The Rolling Stones

In the early 60’s when The Ed Sullivan Show was one of the main outlets for actually seeing the bands we heard on the radio, I remember seeing both The Beatles and The Stones and getting into a small competition with my brother about who was better. We both loved The Beatles, but my brother was taken aback by The Stones’ scruffy appearance. I loved it, and immediately became a Stones booster. The early singles I remember hearing-Satisfaction, Ruby Tuesday, Paint It Black, Mother’s Little Helper were just magic to my ears. And the way they looked! They weren’t perfect kewpie dolls like The Beatles, they looked like well-dressed street-toughs.

Mick Jagger and Jr. Wells-October -
70-photo by Dick Waterman

Ultra Rare 1st press mono of their 1st album
with the poster

Throughout the 1970’s, they offered up a string of incredible albums that helped create the idea of album-oriented rock. “Sticky Fingers,” “Exile on Main Street,” “It’s Only Rock N Roll,” “Goat’s Head Soup” and “Some Girls” defined the era for me as much as any albums. They also continued to be the most visually stimulating band. Seeing both “Gimme Shelter” and “Ladies And Gentlemen The Rolling Stones” in the theatre was a frequent and moving experience. I remember seeing “Ladies and Gentlemen” at a movie theatre on Evans and Monaco that later became the Rainbow Music Hall. That movie remains one of my favorite rock and roll documentaries. The band is absolutely at their peak-Mick is the master of the universe, counterbalanced by new boy Mick Taylor’s expressionless performance. While barely moving, he sprays out the most incendiary, fluid lead guitar lines you’ve ever heard. He doesn’t get the attention that many other 60’s peers get, perhaps because of his short tenure, but his playing in that movie stands up against any other lead guitar player of the era. Between them stands the greatest rock star of all time-Keith Richards. If you have never understood the appeal of Keith, I’d point you to that movie. Like some protean form of human quicksilver, he oozes around the stage, seemingly barely conscious, except for the fact that the human riff machine is the chugging engine behind every song, providing the chunky rhythm and memorable hooks to every classic, then stepping up to play the heroic leads on songs like Sympathy For The Devil or Jumpin’ Jack Flash. Even today, Keith is still the coolest. Like a modern-day pirate with a guitar instead of a scabbard, he’s on the ship-friggin’ in the riggin’ for all of us.

Live, The Stones are the only band from the 60’s that still offer a reasonable facsimile of what they once were. Their shows are still thrilling spectacles filled with surprises and songs you actually want to hear. They constantly defy expectation. They are the only band I’ll still travel to see, and when I do it’s never a disappointment, because that magic still exists. I’ve had the opportunity to meet them several times, and interestingly they are the opposite in person. Tiny, chalk-white, humble, polite and sweet they were completely disarming in their ordinary courtesy. When my wife leaned into Mick’s ear and said “I’ve loved you since the 60’s and you’re even better looking in person” he got a huge grin on his face “Thank you daaahling, that’s so kind of you.” How many times has he heard that? A billion maybe? He acted like it was the first compliment he’d ever received. Keith slouched around, his handshake like a dead fish, but he had a wink and a backslap for everybody. He knows exactly who he is-so few people can claim that.

Keith reaches nirvana At Folsom Field,
Boulder 1981

Poster from The 1965 Denver Coliseum show,
and photo from that show

Maybe that’s the real magic behind The Rolling Stones-they represent the pinnacle of rock elite, yet they still seem connected to their roots at some very primal level. They ARE the rock and roll dream. Local boys who done very, very good. Here’s some of my favorite stuff.

Paul Epstein

Several Species Of Small Furry Thoughts - KEEF

It’s going to be a very Keith Richards Christmas and New Year. What with the recent release of the incredible concert movie Ladies and Gentlemen The Rolling Stones, the re-release and re-expansion of Keith’s hypnotic Wingless Angels project, the earlier releases of the expanded Exile On Main Street and its accompanying documentaryStones In Exile, it all seems to be setting the stage for the massive two-year world trek that even the band is calling their final tour. Thus it is almost an embarrassment of riches that Keith has released his tremendously entertaining autobiography Life and put out a single disc retrospective of his solo career Vintage Vinos that elicits a reassessment of the man and the myth.
Life is so much more than I could have expected. The hoped for tales of excess on the road are all there; and he really hides very little in the way of juicy details. The book opens during the Stones’ ’75 tour of America with him tearing across the country in a rented car with Woody and the ultimate drug-dealer to the stars, Freddie Sessler (there needs to be a book about this guy too), completely ripped on every drug imaginable. They getting popped in small-town Arkansas, and through wile, bravado, and high-as-a-kite luck they talk their way out of it. We learn about both the recklessness and the charmed nature of his existence right off the bat. There is no other rock star - period. Keith is the ultimate! One suspects that he paints himself as a bit more saintly in the last decade or so than might be the truth, but for the most part he pulls no punches. After the ’75 incident, we jump back in time for a long, fascinating and very Anglo look back at his childhood. He seems to have grown up a cross between the Artful Dodger and well, Keith Richards. His post-war, lower class upbringing seems a perfect metaphor for the entire generation who came of age with him. He is a baby-boomer whose life was shaped by the immediate past (WWII) and whose life helped shape the future. The casual way he talks about the birth of Rock and Roll and his part in it just reeks of authenticity. You know he was there, and we now know he was not some drugged up moron. He was a drugged up keen observer of people and places. His take on the events of the times are always thoughtful and earthy. After all the many books written about the era, it is interesting that the Human Riff has some of the most insightful things to say about the times he inhabited.
His insights into the music of The Rolling Stones are also unique. He is impressed with Mick Jagger’s talent, but is clearly not star-struck and again pulls no punches when describing the large ego and small weenie of his 50-year partner. His overall feeling towards Jagger and all the Stones is loving and respectful, and in spite of some playful cattiness we actually get the clearest picture ever of the depth of their creative marriage and their love for each other. It is hard to remember a better book about Rock and Roll than Life, but then it is hard to find a better rock and roller than Keith Richards.
In addition to all the Stones albums you will listen to while reading this book, pick up Vintage Vinos. This superbly chosen set takes songs from all three X-pensive Winos releases; Talk Is Cheap, Main Offender and their Live At The Hollywood Palladium and shows Richards’ solo career to be pretty damn great. Songs like “You Don’ Move Me,” “Eileen,” Wicked As It Seems” and “Locked Away” would fit in perfectly with the Stones repertoire, but others like “Struggle” or “Take It So Hard” have a uniquely Keith feel about them, and the three Stones songs he performs live - “Connection,” “Happy” and “Time Is On My Side” - boast his rough and ready abilities to carry this material. Perhaps the most exciting song on the album is the rarely heard “Hurricane” which was released as a benefit for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Written by the Glimmer Twins, it is just Keith and Woody in the studio playing acoustic guitars and Keith singing the slyly simplistic lyrics about the great tragedy unfolding before his eyes. It is short, very sweet and it alone demands you own the album.

Several Species Of Small Furry Thoughts-STONED

Finally, the most compelling evidence of The Rolling Stones as greatest band in the world is here. The 1972 concert film Ladies and Gentlemen... The Rolling Stones has never officially been released for home video and now it is out, in all its glory. This is it. If you love The Stones, there is no greater footage of this band in concert. I took home the Blu-Ray version and waited breathlessly as the band takes the stage and breaks into “Brown Sugar.” Not only is the song list exactly to my taste - heavy on Exile and Sticky songs, one can’t help but be mesmerized by the real miracle of this era of Rolling Stones - Mick Taylor! Again and again throughout this program Taylor absolutely floors you with his perfect guitar solos. His ability to lock into Keith’s groove and then go high above it with perfect, wailing cascades of notes is chilling. Speaking of Keef - he could not look or act cooler than he does in this movie. He is Rock perfection. Which is not to take anything away from the other Mick, whose performance is propelled by his manic, druggy charisma more than the cultivated dance steps and audience manipulation of his modern performances. It should be a humbling reminder for any other band to watch this footage of how great the Stones really are, and any guitar player who thinks he is hot shit should take a moment to review Taylor’s leads on “Gimme Shelter,” “Love In Vain” or “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” before slinking back to their hole to practice for another thousand years. The picture and sound are cleaned up beautifully and the release also includes some interviews and three songs from a tour rehearsal that show the band in uber-hipster mode. It is hard to convey how great this footage is - all I can say is "this is it!"! 

Want more Keef? There has just been a release of his rarely heard reggae group called The Wingless Angels. Originally released in 1997, this album of chants and drum circles featuring Keith on guitar, bass, organ and vocals on every song. It is real roots reggae. This is not a bunch of goodtiming hits - it is a deep meditation of like-minded dreads and their patron from Babylon. It says much about Keith that this group of Rasta elders and experienced musicians let him into their circle, but they did, and they trusted him enough to play with them and record the results. This release expands the original album with a second disc of sessions that is as good if not better than the original. This is healing music for deep smoking and meditation. If you are ready for it; it can be a healing and uplifting experience, and it is an essential part of the Keith Richards mystery and mystique.