The Rolling Stones: Exile On Main Street - 1972
"It was just an afternoon jam that everybody said, 'Wow, yeah, work on it'" - Keith Richards
The final album in the quadruple set of superb Rolling Stones albums that included Beggars' Banquet (1968); Let It Bleed (1969) and Sticky Fingers (1971). While Sticky Fingers had been a dynamic thump of what was to become typical Stones blues rock, Exile On Main St. was an absolute tour de force.
Without doubt The Stones' finest album of the seventies, there is a compelling case for its claim to being the finest Stones album of all time. Recorded at the moment in time when The Stones were their most "debauched", the group were by now gnarled old veterans of the rock music scene, having outlived The Beatles already by two years. Along with Led Zeppelin, they were the "big" rock group of the early seventies. They lived it too, the drugs, the drinking, the private jets, the women.
Recorded largely in a sweltering hot basement in Southern France, the album has often been labelled a work of lazy, rough and ready, don't give a whatever genius. In many ways this is true, the sound has always been a bit muffled and it plays like one long drinking and rocking session. However, on this 2009 remaster, the sound is surprisingly good, nowhere near as bad as that on the follow-up, 1973's Goat's Head Soup. The bass is full and warm and the drum sound excellent. Even Jagger's supposedly "slurred" vocals are, for me, at times clear, energetic and impassioned. A lot of the musicianship on the album is deceptively impressive, contrary to the "lazy" description usually attributed to it. For much of the album, blues is the name of the game. This is so much a blues album, possibly one of The Stones' best. Blues rock of the highest order. While Sticky Fingers had set the standard high with an album of what would now become typical Stones blues rock, this album went one, no two, no three better and blew the roof off.
Let's get rolling those dice, then....
The first, and fast, side kicks off with a strong rocker, Rocks Off, continuing the sound from Sticky Fingers' Bitch - punchy horns, big full bass and a general sound quality that is much better than one had been led to believe. The energy levels are impressive for a band who were supposedly drug-addled and lazy during the album's recording. The vitality and sheer in-your-face punch is continued on a rousing, fast-paced bar-room rocker, Rip This Joint, that sees Jagger on fine form, accompanied by rocking boogie piano and a great saxophone solo at the end. Its pace is so fast you wonder just how Jagger kept up with it. It is the album's most archetypal upbeat Stones rocker.
Shake Your Hips is a serving of New Orleans-style rhythmic boogie blues, intoxicating and menacing and featuring some wonderful percussion from Charlie, Keith's guitar and a sneeringly nasal vocal from a perfectly in time but groovily ad hoc Jagger. It's rhythmic as hell too, helped on its infectious way by Bill Wyman's beautifully rubbery bass and Bobby Key's saxophone. The upbeat bar-room blues feeling continues with Casino Boogie, featuring some genuine thumping kick-ass Stones blues. Get a load of the saxophone solo while you're at it. The Stones never played blues rock better than they do on this a perfect wedding of blues and raunchy, cocksure Stones rock. It sets the tone perfectly for the next track...
A live favourite for years, the vaguely Southern states-style, drawling rocker that is Tumbling Dice has some atmospheric, albeit often incomprehensible lyrics about gambling and it made a great choice for a single. I have read some objections to its place in the many lists of Stones classics, but I've always thought it was right up there - the vocals, the guitar, the general feel. Top notch stuff.Now, with Sweet Virginia, things go very country/blues-ish. In these days of CDs and downloads, it is often forgotten that this kicked off the original side two, designed, according to Richards, to be listened to late at night. Side two was definitely one with a distinctly more relaxed ambience. It has an acoustic guitar leading proceedings. and is very rough and ready with yet more excellent boogie piano. Jagger just wants to "scrape that shit right off your shoe". Charming. Oh, and Jagger's harmonica is hauntingly beautiful on this as well as some subtle and melodious Bobby Keys saxophone. Although the song has that loose, party feel that brings to mind the sweating French studio, it was actually recorded in the UK.
Torn And Frayed gives us even more Jagger-style swaggering, lazy-sounding country blues heaven with that wonderful steel guitar again. It was 1972 after all. Country was de rigeur. Keith was hanging out with Gram Parsons too. It is far too Stonesy to be considered bona fide country, however. It is Stones country, and that is something has its own unique sound.
Sweet Black Angel was a song in topical support of jailed activist Angela Davis has an infectious creole, Haitian-style voodoo rhythm underpinning its acoustic guitar. Very seductive and surprisingly gentle. The track has tended to get forgotten about in subsequent years, possibly because its cause is no longer necessary, Davis being freed soon after this.
The soulful Loving Cup sees the return of the horns to yet another bluesy number. It has a strong chorus and actually dated from the Beggars' Banquet sessions. It suited this album far more and had a feel of some of the Goats Head material about it. Charlie Watts' drumming is rhythmically powerful here, enough to rouse those late night listeners Richards referred to out of their slumbers.
Time for some brassy rock once more. The upbeat, rocking, riffy Happy is possibly Keith Richards' finest "solo" Stones number. He said of it that, after turning up late one afternoon for a session, he, Bobby Keys (sax) and producer Jimmy Miller (drums) cut the original take - "it was just an afternoon jam that everybody said 'wow, yeah, work on it'". Southside Johnny did a fine cover of it on his 2005 Into The Harbour album.The country blues vibe returns and gets even better with an excellent - if distastefully-titled - song in Turd On The Run, with its powerful bass lines. The line "I gave you diamonds, you gave me disease" adds to the sleaziness of the song. Its harmonica-driven, grimy, muffled pace never lets up from the outset, and its sort of semi-complete feel stands as an exemplum of the album's rough and ready charm. A pencil sketch in an artist's rough book.
A rare credit for Mick Taylor as co-composer on the industrial, potent blues chugger, Ventilator Blues. It was written in frustrated "tribute" to the malfunctioning air-conditioning system in the French studio. Regarding its quality, though, this album just gets better and better, doesn't it? This is a really good cut, belying the "murky sound" accusations. Everything sounds fine here.
Jagger questions the existence of Christ on the mysterious, mesmeric and Mephistophelean number, I Just Want To See His Face, that remains as the album's most underrated track, for me. It sees the return of Sweet Black Angel's voodoo-style drums.
This section of the album concludes the most bluesy part of it...
....before we get to the final side, however, what would be more of a typical Stones 70s sound is present with the gospelly Let It Loose, which wouldn't have sounded out of place on Goats Head Soup - slow-paced guitar, soulful organ, solid drums, keyboard riffs, great brass breaks and a tortured, affected Jagger vocal. It is a fine merging of grandiose rock, soul and gospel, Jagger and the backing singers complementing each other perfectly. Its five minutes form one of the cornerstones of the album.
It is Stones rock all the way on the copper-bottomed kick-asser, All Down The Line. It remained a regular a concert favourite, usually early in the set, getting the audience in the mood to rock. What a great single it would have made, too.
More liveliness is here too on a gutsy Robert Johnson cover, Stop Breaking Down, featuring some fine Jagger harmonica and some serious riffing from Richards. It is another of the tracks that sort of gets lost amongst all the good stuff on offer, but in many ways, its sound is an integral part of the album's overall impression. It is down 'n' dirty Stones rock/blues.
In Shine A Light we get a bit of gospel in an anthemic, soulful underrated classic of a song that would have made a fine closer, with its rousing "may the good Lord shine a light on you" chorus. Jagger never sounded better than he did on this one, backed well as he was by backing singers Clydie King and Vanetta Field, among others. It is a Stones song that genuinely has the power to move me as opposed to rocking me. The song actually dated from the Let It Bleed sessions.
Soul Survivor ends the album with some classic Stones rock, introducing the riff that would be used by The Stones again on It Must Be Hell on 1983's Undercover and by guitarist Slash guesting on Michael Jackson's mid -80s Black Or White.
For many, The Stones did not produce anything of any real worth after this, which is a bit harsh on some other great material, but in terms of genuine copper-bottomed greatness, it is probably true. Once I start listening to it again, I can't get enough.
Similar to the Some Girls sessions extra tracks released on 2010's Deluxe Edition, these tracks were recovered from the Exile On Main St vaults and their foundations re-vamped and enhanced by new vocals and some new instrumentation, together with an upgrade in sound quality. It is sort of like a new album, but one that has its roots in those heady days back in 1972. Only two of the out-takes are un-doctored, so to speak - Good Time Women (an early Tumbling Dice) and Soul Survivor.
Many have criticised this decision to effectively re-record this material around its original foundations but not me. Yes, the material they found could have been released as half-finished, scratchy demos, but this gives us an idea as to how good the eventual songs may have sounded, while in effect releasing a new Stones album at the same time. The material, like that for Some Girls, is most impressive.
Pass The Wine (Sophia Loren) is a deliciously bassy, shuffling groove with a lasciviously drawled Jagger vocal. It is clearly enhanced by some latter-day instrumentation, particularly the brass sections, but that it not a problem for me, it is a great track. Quite what the link to Sophia Loren was is unclear. The sound quality on this is by far the most "modern" and it certainly sounds like a new 2010 song as opposed to an old 1972 session leftover.
Plundered My Soul is a mid-pace slow rocker with a fair few hints of the original album about, especially in its slightly muffled, dense muddiness. Mick Taylor added a new guitar part in 2010. The piano-driven blues of I'm Not Signifying is one that kept its original Jagger vocal. You can tell, it has that Exile-era lazy feel to its sound. Jagger added a killer harmonica solo in 2010.
Following The River is a typical piece of slow but powerful Jagger balladry led by piano and subtle backing vocals. It wouldn't have sounded out of place on A Bigger Bang. Dancing In The Light, as with quite a lot of the material, is a bit more 1973-74 sounding than 1972. It is a rhythmic number with a few vaguely funky hints in its backbeat. It has a great guitar solo on it.
The enticing, seductive and mysterious So Divine (Aladdin Story) has slight echoes of Paint It, Black in its guitar riff. It has a very strong Exile feel to it as well as those sixties vibes and Keith Richards recorded a new guitar part it for it. It is one of my favourites from the collection.
Loving Cup is an out-take that originally dated from 1969, three years before Exile. It has a lot of that Memo From Turner late sixties/early seventies sound, particularly on the guitar backing and indeed on Jagger's vocal. There is a sort of seediness it that possibly out-does the original. I love the guitar at the end. Apparently it is two out-takes moulded together, but you can't really tell, well I can't anyway.
Soul Survivor is different in that it features Richards on lead vocal, giving it a sleepier ambience. Good Time Women, while an early version of Tumbling Dice, has musical similarities but pretty much functions as a different song with nearly all different lyrics. Yes, you think of Tumbling Dice when you hear it, but you can still listen to it in its own right. The spacey, psychedelic instrumental, Title 5 actually dates from early 1967 and listening to it, that becomes clear.
This collection of material is certainly not throwaway stuff, it is an interesting and enjoyable addition to the original, classic album, and stands up in its own right, separate from it.
