric is spitting out with such fury. It washes over the electric to no apparent purpose, stripping it momentarily of its authority and intensity. and so, in the first 15 seconds of the albums first cut we are presented with its major conflict: driving, intense, wide-open rock versus a controlled and manipulative musical conception determined to fill every whole and touch every base.
As soon as the voices come on, the acoustic recedes into inaudibility: on “Brown Sugar” wide open rock wins by a hair, but it is a hollow victory. Opening cuts on Stones albums have always been special, fro the early ones – “Not Fade Away,” “Round and Round,” and “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love: – with their promise of rock and roll to come, to the tour de force openings of the later albums – “Symphony for the Devil” and “Gimme Shelter” – which served as overwhelming entrances into a more complex musical world view.
At their best these opening cuts were statements of themes that transcended both the theme itself and the music that was to follow. As I listened to “Sticky Fingers,” for the first time I thought “Brown Sugar” was good, but not that good. I certainly hoped it wasn’t the best thing on the album. As it turns out, there are a few moments that surpass it but it still sets the tone for the album perfectly: middle-level Rolling Stones competence. The lowpoints aren’t that low, but the high points, with one exception, aren’t that high.
As to the performance itself, the chords, harmony, and song are powerful stuff. The instrumentation however, is too diffuse, occasionally undermining the vocals instead of supporting them. But when Richards joins Jagger for the last chorus they finally make it home free.
“Sway:” Vaguely reminiscent of “Stray Cat Blues” but not nearly so powerful. The sound is characteristic Rolling Stones messiness enhanced by the unusual degree of separation in the mix. Charlie Watts bashes away with the smirking abandon that made him such a delight on songs like “Get Off My Cloud” and “All Sold Out.” But unlike early Stones messiness, “Sway” lacks intensity. It never reaches a goal because it doesn’t seem to have one. Rather, it remains a series of riffs whose lack of content is obscured by prolonged and indifferent guitar semi-solos and a fine string arrangement that suddenly enters towards the end.
“Wild Horses:” A good song with lots of good things in it that doesn’t quite come off. The acoustic 12-string stands out over everything else in the arrangement – perhaps a little too far out, as the rest of the instruments sound like mere fragments, wandering in and out of the track at arbitrary intervals.
Jagger’s vocal is clearly audible for the first time on the album and I don’t care for it. It is mannered, striving for intensity without being wholly convincing. Musically, the more complex the Stones get the m ore inadequate he sometimes sounds. The man is a stylist as opposed to a singer. He has always lacked power and range: on 15 albums he has never really grabbed hold of a note and let it ring. At his best, he sings around the notes – plays with them – dancing in and out with precision.
Or, he can let himself go entirely, with no attempt at stylistic posturing and thereby achieving an almost incredibly naturalism. But, on “Wild Horses,” there is a pint in which the only thing that will work is a good note, well sung, sustained and sufficient to stand on its own. It is not to be found. A musical attitude is not a replacement for a musical style and style is not a replacement for essential technique, which is what is missing here.
The longing of the song’s lyrics coupled with its ultimate hope constitute as much of a theme a there is on this record. Typically (since “Between the Buttons”) the Stones’ statement alternates between aggressive sexuality and warmer, more subtly erotic statements of emotional dependence and openness. The flirtation with social significance of the last two albums has been almost wholly abandoned in what appears to be something of a recommitment to more personal subject matter.
“Can’t You Hear Me Knocking:” Years ago, when I first heard that the Stones had recorded something 11 minutes long, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it, thinking it was sure to be the definitive rave-up and hoping it would finally put the Yardbirds and Them in their place. When I finally heard “Going Home” I realized the Stones couldn’t conceive of a long cut as anything but a vehicle for Jagger to project through. Given the time to stretch out, they went for the mellow down easy side with the emphasis on the voice rather than the instruments.
Now they have done something with a long instrumental break in it and it ain’t bad. On the other hand, I can’t see what it really has to do with the Rolling Stones. The song is good but once into the solos there is a touch of R&B, a touch of Santana, but nothing to really identify with. So maybe they had the right idea the first time. For old times sake I do hope that the really boring guitar solo is by Mick Taylor and that those great surging chords in the background are by Keith Richards, the original Sixties rock and roll guitarist, and mast of Chuck Berry music, and the soul of the Rolling Stones.
“You Gotta Move:” Anyway, for the present, Mick Taylor’s electric slide guitar is absolutely exquisite. Combined with Richard’s fine work on the acoustic they create one of the album’s few real moments. Charlie Watts’ bass drum holds it together perfectly, while Richard’s harmony smoothes off the more outrageous edges of Jagger’s lead vocal. In the end, all the pieces fit. A small but important triumph.
SIDE TWO
“Bitch:” Jagger in one of his most popular poses: demonic. here he flaunts naughty words and naughty thoughts as if he still thought they were naughty. The arrangement is straight-ahead. The horns sound great here as they are used primarily for purposes of syncopation and rhythm. The bass and drums – the Rolling Stones bottom that has driven its way through over 200 cuts and which is the true instrumental trademark of the group – burns like a bitch.
“I’ve Got the Blues:” In the tradition of the earlier R&B Imitations such as “Pain In My Heart,” “You Better Move On,” “If You Need Me,” and best of all their great “That’s How Strong My Love Is.” However, this is the first time they actually added Stax horns. It’s good as far as it goes, but lacks the feeling of the earlier imitations. It all seems pro forma. The worst cut the Rolling Stones ever released was “I’ve Been Lovin’ You Too Long” (which sounds very much like a studio recording even though it showed up on “Got Live I You Want It”). Jagger couldn’t sing it. Here he almost sings up a storm, but in the end its the part he didn’t sing that stays in mind. Somehow, it isn’t complete.
“Sister Morphine:” This was supposed to be stark, intense and realistic. Some hear it that way. I find it lyrically convincing, but labored to the point of being unlistenable musically. Perhaps that is part of the conception: obviously, a song about morphine should not be pleasant to hear. The question is, is the song unpleasant because it makes us uncomfortable emotionally, or simply because it is an awkward and unsuccessful attempt to depict reality through music?
“Dead Flowers:” I suppose somewhere along the line they thought of calling the album “Dead Flowers,” which would have justified this cut’s presence at some level. Despite its parodistic intentions, the mere thought of the Stones doing straight country music is simply appalling. And they do it so poorly, especially the lead guitar. The cut is ordinary without being either definitive or original.
“Moonlight Mile:” From “Brown Sugar” we had to wait all the way to here to get a masterpiece. The semi-oriental touch seems to heighten the song’s intense expression of desire, which is the purest and most engaging emotion present on the record. The sense of personal commitment and emotional spontaneity immediately liberate Jagger’s (double-tracked) singing: it’s limitations become irrelevant and he rises to the occasion by turning in his best performance on the album – the only thing that compares with his singing of “Gimme Shelter.”
There is something soulful here, something deeply felt: “I’ve got silence on the radio, let the airwaves flow, let the airwaves flow.” Paul Buckmaster, Elton John’s arranger, does the best job with strings I can remember in a long, long time, while Charlie Watts only goes through the motions of loosening up his style, as he comes down hard on the nearly magical line, “Just about a moonlight mile.”
The cut contains that rave-up they never gave us on “Goin Home”; perhaps it is just a filling out of the intensely erotic climax that came towards the end of that song (“Sha-la-la,” and all of that). When Jagger finally says “Here we go, now” as Mick Taylor’s guitar (Richard is inexplicably absent) falls perfectly into place with a hypnotic chord pattern, it’s as if he is taking our hand and is literally going to walk us down his dream road. As the strings push the intensity level constantly upwards and Charlie emphasizes the development with fabulous cymbal crashes, the energy becomes unmistakably erotic – erotic as opposed to merely sexual, erotic in a way that the entire rest of the album is not. The expression of need that dominates so much of the record is transformed from a hostile statement into a plea and a statement of warmth and receptiveness.
This cut really does sway and when Jagger’s voice re-enters, it is with none of the forced attempts at style and control present on the rest of the album, but with the kind of abandon that he seems uniquely capable of. And unique is the best word to describe the cut as a whole: after nine songs that hover around the middle, they finally hit the high note and make a statement that is not just original but that could have only come from them.
At least it gives me hope for the future…..
On Sticky Fingers, it doesn’t really sound like they are doing what they want to. Play “Brown Sugar” and then play any opening cut from the first five albums. The early ones are sloppy, messy, and vulgar. They are brash and almost ruthless in their energy. And they sound real. By comparison “Brown Sugar,” for all its formal correctness is an artifice. Ultimately they sound detached from it, as they do from all but a few things on Sticky Fingers. The two million hours they joke about spending on this record must have surely resulted from uncertainty about what it was they wanted to hear when they were through. On the other hand, those early records always sounded (whether they were is irrelevant) as if they were recorded in a day, without any overdubbing, comprised mainly of first takes. They reverberated with off the wall spunk and spontaneity.
Obviously the Stones can’t go back to that: it would be redundant and incredibly limiting for them. But perhaps they have now gone too far the other way. If Sticky Fingers suffers from any one thing it’s its own self-defeating calculating nature. Its moments of openness and feeling are too few: its moments where I know I should be enjoying it but am not, too great.
JON LANDAU/ROLLING STONE
(Posted: Jun 10, 1971)
