I have seen The Rolling Stones perform three times in my life. The first time was in 1989, and I was told then that it might be the last time. The men were already over 40 and might have decided to call it a day... Meanwhile, the four remaining Stones are heading well into their 80s and are still unstoppable on stage. Sex, drugs & rock and roll is, for them at least, a "healthy" mix to grow old with.
I always find it difficult to choose between The Rolling Stones on one hand and The Beatles on the other. If my back was against the wall, I would personally go for the somewhat "well-behaved" Beatles.
The De Platenbar website invited Jan Liebregts from Son en Breugel to share his passion for the Stones.
"Somewhere around mid-1964, my father bought a Grundig TK 20 tape recorder, which you could connect to the radio and record songs broadcast by programmes like Arbeidsvitaminen. Pirate radio stations were not yet common, and the only station that aired a top 20 was Radio Luxembourg on Sundays between 12:00 and 14:00. It was in August 1964 that I first heard the song It’s All Over Now by The Rolling Stones on this top 20 and was immediately impressed. From that moment on, this band kept drawing my attention, which is still the case 55 years later.
The entire oeuvre of The Rolling Stones cannot be placed under one particular style, but it is recognisable by its own sound. Over the past decades, they have also been influenced by various musical movements, but nevertheless always managed to release a unique new Rolling Stones album. Generally, the average music lover associates their music with hard rock, but is unaware of the dozens of ballads they have recorded. Although Keith Richards is not known as the best singer and usually only gets to sing one or two songs on the albums, I often find his ballads touch the most sentimental chord.
Since the second half of the sixties, this band has fascinated me, I am involved with them almost daily and hope to keep that up for many years to come."
Jan Liebregts, Son en Breugel, 13 July 2021
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones (often referred to as the Stones) are a British rock 'n' roll band active since 1962. Besides rock 'n' roll and rock, the band also plays styles such as blues, country, hard rock, reggae and punk. Since their formation in 1962, The Rolling Stones have had many big hits, such as Sympathy for the Devil, Angie, Paint It Black and (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction. They have released more than twenty-five studio albums, including classics like Exile on Main St., Goats Head Soup, Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers. In 2016, the Stones released the album Blue & Lonesome. The Rolling Stones consist of Mick Jagger (vocals), Keith Richards (guitar), Charlie Watts (drums) and Ron Wood (bass/guitar). The best-known former members are Brian Jones, Mick Taylor, Bill Wyman and, although only officially in the early years, keyboardist Ian Stewart.
Michael Philip Jagger, better known as Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards had already been at the same nursery school when they met again on 17 October 1961 on platform 2 of the train station in Dartford, Kent. Jagger and Richards became good friends and started a band, Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys, with Dick Taylor as bassist. They met Brian Jones, who was forming a rhythm-and-blues band, for which only keyboardist Ian Stewart was still needed. Richards, who at the time only played Chuck Berry riffs, learned rhythm-and-blues patterns thanks to Jones. Dick Taylor (who later founded The Pretty Things) became bassist and Tony Chapman drummer. Brian Jones named his band The Rolling Stones, after the song Rollin' Stone by Muddy Waters. In this line-up, the Stones began playing in clubs in 1962 and quickly became a sensation in the British club circuit.
In early spring 2011, the Stones contributed to the album Boogie4Stu by pianist Ben Waters, which is a tribute to Ian Stewart. Together with Bill Wyman and some other musicians, albeit at different locations (England, the USA and France), they recorded a cover of Bob Dylan's Watching the River Flow. The album was released in mid-April 2011. At the end of 2011, the successful album Some Girls from 1978 was reissued, supplemented with twelve previously unreleased tracks from the same period. No Spare Parts was selected as the single. Almost simultaneously, a DVD was released featuring a unique 1978 performance by the band in Ft. Worth, TX, USA. The DVD also includes interviews with Mick Jagger and Bill Wyman recorded in 2011.
In 2016, the Stones released the album Blue & Lonesome, featuring covers of older blues songs. On 30 September 2017, the Stones performed their No Filter Tour at the Amsterdam Arena, and on 15 October they played at the GelreDome in Arnhem.
Sunday Morning Classic: Sticky Fingers
On 25 July 2021, the 50-year-old album Sticky Fingers was spinning on our turntable as the Sunday Morning Classic. Sticky Fingers is the third of the trilogy of Rolling Stones albums that form the heart of the band. The first two were Beggars Banquet in 1968 and Let It Bleed in 1969, which together provided the sessions from which three of the songs on this album originated. However, Sticky Fingers stands out as a clear transitional album. It is the band's first "independent" album on their own Rolling Stones label and bridges the gap between their English sound of the sixties and the more American-sounding Stones that would develop in the seventies. This is also the first studio release since the 1969 Altamont debacle, a festival intended as a West Coast counterpart to Woodstock but ended in a riot resulting in the death of an audience member.
But the main reason for this transition is due to a major personal shift, away from Brian Jones, the original leader of the band, who was fired from the band in 1969 and mysteriously died a few months later. Jones's replacement was the 20-year-old guitarist Mick Taylor, who leaves his mark on Sticky Fingers as a fitting counterpart to Keith Richards.
The track that elevates Sticky Fingers from a good album to a great one is "Wild Horses". Recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama in December 1969, this ode to heartbreak features excellent interplay between Richards' electric and Taylor's acoustic guitars, along with some of Mick Jagger's best lyrics ever.
The glue that holds the album together are two solid rockers built around Richards' signature riffs. "Brown Sugar" and "Bitch" are quasi-twin tracks that both open the door to the cheerful, catchy vibe that made this band so popular in the first place.
"Sister Morphine" is the first of three tracks that close the album with similar lyrical drug themes. The next is "Dead Flowers", which, although equally dark lyrically, is a nice cheerful and light departure from its melodramatic predecessor.
The last is the fine closer of the album, "Moonlight Mile", a moody, melancholic and somewhat dark ballad that leaves the listener in silence as the needle lifts off the record.
Brian Jones, the Rolling Stone who died too young
Brian Jones was born on 28 February 1942 in the Park Nursing Home in Cheltenham, England, as the eldest of three children. Brian was very intelligent but left high school and his parental home at the age of 16, when it became clear that he had made his 14-year-old girlfriend Valerie pregnant. The child was given up for adoption.
He moved to London. There he performed in bars and played blues guitar. In the spring of 1962, together with pianist Ian Stewart, singer Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards, he founded The Rolling Stones. Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts joined the band a little later.
Jones was the leading figure in the early days of the Stones. He arranged the band's first bookings and was their manager. Brian was very photogenic and dressed well. He was the most sought-after Stone at that time and played various instruments.
Read more...
Goodbye Charlie...
In August 2021, it was announced that Charlie Watts had to undergo an unspecified medical treatment, which made a period of rest inevitable and meant he would not be playing during the No Filter tour, which had been postponed earlier due to Corona. Steve Jordan, who has worked with Keith Richards for years, would fill in as drummer for him.
Charlie Watts died unexpectedly on 24 August 2021 in the presence of his close family in a hospital in London. On the day of his death, the content of the official Rolling Stones website was replaced by a single photo of Charlie. Further access to the site was made impossible out of respect. Charlie was 80 years old.
source: Wikipedia and Jan Liebregts photos: Wikimedia, free of rights
