Finished Keith's book (Life), and even though I got a little bogged down in the heavy drug years, found it to be a remarkable read. I guess that, for me, honesty is the most important attribute for an autobiography, and this book has plenty of it. And it's also really well written, and both surprising and insightful, particularly about music. Speaking of which, I always find that I hear an artist's music a little more clearly after reading about them, and that was certainly the case here. Specifically, the book got me to give another listen to some of my early Stones LPs and have a better appreciation of the energy they contain. I realize that I've been one to undervalue their early work sometimes, mostly when it's compared to the glory years of 68-72, but that's not really fair for a couple of reasons: One, the glory years wouldn't have happened without the formative ones. Two, the four albums released in that period put almost every other rock and roll act in the rear-view mirror, as well. And don't get me wrong, I've always liked their early stuff, and I do even more now, with images of their early days in mind. Here's their great version of "Under the Boardwalk": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6A9zqRY-ME.

Of course, there's a bit of a downside to the book, and that's the realization that in some ways the group broke up a long time ago, that many of the albums from the late seventies on were not made with the same team spirit that had made them giants in the first place. Oh well. I, for one, am very glad that they stayed together anyway, and that I (and how many others) got the chance to see them a few times and that they kept on making music. Even though we never got another Exile, we did get some other really good stuff. You've also gotta love the fact that they stayed true to their original blues heroes, who also didn't retire, or let anyone tell them what to do. Inspiring. And they certainly were the originators of many more smiles than the dingdongs who spent their careers trying to imprison them. Hope they stay around for as long as they want to. ("Brown Sugar": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59K2kF6o9Tk)

OK, in honour of the fact that the Rolling Stones have been around for the longest span of any rock and roll act (fifty years in April of 2012), I'm going to give them four extra spots on my list of favourites (and I also can't seem to whittle it down any further). So here are my top fourteen Rolling Stones songs (in reverse order this time): 14. "Play With Fire" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfM_zmlGkco): I've always thought that this was the track that is most representative of the tone of their early stuff. It's also the first Stones song that I remember hearing. 13. "Beast of Burden" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi90jHzFb3E): I never get tired of this one. Great performances all around, with Charlie Watts' particularly gigantic. 12. "Hide Your Love" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo94dLN_0ZA): There are some r&b grooves that are found only on Rolling Stones records. A great song on a seriously under-valued album. Excellent playing from Mick Taylor, as usual. His secret weapon? His intention is always clear. 11. "Satisfaction" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a7cHPy04s8): Without it, we may have not had the rest. Still a one-of-a-kind groove. 10. "Torn and Frayed" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHlD3hEHOqI): One of their most evocative songs lyrically, and for me, the center-piece of Exile. 9. "Dead Flowers" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1O69lY_tw4): Not many bands can play both the blues and country music, and be equally convincing. (Hmm, maybe that's their secret.) 8. "Monkey Man" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNY8eYmzdH4): Almost every element of what makes them great present on this one.

(The remaining seven tomorrow.)

I read a revealing comment recently in an article about Elvis Costello in the November 8, 2010 New Yorker. His long-time producer/associate T-Bone Burnett said something along the lines of Costello having the ability to "knock off an album in an afternoon". And while I don't like to get negative in this blog, and despite the fact that in my younger years I was a very big Elvis Costello fan, I feel that the remark may explain a great deal about something that has troubled me for a while: why a recording artist's early albums often outshine later ones. This is not the case for Costello only, by the way; the same could be said about other important artists, including the Rolling Stones and David Bowie. And I don't want to extrapolate too much from the comment - Burnett said he could do it, not that he did. All that being said, here was the moment of realization: The only thing that makes music sound good (and last) is work. Without it, all the skill in the world just sounds like going through the motions.

To this day very few groups have ever done a version of a Beatles song and come out on top. In my opinion, it's been done precisely once, by the Rolling Stones with their version of Lennon and McCartney's "I Wanna Be Your Man" from 1963. I very much like the Beatles' version as well, but the Stones made it sound like the perfect fusion of their blues and r&b roots (of the twenty-four songs on their first two albums, four were originals) and their own distinctive sound. It's clear that it was an important moment in their development as songwriters, in that it gave them the confidence of knowing that their education could make songs written anywhere (even right in front of them) sound like the real deal. The following video features Lennon telling the song's story, excerpts from both versions, and Keith's Beatlesque headshake tribute: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8QEX3_aVig

I mentioned yesterday that the Rolling Stones were fed by American music - rock and roll, r&b and the blues - and that they returned the favour by breathing life into each of them. (In fact a strong case could be made that American music was treated with more reverence and scholarship by English bands in the sixties than by their American counterparts.) But I didn't mention the relationship that the Stones had with country music, and how many of their greatest songs were from the genre. And it's not a coincidence that their classic period - from 1968 to 1972, when they released four straight masterpieces (Beggars' Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street) - was also the time during which they were most involved with country, both in terms of composition and the integration of its rhythms and sounds into their rock and roll. Consider this list: "Factory Girl", "Salt of the Earth", "Dear Doctor", "Country Honk", "You Got the Silver", "Dead Flowers", "Wild Horses", "Sweet Virginia", "Torn and Frayed". And then there's my favourite Stones country song, "Faraway Eyes" from 1978's Some Girls, with its beautifully sung chorus, its unforgettable truck-driving narrator and his girl with "well, you know what kinda eyes she got": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDnZBvCetQM

It may sound somewhat strange, but one of the greatest things about the Rolling Stones is that their music doesn't always work. By that I mean that their musical concept, based as it is on the idea of freedom - which for them has always been embodied by an imaginative America, and particularly the sound of its blues, r&b and rock and roll - has a poly-rhythmic, open quality that is unpredictable in terms of results. But this is a good thing: at their best, their multi-faceted rhythms are awesomely compelling, and even when they aren't, the music is still very interesting. They understand that it's possible to over-rehearse rock and roll music, and that one of its most powerful qualities is that some moments will come once and never again. For an example, here is one of their greatest songs - "Gimme Shelter" - which has an intro that has never sounded exactly like the one on the recorded version (from 1969's Let it Bleed), whether played by them or anyone else, a second time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhBpUJcpiCg&feature=related

One of the best music critics writing today is Alex Ross, the classical music critic at the New Yorker. I've mentioned him before because of his splendid article on Radiohead ("The Searchers"), from which I learned a lot about their unique working process. I also enjoyed The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, his 2007 book that lives up to its title, and I continue to enjoy his blog - here's a link: http://www.therestisnoise.com/noise/. But yesterday, while having a look at NPR's excellent music site (http://www.npr.org/music/), I found an interview with Ross regarding his just-released book (Listen to This, which I will look forward to reading soon) wherein he answered a question regarding music that he doesn't care for, with this: "I respect Anton Bruckner and The Rolling Stones — to make a weird duo — but I can't say that I love either of them. I try not to dismiss things too quickly, but the 'blech' reaction is hard to ignore once it kicks in." This surprised me, and I've decided to take it as a challenge. And since I've learned a great deal from his writings, I'll try to reciprocate in writing a defense of the Stones, starting tomorrow, and after some research and listening, Bruckner in a couple of weeks. By the way, here's one last link - to the interview in question: http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2010/11/08/131169818/get-to-know-a-critic-alex-ross-of-the-new-yorker.

I was listening to one of the most underrated of Rolling Stones albums today, Black and Blue from 1976, and was struck once again by how well they play, and by how Charlie Watts is always at the center of it. The album is really varied in terms of genre - there's disco ("Hot Stuff"), reggae (Eric Donaldson's "Cherry Oh Baby"), funk ("Hey Negrita"), swing ("Melody"), rock and roll ("Hand of Fate" and "Crazy Mama") and perhaps the greatest ballad that the band ever recorded, "Memory Motel" - a song that describes the emotional effects of touring with great acuity. (It's interesting that another candidate for the honour of best Stones ballad also uses m-based alliteration, "Moonlight Mile".) And throughout all of it is Watts' brilliant sound and time-feel (the former is the result of the latter, by the way). Here's "Memory Motel": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7so3BNXUE0I. Check out the beautiful playing of Billy Preston on keyboards, Richards' great vocal contributions, and the drum entry.

The Rolling Stones are under-appreciated as lyricists. The recently released remastered version of Exile on Main Street brought this fact to my attention again. The album is wonderful musically - most people consider it their apex, but lyrically, it's a masterpiece. It's a deeply imagined tour through dirty roads, Union Halls, ballrooms, smelly bordellos, with songs such as "Tumbling Dice", with lyrics like, "Honey, got no money, I'm all sixes and sevens and nines", or "I'm the lone crapshooter playing the field every night". Come on. We know that "Sweet Black Angel" has Angela Davis awaiting an upcoming trial as its subject, but who is the narrator? He seems to be some sort of Huck Finn-type character facing down racism on his own and turning his back on the wrong things he'd learned. Amazing.
One of the record's main themes is the cost of the bohemian lifestyle, how good times have a price. There is real wisdom and empathy in songs like "Shine a Light", "Sweet Virginia", and the incomparable "Let it Loose". Contrast the tone and content of these songs with earlier ones, such as "Live with Me" or "Brown Sugar". By the way, the album also contains some of their most exuberant rock and roll. "Rip this Joint", "All Down the Line", "Happy", and "Rocks Off" are musical thrill-rides. Wicked good.
But back to the lyrics. One of the most remarkable things is the way they contain utterly convincing images of rural poverty ("Torn and Frayed", "Ventilator Blues", "Loving Cup"). It's like rock and roll Faulkner. Don't forget that the band's existence was very far away from anything like what they were describing. They had essentially been living in velvet cages since their early twenties, and their only contact with the authenticity that it appears they yearned for was through music and words. Of course, that can be enough. They proved it on this album.

Just a short note today: I'm going to elaborate a bit more extensively on the following topic (and others, as well) in the upcoming week: The Rolling Stones vs. The New York Dolls in terms of lyrical content. As musicians, the Stones were more advanced than the Dolls during the Seventies. But the Dolls' greatness came partly from their amateurish sound. In rock and roll, and in other styles, the listener is more inspired by the effort of someone trying to move up in terms of expression rather than moving down (or "slumming") stylistically. It can be very exciting to hear a person learning right in front of you. Ergo, for musicians to be honest, they must always be on the vanguard of their abilities. But I digress.
The Dolls made two brilliant albums in the Seventies, and recently returned (the two surviving members along with the spirit of the others, with great contributions from new members) with two albums of equal stature and importance. (If you haven't heard them yet, go and listen to them immediately.) The musicianship on the third and fourth albums, benefiting as they do from older ears and years of experience, is much stronger than on the first two. But that sense of wild discovery found on the earlier records is thrilling to hear, as well. Anyway, you've probably guessed today's suggested listening: New York Dolls (1973), The New York Dolls in Too Much Too Soon (1974), One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This (2006), 'Cause I Sez So (2009), and Exile on Main Street (1972).