What are your dozen favourite tracks by the Rolling Stones?

[Hepcat]

It was nearly fifty years ago on November 23rd during their late 1969 concert tour of the United States that the Rolling Stones made their final appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. 

Evidently their "appearance" was something of a fraud:

Gimme Shelter opened the show. The show closed with Love in Vain and Honky Tonk Women. The band mimed to prerecorded tracks and Jagger sang live. The performance was recorded at the CBS studios in Los Angeles and edited into the show to appear like they were in New York.

Nonetheless, here are clips of a couple of the songs they performed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P80uH3bwCt4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8UuCqt5-28

Incidentally it was during this tour that the Stones started billing themselves as "The greatest rock and roll band in the world!", a title first bestowed on the band by tour manager Sam Cutler at their concert in London's Hyde Park the previous July. Rock critic Robert Christgau would a few years later label this tour as "history's first mythic rock and roll tour".

 

[Hepcat]

It was fifty years ago on the 6th of December that the infamous concert at the Altamont Speedway in California would bring the curtain down on flower power and the love generation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQzNtYsf5D4

Compelling evidence indeed that hasty last minute planning of a free concert in California that would end up attracting 300,000 music fans and sundry LSD and amphetamine fuelled hippies, the budget driven hiring of drunken Hells Angels to provide security and a collection of rock bands including the Rolling Stones don't mix. Despite the resultant deaths including that of Meredith Hunter, things could have turned out even worse. Hunter was according to his own girlfriend enraged, irrational and "so high (on methamphetamines) that he could barely walk". Who did he intend to shoot with the revolver? Angels, Stones, or was he just going to start shooting?

Nonetheless it was fitting that the Rolling Stones who had made a career out of being the "bad boys of rock" were not just present but were key players at the denouement of the Woodstock generation.

 

December 1969 was also the month of release of the LP Let It Bleed which marked the demarcation point between the Brian Jones era of the Stones and the Mick Taylor era. Neither fellow played much on the LP. Brian Jones played autoharp on You Got the Silver and added percussion to Midnight Rambler but that was it. Mick Taylor meanwhile played guitar on Live With Me and slide guitar on Country Honk but that too was it.



The LP contained several tracks still regarded as all-time classics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbmS3tQJ7Os

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V1SvYwkVtk

What's ironic is that back in their early years in 1963-64 the Stones had repeatedly insisted that they were not a rock band but a "rhythm 'n blues" band. Yet beginning with the 1966 release of Aftermath, the Stones had by December of 1969 released five LPs that had stretched the boundaries of rock music. They were of course also billing themselves as the "World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band" by this time.

 

[Hepcat]

Here's an excellent article on how and why the Stones have remained the "World's Greatest Rock 'n Roll Band" all these years:

World's Greatest Rock 'n Roll Band - Rolling Stone

 

[Mord]

 I really love "Let it Bleed". It was the first non greatest hits Stones album I bought. I must agree that Mick, Keef, Charlie, etc.  WE'RE the greatest rock band ever. However, they are now a "legacy" band. They haven't released a great album in 40 years, but continue to put on incredible live shows. I never want them to quit. They ARE rock 'n' roll.

[marsattacks666]

I really love "Let it Bleed". It was the first non greatest hits Stones album I bought. I must agree that Mick, Keef, Charlie, etc.  WE'RE the greatest rock band ever. However, they are now a "legacy" band. They haven't released a great album in 40 years, but continue to put on incredible live shows. I never want them to quit. They ARE rock 'n' roll.

Mord. Again, I have to agree. I love that album. Let It Bleed in my opinion is fantastic studio album.

[geezer butler]

Mord. Again, I have to agree. I love that album. Let It Bleed in my opinion is fantastic studio album.

I was listening to Monkey Man earlier tonight. Remember the scene in Goodfellas with that song? Classic.

I also listened to Heart of Stone earlier. I know it's not on Let it Bleed, but still great song.

[Hepcat]

Released 55 years ago in December 1964!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aJmyIIFW6I

And they're still rocking! Or is it rhythm and bluesing?

 

[Hepcat]

It was 55 years ago on 31 December 1964 that the T.A.M.I. Show hit movie theater screens across the United States:



The footage for the concert film had been taken from concerts held at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on October 28th and 29th.

The release of the T.A.M.I. Show would prove to be a watershed moment in the Rolling Stones' climb to superstardom. While the Stones were already nipping at the heels of the Beatles in United Kingdom popularity polls, they were just one of many British Invasion bands here in North America. In fact the Stones may have been about fifth in popularity in the United States at the time when it came to British Invasion bands, well behind the Beatles and the Dave Clark Five and just below the Animals and Gerry & the Pacemakers.

But that changed after the release of the T.A.M.I. Show. The Stones had in October been given the unenviable task of closing out the show right after the performance of James Brown & the Famous Flames:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMqM4lZGiK0

Now how were the Stones to top that? Well they pulled out all stops in trying. The Stones had previously done little more than stand there and play (like the Beatles) in their concerts. But coming on after James Brown at the T.A.M.I. Show they did their best to copy his showmanship. Mick Jagger in particular did his best to add more lively dance moves to his repertoire as lead singer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQkqs1_laf4

And it worked! The Stones' popularity in the States absolutely exploded in 1965.

My older sister and I took in the T.A.M.I. Show at a theater in downtown Detroit in early 1965. Unfortunately I can't say that any of the individual performances stuck out for me and I quickly forgot which artists I had seen that day. All I remembered was that the movie was fun!

Then sometime one afternoon around 1974-75 I was watching clips from the T.A.M.I. show on the TV in the living room. My very old school father (who already happened to be fairly drunk) ducked in from the dining room to see what I was watching. The Rolling Stones were playing I'm Alright. One disgusted glance at the TV was all it took for him to retreat back to the dining room with the concise appraisal "Like s__t you alright!" Say what you will about our parents' generation, but they could be plain-spoken and frank.

 

[Hepcat]

The Stones are still at it! Here's their very timely new single released yesterday:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNNPNweSbp8

I really like it! It's both bluesy and funky. Good harp too.

 

[Mike Scott]

The Stones are still at it! Here's their very timely new single released yesterday:

I listened to it earlier today. Good tune!

[Hepcat]

Agggghhhh!!!! This ALOK remix destroys the track:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uugtB0S_Km8

It's horrible!

 

[Hepcat]

Here's an unreleased early gem(?) by the Stones:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn6fq9yvNTo

 

[Hepcat]

One of my very favourite pictures of the Rolling Stones is from the rear sleeve of the Got Live if You Want It! LP:



 

[Hepcat]

The Rolling Stones have released a couple of tracks they recorded back in 1973 during their Goat's Head Soup sessions as new singles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSpGnZmGWBk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl0COtEG-TM

Jimmy Page guests on Scarlet.

Both forgettable in my opinion. They embody precisely what I don't like about their last two LPs during the Mick Taylor era (Goat's Head Soup and It's Only Rock 'n Roll), that being jangling guitars without any kind of a hook taking the tracks anywhere.

Quite the come down from the Living in a Ghost Town single they released in April I'd say:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw9rQ_qmWFU